Ryan Neely
Contributor
I could be wrong, but it seems that most of the comments on this thread are from experienced or professional divers. I'd like to contribute a [relatively] new diver's thoughts, if I may.
First, some background: I received my PADI OW certification in May 2019. Since that time I have been able to put in about 150 dives totally approximately 135 hours in the water. In that three-and-a-half years, I have gone on to expand my skillset through practice as well as through official training including the PADI AOW and Fundies.
Someone upstream mentioned that the appreciated the idea of teaching the entire course while neutrally buoyant so that by the end of the confined water portion the student would have had hours of time in water neutrally buoyant.
The confined water part of my OW course took place over two nights, two hours each night. That included time to load gear into the local school's pool area, set up gear, tear down gear, load it out again, and the swim test. (Was there a water treading component, also? It feels like we did less swimming and more just floating on the surface.)
Granted, there were only four of us in the class, but we did every skill on our knees at the bottom of the pool. We might have spent a total of two hours working on those skills. Maybe.
Additionally, I would have been lumped into that group who was wearing rented gear. A one-size fits most BCD is exactly what I had. It was at least a size too large, but I deferred to those who were supposed to know better (i.e., the professionals at the dive shop) who insisted that it was fine if the BCD was a little loose.
Also, we never did a weight check. Our instructors all seem to repeat the mantra of, "It's better to be overweighted so you don't fly up to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent."
We seemed to rush through the confined water portion of the OW class. We also seemed to rush through the open water checkout dives. There were a myriad of reasons for this. From the school's pool only being available for a certain number of hours a night to the open water portion taking place in 38 °F waters. (I hated the 7mm Farmer John and Jacket wetsuit.)
Why all this background? Because after three years and 150 dives, I can absolutely point to that rush, that unwillingness to take the time to help this particular student (me) learn what it means to be properly weighted, neutrally buoyant, and in good trim [whichever definition you use] contributed to a ton of in-water problems for me.
I spent my first year as an open water diver with terrible buoyancy and gas consumption. I seemed to need to ride my low pressure inflator like an elevator. First I was too high, then I was sinking too quickly. My feet never stopped moving, and when I did stop finning my entire body would rotate through my hips so my head would roll up and my knees would roll down.
While I didn't walk away from Fundies being capable of maintaining a steady position for the purposes of deco (we only went for the Recreational pass), I learned quite a few things from my Fundies instructor.
The first was that I arched my back and clenched my glutes too much in the water. In my mind, that was the only way to put my torso into a horizontal position. Turns out, I was just using muscles I didn't need to use, which put me in an arched back, but head down position to compensate for that rolling effect I mentioned earlier. Redistributing my weight and having someone (my instructor) physically manipulate my body in the water so I could feel what horizontal trim should feel like was a tremendous help.
The second was that did (and still do, likely) dive more negatively than I should. I'm properly weighted, and the weight is now properly distributed, but when I stop moving, I start to sink. I think this is because I'm afraid of an uncontrolled ascent and, because I have a very large tidal volume so that "little bit of rise and fall through breath" seems extreme to me, so I typically don't put enough gas in my wing.
This is something I still need to work on and learning how to do nothing in the water would certainly help with that.
Now, do I think every open water student needs this? Probably not. Most don't care, but, those like me who do care and would pay more to better understand how to reduce activity and gas consumption, it would be worthwhile.
So, @wetb4igetinthewater do you want to come to Minnesota and teach me to do nothing?
First, some background: I received my PADI OW certification in May 2019. Since that time I have been able to put in about 150 dives totally approximately 135 hours in the water. In that three-and-a-half years, I have gone on to expand my skillset through practice as well as through official training including the PADI AOW and Fundies.
Someone upstream mentioned that the appreciated the idea of teaching the entire course while neutrally buoyant so that by the end of the confined water portion the student would have had hours of time in water neutrally buoyant.
The confined water part of my OW course took place over two nights, two hours each night. That included time to load gear into the local school's pool area, set up gear, tear down gear, load it out again, and the swim test. (Was there a water treading component, also? It feels like we did less swimming and more just floating on the surface.)
Granted, there were only four of us in the class, but we did every skill on our knees at the bottom of the pool. We might have spent a total of two hours working on those skills. Maybe.
Additionally, I would have been lumped into that group who was wearing rented gear. A one-size fits most BCD is exactly what I had. It was at least a size too large, but I deferred to those who were supposed to know better (i.e., the professionals at the dive shop) who insisted that it was fine if the BCD was a little loose.
Also, we never did a weight check. Our instructors all seem to repeat the mantra of, "It's better to be overweighted so you don't fly up to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent."
We seemed to rush through the confined water portion of the OW class. We also seemed to rush through the open water checkout dives. There were a myriad of reasons for this. From the school's pool only being available for a certain number of hours a night to the open water portion taking place in 38 °F waters. (I hated the 7mm Farmer John and Jacket wetsuit.)
Why all this background? Because after three years and 150 dives, I can absolutely point to that rush, that unwillingness to take the time to help this particular student (me) learn what it means to be properly weighted, neutrally buoyant, and in good trim [whichever definition you use] contributed to a ton of in-water problems for me.
I spent my first year as an open water diver with terrible buoyancy and gas consumption. I seemed to need to ride my low pressure inflator like an elevator. First I was too high, then I was sinking too quickly. My feet never stopped moving, and when I did stop finning my entire body would rotate through my hips so my head would roll up and my knees would roll down.
While I didn't walk away from Fundies being capable of maintaining a steady position for the purposes of deco (we only went for the Recreational pass), I learned quite a few things from my Fundies instructor.
The first was that I arched my back and clenched my glutes too much in the water. In my mind, that was the only way to put my torso into a horizontal position. Turns out, I was just using muscles I didn't need to use, which put me in an arched back, but head down position to compensate for that rolling effect I mentioned earlier. Redistributing my weight and having someone (my instructor) physically manipulate my body in the water so I could feel what horizontal trim should feel like was a tremendous help.
The second was that did (and still do, likely) dive more negatively than I should. I'm properly weighted, and the weight is now properly distributed, but when I stop moving, I start to sink. I think this is because I'm afraid of an uncontrolled ascent and, because I have a very large tidal volume so that "little bit of rise and fall through breath" seems extreme to me, so I typically don't put enough gas in my wing.
This is something I still need to work on and learning how to do nothing in the water would certainly help with that.
Now, do I think every open water student needs this? Probably not. Most don't care, but, those like me who do care and would pay more to better understand how to reduce activity and gas consumption, it would be worthwhile.
So, @wetb4igetinthewater do you want to come to Minnesota and teach me to do nothing?
