I've never understood how counting fin kicks is useful as a practical navigation skill ... the only useful application I've ever found for it is the expanding box search pattern. On a real dive, nobody's going to keep track of how many times they kick ... particularly not newer divers who are already bandwidth-challenged just trying to maintain buoyancy control while keeping track of their depth and air consumption and trying to maintain some proximity to a dive buddy. I suppose it's useful as a training aid to introduce the concept of keeping track of distance travelled, but elapsed time and gas used can be a more practical way to do that unless you're at a fairly small dive site. It really is site-dependent, however ... there's a difference in terms of what works best for a reef, a wall, a slope or a wreck. Toss in current and things can get interesting. That's why awareness and "natural navigation" should be emphasized ... they're the tools most needed in the broadest array of dive environments.
At the AOW level I teach a "mental mapping" technique that uses depth, heading, elapsed time and visual clues to help you maintain an idea of where you are at any point in the dive relative to where you began the dive. It's not something you can master in a few dives ... but you can learn enough in an AOW class to develop the technique with practice.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
