Sinking Feet

[REVAN]

Neck weights are a useful tool that are often not considered by scuba divers. They are great for moving weight forward and better than attaching weights high up on your tank. It's easier to set it up, and the weight is easily ditched if needed. Shop freediving equipment to find them, or you can make them yourself.

 

[diver0008]

Staying in one spot (being neutrally buoyant) is a primary skill.

Getting your weighting right is a first step. Maintaining a horizonatal posture (trim) without effort would be next. Tank position, arms position, head position and bent knees are things to think about.

While diving, regulalry stop moving, assume a more vertical posture, relax, and either watch the reef or your computer whle maintaining shallow breathing. Depth compensate with very small, short, quick bursts of air in or out of the BCD. Don't continue until you are totally neutral at that depth. Be patient. You'll need shots of air into the BCD once in a while to stop from sinking as you descend, and vice versa during ascents. Make constant tiny adjutsments.

Once you get that roughed out, you will be able to make minor adjustments to your vertical position, to get nice and close to things without floating away or bumping into them, just by using your lungs.

 

[REVAN]

Move tank up. Fold arms out in front of you. Bend knees. Lower head. Slow down.

Don't bend knees unless not moving or using low silting techniques in a cave. Legs straight if you are swimming in OW.

 

[diver0008]

Don't bend knees unless not moving or using low silting techniques in a cave. Legs straight if you are swimming in OW.

I respectfully disagree. With proper trim, bent knees are better for proper frog kick.

 

[REVAN]

I respectfully disagree. With proper trim, bent knees are better for proper frog kick.]

Well, I did say...

Don't bend knees unless not moving or using low silting techniques in a cave.

Frog kick as shown in your video above is a suboptimized technique for cave and silting conditions. It is not necessarily a good technique for OW swimming.

 

[rjack321]

Frog kick as shown in your video above is a suboptimized technique for cave and silting conditions. It is not necessarily a good technique for OW swimming.

Haven't seen a flutter kick (anywhere) in awhile. Where and why are you going or trying to go that fast?

Ps we have alot of silt here in Puget Sound, prepare for a crapstorm behind you when you visit.

 

[diver0008]

Well, I did say...

Frog kick as shown in your video above is a suboptimized technique for cave and silting conditions. It is not necessarily a good technique for OW swimming.

Respectfully, that is hogwash.

 

[REVAN]

Respectfully, that is hogwash.

Seeing as how the frog kick was not used by scuba divers until it was specifically developed by cave divers for dealing with silting conditions, I fail to see how this is hogwash.

DIR has been a strong push influencing divers toward using the frog kick technique. DIR evolved from WKPP cave divers, and the work they did developing gear and techniques in the '90s for the WKPP. This project was focused on pushing and mapping a very long cave that averages about 300 feet deep. The techniques and gear for conducting a dive like that are not necessarily the best gear and techniques to use on an OW recreational dive that has very different conditions and requirements. Yes, you can use that type of gear and technique on an open water recreational dive. Just know that it was developed for something else, and it was optimized for something else. By definition, elements of that technique, such as frog kicking jet fins, are suboptimized techniques for cave diving and silting conditions using fins that were designed about 40 years ago.

Respectfully, I'll post no more on this subject here, as it is off topic. I have another thread that is appropriate for this discussion that can be accessed from the arrow link in the quote below should anyone feel the need to continue. I used this quote here because it hints at the connection between fin design and propensity for silting. An efficient fin will not have a strong propensity for silting and therefore not need something like a frog kick to avoid bombing the bottom with misdirected waste energy.

...Not all fin blades are the same. There is more to a good blade design than just blade length and an expensive FRP material. I look for fins that have a soft floppy tip even on a stiffer fin blade (ie - it should have a lot of taper to the stiffness along its length). That soft tip is what makes the fin efficient. If the whole fin is stiff, it will absorb a lot of power, but won't efficiently convert it to thrust. It just feels powerful while bombing the bottom with off-axis waste momentum instead of pushing you forward.

This is the main reason most scuba fins are so poor at thrust efficiency. Take a pair of jet-fins and add an extra 8 inches of soft floppy fin blade on the end and it would probably make for a decent fin....

 

[Storker]

I was diving without a wetsuit, but i am moving towards a drysuit very soon.

When you get comfortable in your DS, you may have less issues with heavy feet. I dive dry and if my feet get heavy, I just adjust my trim somewhat to move a little air into my legs. Presto, more floaty feet

In fact, quite a few DS divers have more issues with floaty feet and consider ankle weights (which I personally don't like, but that's another discussion)

 

[Storker]

Seeing as how the frog kick was not used by scuba divers until it was specifically developed by cave divers for dealing with silting conditions

That may well be, but for those of us who learned to swim with a breast stroke rather than a crawl (like me), the frog kick is a lot more natural than the flutter kick.

I don't dive caves and will probably never do that, but I strongly prefer the frog kick. It's a lot closer to the way I've been swimming since I was five than the flutter kick is.