skin or free diving??

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submarinero:
but aren't they different...???? we've been arguing about it all day! please help!

Shades of gray between snorkeling skin-diving and free-diving and even breath-hold diving. A person making breath-hold dives to say 100 feet is more likely do refer to themselves as a free-diver than a snorkeler.

A person who is surface swimming and maybe duck-diving to 10 feet has little need for specialized fins, or a low volume mask that a serious "free diver" will use but will certainly want a snorkel which the free-diver may not carry.

The video seems to be gone so I can't comment.

You can call yourself any of the above. As you get more serious you may choose to identify with a specific term.

Pete
 
submarinero:
Regardless of the terminology (and it changes from place to place and community to communty) I find the video rather simple-minded and the instructor featured in the video does not have a well develped and effective surface dive, does not understand the low gear (dolphin kick) vs high gear (flutter kick) use that many of us have learned by watching diving birds and does not explain breathing, hyperventilation and breathold diving well. Over all I'd give the video a C-Plus or B-Minus. I'd be very interested in other freedivers' opinions.
 
i see what you're saying thalassamania. he's definitely doing free diving then, not skin diving. he clears his mask pretty well and looks comfortable in the water. isn't that the main thing?!?
 
That's only the beginning, that is expected of everyone.
 
Depending on who you are talking to Skin Diving could even include SCUBA.

Snorkling - floating along looking at the pretty fish and getting a sunburn.
Freediving - going underwater to look at the pretty fish and maybe even shooting it.
SCUBA - taking air down with you to look at the pretty fish and maybe taking its picture or exploring cave systems and ship wrecks.
 
I give is a D-. The guy has insufficient lead (he floats up at his max depth), the weight belt is too long and flapping in the breeze, he demonstrates breathing up without a snorkel (which is inefficient), kicks too hard on descent, forgets a very important piece of gear: the knife, demonstrates mask clearing underwater which has near zero utility underwater for a freediver, the surface dive uses 2 legs out of the water (when most people now recommend a more relaxed method that uses only one leg).
 
dumpsterDiver:
I give is a D-.
I'll grant I'm an easy grader.
dumpsterDiver:
The guy has insufficient lead (he floats up at his max depth), the weight belt is too long and flapping in the breeze, he demonstrates breathing up without a snorkel (which is inefficient), kicks too hard on descent, forgets a very important piece of gear: the knife, demonstrates mask clearing underwater which has near zero utility underwater for a freediver,
Yup!
dumpsterDiver:
the surface dive uses 2 legs out of the water (when most people now recommend a more relaxed method that uses only one leg).
Two legged dive gets more push underwater but you need to be in shape for it as it's hard on the back. I have no problem with two legged, that's what we do, my problem is that he doesn't get up high enough and that combined with his underweighting (that you noticed) doesn't get his fins in the water efficiently.
 

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