It seems like you're asking for the impossible
@MichaelMc - it's just not within the bounds of SB to
not debate the opposing side of anything that's posted
. In my experience, the more you try to guide a thread, the more people are just going to do the opposite to convince you you're wrong, and ignore what you might have hoped to get out of the thread. After all, this
is *their* thread
To the topic: I'm a pretty inexperienced diver, but have always been very skills-focused. I'd rather spend my "young" dives refining my control and comfort, than chasing animals or trying to snag photos. Once I'm comfortable and competent underwater, I figure I'll be better-able to enjoy the dives where I want to see things. Obviously there's a balance here, I'm not going into the water for regimented rehearsals - if I didn't enjoy my diving, I'd quit. But I quickly tire of chasing insta-buddies who want to do an underwater 10k against the current, because they heard there's something cool on that compass heading.
But I digress.
Taking things out of order: I feel like my buoyancy is pretty decent. From OW, through AOW, and later dives with much more experienced buddies than myself, I've managed to garner compliments on my buoyancy. I'm certainly not saying it's perfect, but I kind of "get it," and it's always felt very intuitive to me. As I dive more, I realize I definitely rely too heavily on my breathing to keep me "on target," but that also gets corrected fairly rapidly on the dive. One of my biggest challenges, going back to chasing my buddies, is that I find it difficult to accurately gauge my buoyancy while moving, for all the reasons previously mentioned by others. This segues into trim pretty well;
My trim is decent, at best. I try to maintain horizontal, and feel like I do pretty well most of the time. I've got a decent handful of candid photos snapped by buddies across multiple dives where I'm in nearly textbook horizontal trim. But honestly, I think they're more of a fluke than reality. I've been fiddling with weight placement, and changed amounts of weight, shifted between top and bottom cambands, etc. in the last several dives. I'm at a point where I
feel decently in-trim most of the time, but occasionally take a slow tumble forward or backwards while resting stationary. Probably 70% of the time, if I quit swimming and try to just hang near a reef, it works as expected. The other 30% of the time, I'll slowly drift forward, or start tumbling forward or backward. Still not sure what's causing any of those, except to blame trim, and probably the amount of gas in the tank at any given time.
Propulsion is another thing I'm working on. My frog kick is good enough to move me around the reefs and wrecks and check things out, but I wouldn't call it powerful. Helicopter turns are simple and intuitive for me, and just kind of happen as needed, without much thought. Back kick? Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.
I feel like I'm running up against two distinct problems with progressing and improving my skills underwater.
First is buddy selection. I wouldn't really complain about anyone I've dove with recently, but their focuses are not aligned with mine, and almost every recent dive I've done has been "let's cover a lot of ground fast!" which isn't really conducive to practicing trim, buoyancy, or propulsion techniques (other than "flutter hard and fast, because that's what everyone else is doing!") I haven't actively dove in about a decade, and am really just trying to get back into it. I'm just happy to be in the water for now. But going forward, I expect I'll need to find a like-minded buddy to pair up with. Hopefully one who can provide constructive feedback about my diving, but definitely someone who's on board with a slightly slower pace and a little bit of practice.
Second, and probably the bigger thing at this point: it's difficult to self-assess these skills. Propulsion probably least so, as you can pretty easily tell bad results from good. Even there though, I suspect a knowledgeable "coach" could quickly improve just about any 'self-taught' diver's technique. That's doubly true for trim and buoyancy. What "feels" right to me, could be a horrible habit that might prove difficult to break down the road. That line quickly tips into debate territory - if it feels right to me, who is the next guy to tell me it's wrong? If it works, it works. But dodging that debate, and sticking within the premise of the thread - how does one recognize a plateau, or how does one improve without external input? I don't think a "Peak Performance Buoyancy" card in my wallet will necessarily make an ounce of difference, where a knowledgeable buddy could "unofficially" revolutionize my diving. It just comes down to getting in the water with the right person, but do you find that person through a training agency, putting a personal ad in your local newspaper, or just swimming blindly until you bump into them?
