Before my first OW dive I had read, heard and studied about bouyancy control...but it was all theoretical. First dive I just obeyed my instructor, but there was all this coral and I was so concious that one clumsy fin could destroy 200 years growth of coral...I was paranoid and not very comfortable with bouyancy. On our 2nd dive my daughter's problem became my good fortune as far as learning
Tina started to ascend inadvertantly, panicked, didn't flare and all of a sudden she was flying for the surface. Our instructor signalled to ask me if I was alright...gave me a "sit, stay" signal and hurried to help Tina. (He already knew us well enough to be pretty sure panic was not my style and that I was really comfortable in water) I settled down on my knees on the sand at 35 ft. for a moment. I looked up...no Tina, no instructor. Oh my god!! WHere's Tina, is she OK? EEk I'm all alone 35 ft underwater!! 10 secs of stomach churning then...Yeah, I checked my pressure guage, I've got plenty of air...I'm not being eaten by a shark, no worries, mate. So I relaxed...then I got bored...just sand....nothing pretty to look at...I wasn't s'posed to wander off. What was it Carlos said about controlling your bouyancy with your breathing? (Yes, I know I should have been more worried about Tina, but our instructor was terrific and I knew he could take care of her better than I could) I took a slow deep breath and stayed relaxed...wow! I went from my kneeling position to hovering at a 45 degree angle with my fins touching the sand and the rest of me just hanging...I breathed out and was laying almost flat on the sand...hey...this is cool. I continued to play until I could hover any place I decided on. I set goals for myself, hover horizontal one arms length from the bottom...two, three...then lay flat on the bottom. By the time Tina and our instructor returned I could hold position almost anywhere. (Tina decided that night she was incompetent and would never dive again...we talked 'til three in the moning...she went out the next day, solved her problem and all is well now. Good thing since she's heading for a speciallty in marine mammals at vet school)
I believe that time of playing and figuring out how the breathing worked was invaluable for me. Three days later we were swimming thru small arches of coral by looking at the size of the hole, positioning with breathing and sliding right thru the center touching nothing.
I've since gotten Tina to play a little bit on a nice safe sand bottom ...I think taking the time to figure out what different breathing patterns do to your bouyancy can make a huge difference. Not only did my confidence soar....but on a later dive when the DM handed me smaller weights than I had been using and I realized at the end of the dive that I was 4 lbs under my accustomed weight....I was still able to handle the boyancy (Only problem was holding at the 15 ft safety stop on ascent...I did have to fight to stay there) Other than that I never even noticed I was light...I checked the weights when I got on the boat 'cause I wondered why holding at 15 ft had been so difficult. So...ask your instructor if you can have some bottom time to play with breathing patterns...it sure worked for me.