Buoyancy skills

[buiszie]

I just like to have a discussion how to do some basic open water skills. More and more instructors are saying the skills should be done neutral buoyant. In some way agree about that. This is the most natural way. But on the other hand you as an instructor have to think about the safety of the student, so teaching the students how to breath underwater, how to equalize, how to clear a partial mask or how to find the reg back. We are talking about people who never dived before. It looks a bit task overload to me, if you start straight here with neutral buoyancy skills and maybe its better when the students master these ones to start doing skills more neutral buoyant.

Cos when we made the divemaster skill videos lots of people were complaining about the sitting positions of the demo.

 

[tphelps]

But on the other hand you as an instructor have to think about the safety of the student, so teaching the students how to breath underwater, how to equalize, how to clear a partial mask or how to find the reg back. We are talking about people who never dived before.

Thanks for posting Sander, this should be an interesting discussion.

I think a lot of the concerns you described could be obviated if the students spent more time in confined water before going to open water. I do not allow my students to touch the bottom at any time, not even the first session (although I am empathetic). We start with a solid foundation of skin diving skills, and buoyancy work using a long hose/snuba off the side of the pool so they can achieve neutral buoyancy without even wearing scuba gear. After that it's repetition, repetition, repetition, lots of confined water time. I do not take my students into open water until I feel they are comfortable doing the basic skills while neutrally buoyant.

It looks a bit task overload to me, if you start straight here with neutral buoyancy skills and maybe its better when the students master these ones to start doing skills more neutral buoyant.

It's the Law of Primacy. What is done first is often best remembered. If students learn on their knees, on the bottom, that is how they will internalize comfort and doing the skill. Better to have them get comfortable in the water while achieving neutral buoyancy first, and then incorporate the skill. If you work backwards, it's not as effective in my opinion.

 

[Kharon]

In my OW class buoyancy was discussed and practiced no where near enough. Particularly since the confinded "dives" were in a heated swimming pool and the OW dives were in a cold lake. Wearing a 7 mm suit and overweighted with 28#, buoyancy control was almost nonexistant in any of the students. The complete change equipmentwise really threw everyone off.

I think buoyancy control is the most important and the most neglected skill. It is the primary skill upon which all other skills are built. It took me some time and concerted practice to get buoyancy, followed by trim, down to the point where it is a reflex. Fortunatly I was given advice early on to focus on those two skills in that order, one at a time, before moving on to other skills.

Personally, I understand the economics, but I still think buoyancy should be given much more emphasis and practice before moving on to the other skills.

 

[RainPilot]

Gee Tyler, seems we both had the same idea of long hose off the side, wonder where that came from ?

If students don't know that neutral is "supposed to be hard" then they won't have a problem. Control of students is an aspect early on but that's part of why I don't do more than 4 students at a time. 2x 2 hour CW sessions and 90% of my students are neutral all the time so LESS danger of them getting away from me in OW.

Think about it this way: an overweighted student with a wing full of gas at the start of the dive just needs to ascend a little bit in the shallows before things start running away. With an almost empty wing, they can vary a lot before the bubble screws them over.

 

[JohnnyC]

All of the skills you listed are as easy, or easier if the student is neutral and in trim.

 

[Patoux01]

The order things should be taught is:
-Buoyancy
-then Trim
-then All the other skills


Clearing a mask is not more valuable than buoyancy control, neither is reg recovery.

The only reason some new students struggle with it is because their instructors:
-tell them it's very difficult
-are mediocre at it
-or don't care


Source: my experience with beginners and doing a few discover diving sessions.

 

[AZNetEng]

I will continue to maintain from a student perspective (highly unlikely Ill ever be an instructor) that buoyancy should be a much bigger point of emphasis in OW training. While I can appreciate the need to have the students planted in the pool during skills demonstration and practice, proper buoyancy and subsequent trim will be the skill that makes diving so much more relaxing and enjoyable in the open water. It is for me fortunately one of the things that came naturally to me, but I have had to work on it alot with my wife.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Buoyancy and trim are the foundations of all the skills. As others have said, you don't need to be on scuba to introduce them. In the pool or in confined water all that's needed are mask, fins, snorkel, and (depending on the student) a weight belt with a few lbs of weights.
When you start off with breath-hold dives and have the student swim along the bottom neutral and in trim, that's when you introduce the principle of swimming that way. Before that a proper weight check is required. Not a "here's 5-10% of what you weigh" check but an actual check.
You get the student to the point where they can dive down, settle for 10 seconds or so (long enough to shoot a photo say) and then in a relaxed manner using lung volume stay there for another few seconds before doing a controlled ascent. In my experience getting most people who are comfortable in the water to this point takes about a 1/2 hour. Weight check, briefing, demo, practice.
On scuba, you repeat the weight check and the first descent is done horizontally. Not down onto the knees. If you've explained the BC properly you can have them stop just as they touch the bottom with their outstretched finger. After that it's really not necessary for them to even do that.
Some will touch with their body. No denying that. Or their bent knees may hit. But it should be clearly communicated that it's not the norm.
Skills should be demo'd in trim and neutral in midwater. The biggest thing I have seen that really helps is NOT to demo them like Marcel Marceau on quaaludes. When I started demoing them in real time, but still relaxed and easy, students picked it up much faster. Make it look easy and they will not get nervous and hesitate, thus allowing the mask to fill up with water.
The highly exaggerated, giant motions, super slow method just makes a simple skill look hard. It also helps if the mask clearing skill, for example, is introduced and practiced during the skin diving skills portion. Before they even get put on scuba the student should be able to retrieve the mask and snorkel from the bottom of the pool and while swimming underwater, don the mask, clear it, and have the snorkel breathable when the top breaks the surface.
The more time you have in the water the better.
Introducing buoyancy and trim first results in students being more relaxed, they learn faster, they enjoy it more, and they look like divers. Which is really cool for them.
The excuse about losing control because they are not planted on the bottom is bogus. Reduce ratios, spend more time on skills, and the fact is that there is actually less control over students who are overweighted. It's also much more dangerous due to the risk of rapid ascents.
Finally, if someone is going to teach buoyancy, trim, and proper weighting, they have to know what it is themselves. Too many instructors don't seem to, want to, or are not able to. You can't teach what you don't know.

 

[Diver0001]

It looks a bit task overload to me, if you start straight here with neutral buoyancy skills and maybe its better when the students master these ones to start doing skills more neutral buoyant..

I've written extensively about how I do this in the instructors forum. It's not only straightforward to teach neutrally buoyant from the very start, the results it gets are astronomically better then when you focus student's minds on the bottom.

It was a very long post in 3 parts so I'm not going to copy it here. Here is the link. You will need to join the instructors forum if you haven't already.
About Buoyancy Control

I just want to impress upon you before you read that thread, that I'm not BS-ing. The approach I laid out there is exactly how I do things (for the moment, i'm always making improvements) and the results are amazing. You do, however, have to let go of your old paradigm in order to get to this point and you won't find it easy at first, especially if you have been teaching from the bottom for a long time. It will take commitment and it will take some time to reprogram yourself to "let go of the bottom".... because it's NOT the students who are addicted to the bottom, it's the instructor. The students don't care if they are on the bottom or not so for them there's no "task loading". To them, it's just how you do it.

R..

 

[KevinNM]

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