hands while diving

As any diver who strives to be halfway decent will have read/heard/been taught, the use of hands in diving is inefficient as well as unnecessary, and will lead to an increase in gas consumption.
What I would like to discuss, is how everyone feels about the use of hands while students are next to each other. What I mean is if I have to turn to my left, but my dive buddy is to my right. I don't want to use my fins to turn and then kick my buddy in the side, so I would use my hands to turn myself and propel myself forward until I am able to propel myself without kicking my buddy.

Don't overthink it, this is during training sessions while students are all next to each other, and bumping into one another etc.
Yes, I know you can also lightly push yourself off a fellow diver

You need to keep in mind this is during teaching dives/classroom ow/cw dives, not during a normal dive
Discuss!

They're your hands...do with them what you will! Personally, I think those (rather sanctimonious) divers who criticize or judge another's skill by watching for every slight use of hands really needs to get a life. Even reef fish use their pectorals to maneuver, though they have a perfectly good tail. Of course I am not referring to inexperienced divers we've all seen that "dog paddle" their way around, or those who use their hands constantly to drive themselves forward, or divers who are constantly "flailing" around. That IS inefficient and wastes gas. But the use of a simple hand/arm movement in order to reposition or adjust one's body has no harm. If you deem that the most efficitent or expedient motion to accomplish your goal, who is to say you are wrong? Someone who would criticize a diver for for such trivial issues needs to relax a bit and get back to diving their own dive.

just my .02 bucks worth

I know what you mean!!!

During those in water sessions, keep an arms length or so from everyone around you. Focus on balance and breather properly. By doing so you'll be balanced and can turn any direction without any effort. Instead of propelling your legs simply with the foot and ankle a small pinch can move you around in a balanced form.

Similar to how a fish moves. With good balance they simply move they're pelvic fin to stay balanced not to ascend or descend and they use there pectoral fin to turn in the desired direction.

Look into this on your next possible opportunity. Have fun and dive frequently.....

You may have too many students if they can't space out enough:-D
Divers can use whatever they want to serve their purpose.
However, there is absolutely no reason to teach students anything other than text book. At least I am not arrogant enough to think that PADI or NAUI put in the time and research for me to doubt the teachings.
You don't exactly want to be responsible for your students getting criticized either

eh... use hands when needed, over time most divers seem to get the hang of using them minimally, in the beginning is okay, esp if it keeps the spastic buggers off the coral.

Michael

I do the hand jive.

Use of hands is fine for minor maneuver as described above. What I have observed in hundreds of students is the tendency to swim/propel oneself forward using the hands. When that happens, the student inevitably stops finning. The feet drop, head goes up and they are heading for the surface. I teach my students to hold their hands as much as possible while they are learning how to swim as a scuba diver - and to stay off the reef!!

IMO hands are not for propelling or turning. I was taught that in cavern class , but if your too close and may kick someone Id do it as a last resort and let everyone know at the surface thats the only time to do it.

FlyingPig:

You may have too many students if they can't space out enough:-D
Divers can use whatever they want to serve their purpose.
However, there is absolutely no reason to teach students anything other than text book. At least I am not arrogant enough to think that PADI or NAUI put in the time and research for me to doubt the teachings.
You don't exactly want to be responsible for your students getting criticized either

Click to expand...

Well ... I question several things that I find in agency texts ... and teach many things that you won't find in them. If you go to my website and click on the Articles tab, almost every article in there either addresses something the agencies don't teach, or something they tell you to do but fail to tell you how.

That isn't to say that the agency material is wrong ... it's to say that the agencies target a specific audience, and cannot possibly cover all things in the detail that it is useful to know. That's what instructors are for ... and instructors who limit themselves to strictly to the information that's "in the book" often turn out inadequately trained divers.

With respect to the use of hands ... as with most things in scuba, my answer would be "it depends". The analogies to fish are rather missing the point. We're not fish, we're not built to propel ourselves as they do, and the legitimate question is how to move around underwater in a manner that is both comfortable and effective. In some cases, using your hands to push off is OK ... as long as you're not, in the process, damaging something. The real question you need to ask yourself is this ... are you using your hands in a manner that ingrains poor diving habits? A great deal of what you learn in scuba develops habitual behavior. Conscious decisions to scull with your hands eventually become unconscious dependencies that persist long after they're no longer useful. I'm speaking from experience here ... I was a hand-waver for years after my skills reached the point where I didn't need to be. It was an unconscious response based on years of habit ... something I wasn't even aware I was doing until one day I saw myself on video and realized I was doing it. Took me a long time and a lot of effort to stop the habit.

So why stop? Well ... because as you develop better skills, you learn to do what you were using your hands for in more efficient ways ... using less energy, and therefore less air ... which is always a desireable thing. As your skills improve, your hands become useful for other things ... like a camera, or a speargun, or a dive light ... and you won't want to be unconsciously waving them around while you're trying to use those things.

One learns best what one learns first ... that's a rule of thumb that applies to a lot of things in our life. Diving's no different. Learning good habits up-front saves a lot of effort in the long-term ... because you don't, later on, have to "unlearn" behavior as your skills improve or you move into more challenging types of diving.

Bottom line is that if you need to use your hands for something specific, go ahead and use them ... but make sure it's a conscious decision, for a specific reason, and don't get to rely on using your hands for functions that there are better ways to achieve. As with a lot of aspects of diving, there are "rules of thumb" that apply to good diving technique ... and what matters isn't so much applying them all the time so much as understanding why they exist, and when it's appropriate to use them. Try not to fall into bad habits that will limit your ability to achieve future diving goals ... or even just to help you become more comfortable with the skills you already have.

... and don't worry about what somebody else thinks ... what matters is what YOU want to do, and what skills are needed to get you there ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob's post is excellent.

One question you want to ask yourself is how far you intend to go in diving. If you are just planning to go on occasional reef dives, occasional use of the hands for fine tuning position is not a problem. If you intend to go to more advanced diving, you will want to develop different skills, and you will want to avoid developing bad habits that will be hard to lose.

As you develop more advanced kicking techniques, you will find it easy to maneuver with your finning alone. You will not feel the need for using the hands.

As for bad habits, when I was doing a training dive when in a basic cave class, I had to maneuver in high current and waved a hand once to help. After the dive my instructor said that no one passes Basic Cave if he is waving his hands. It is not a matter of style--it is avoiding any action that can stir up silt. So, if you ever aspire to do more advanced diving in caves and wrecks, you will want to make sure you have not developed a hand waving habit.