Primer in May and fins

I have my primer class in May with Bob. I had spoken to Bob about my regs and I have since changed out my primary to a 7' hose and bought a new octo, to replace the crappy one I had.
This past weekend went to the pool to practice the long hose and using the new fins. The fins are Oms Monoprene Slipstream Fins. Is it just me or are these fins hard to use????? Do I have a decent pair of fins to do the different kicks???? Are there lighter fins??? Any suggestions out there for me?

Those fins are quite light, which may or may not work well depending on your exposure protection.

I have a pair that work well with my 3 mill wetsuit. But they're a struggle to use when I'm diving dry. When dry they're simply too light

As far as the fin itself goes, for me it works fine for all types of kicks - well, not really that well for the traditional "straight leg" flutter. But frog, helicopter, back, flutter etc. it works fine.

So it may be that your trim was thrown off a bit because of the new fins?

What exposure protection do you dive?

Henrik

I am not sure what the water temp will me there in May at Dutch, I cannot think warm at that point yet. I am thinking I will be in a 5m full, 3m shortie. Which was what I had on in the pool to try to figure out my weighting for all the stuff I was wearing. I tried the frog kick a couple of times and felt pulling on my knee. My usual fins are split one (please hold your fire)

These just felt very heavy and ackward compared. It could very well be that I have no clue what I am doing

But I would like to get the most from this class and I cannot do that if what I bring with me I cannot use very well. I am sure they will try to help show me the correct way. Anything that I can do to better prepare myself now for May???

You're on the right track

1) get your weighting down pat. Keep testing and make notes so you can fine tune it.

2) figure out how best to distribute the weight you need so that you can (almost) effortlessly hold trim in the "Delta Position": Arms in front of you, head back, body "long" and flat from chest to knees. Knees bent 90° and fins "flat". You may have to move trim weights around and put some of your ballast on the cam bands to help with trim.

So with all your gear on and correctly weighted, jump in the pool. Get your buoyancy adjusted so you're neutral a foot or two above the bottom. Now get into position and *stop* moving ... and see if you tip head or knees down.

Depending on which way you tip, you'll want to move a bit of ballast to counter it. Repeat

Working on kicks can be tricky by yourself, and the best start may be to have someone move your feet through the correct motion while you're just lying on the floor or a bench.

Btw. I learned frog kick and 1/2 helicopter turns in my splits
Henrik

HenrikBP:

You're on the right track

1) get your weighting down pat. Keep testing and make notes so you can fine tune it.

2) figure out how best to distribute the weight you need so that you can (almost) effortlessly hold trim in the "Delta Position": Arms in front of you, head back, body "long" and flat from chest to knees. Knees bent 90° and fins "flat". You may have to move trim weights around and put some of your ballast on the cam bands to help with trim.

So with all your gear on and correctly weighted, jump in the pool. Get your buoyancy adjusted so you're neutral a foot or two above the bottom. Now get into position and *stop* moving ... and see if you tip head or knees down.

Depending on which way you tip, you'll want to move a bit of ballast to counter it. Repeat

Working on kicks can be tricky by yourself, and the best start may be to have someone move your feet through the correct motion while you're just lying on the floor or a bench.

Btw. I learned frog kick and 1/2 helicopter turns in my splits Henrik

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Shhh, I won't tell

Thanks, did better this time in the pool getting things figured out, but still have issue with getting to that delta postion and just holding it without any movement. However, this time at least I was not in a headstand. :depressed: The long hose deployment is not as easy UW as on land, just an FYI.

tddfleming:

Shhh, I won't tell

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Thanks - it'd be horribly embarrassing if that got out ...

tddfleming:

Still have issue with getting to that delta postion and just holding it without any movement. However, this time at least I was not in a headstand.

Click to expand...

First things first. The most difficult *and* most important is to be able to hover without struggling. So I'd suggest spending the most time on that. The long hose deployment will not be a problem if you have a good grip on hovering - promise.

I think of it as when we were learning to *stand still* on one leg as kids: at first you'd take one foot off the ground and immediately "plop" back down. Then you'd be able to hold it for a second or two, mostly by hopping around on one leg. And then gradually you learned to react sooner to the signals telling you that you were on your way off balance, and needed to hop less and less.

Same thing with hovering; you'll get it for a sec and then have to move to correct. The more you do it the better you get.

But like I said, if you don't have your trim weighting close you'll fight it more than you need to.

As you practice hovering, try hard to fight the habit of "swimming" with your hands. Hold your hands still and make all corrections with your fins only.

Henrik

The Slipstreams should be fine unless you need more weight to trim out properly, in which case the Jetfins would be the ones to look at. I always feel guilty about how easy is to back kick in the Slipstreams!

When I switched from my splits to my Jets, I thought the Mafia had put me in concrete boots and was trying to kill me Stiff blade fins feel very different, but you will get used to it. It is much easier to learn the kicks with the stiffer fins (or at least, it was for me).

When you're deploying the long hose underwater, be sure you are dropping your head. It's VERY easy to get into the habit of grabbing the hose and pushing it backwards to create a loop instead, and that will come back to bite you big-time if you ever dive doubles, because the loop will catch in the manifold. Of course, I have no personal experience of this . . .

Another weighting question. I can get my weight down pretty good at the beginning of the dive, again with a full tank. It is at the end of the dives that I stuggle to remain down. But if I put the 5# extra to make up for the air that I would use, I sink like a rock. What am I doing wrong here?

Keep in mind you're weighting yourself for the *end* of the dive, not the beginning. You need enough weight that you can comfortably hold a 10' stop with little gas in your tank.

So if you're neutral or only slightly heavy at the surface with a full tank and no air in your BC/Wing, then you will be too light at the end of the dive.

As for sinking like a rock - on the initial descent, try to gradually/slowly let air out of your wing until you start to sink, rather than "laying on" the button and dump everything.

Henrik