Peak Performance Buoyancy

Peak Performance Buoyancy is the most important PADI Advance Open Water specialty. It teaches you how to maintain your buoyancy using breathing without having to screw with your BCD (or drysuit) all the time. It prevents you from silting up a place or touching the bottom and killing/displacing wildlife.

It's so important that I'm wondering why Peak Performance Buoyancy is not part of the initial Open Water Course, maybe in place of a final fun dive. PPB should still be part of the AOW course too; it needs to be cemented into our heads. I'm glad, however, that it's a necessary specialty in the AOW course.

I only mention this because the last few times I've dove with a group of people (maybe six), there have always been a few who have been i) walking on the ground; ii) silting up everywhere; and/or iii) kicking wildlife. My buoyancy's far from perfect (still silt occasionally), but I try my butt off to avoid touching/silting up the bottom. Even when taking photos, if I have a choice between a good shot and not silting up the bottom a lot, I try not to silt.

No one ever does it on purpose, of course. But an emphasis on the importance buoyancy control in the Open Water course might help.

Buoyancy control is part of the OW class under some systems and is not considered a specialty since it is the basic foundation for good scuba skills. Not every AOW class includes it as well. And I disagree that it needs to be part of the last checkout dive or included in the AOW to be ingrained in divers. To do that it needs to be the first skill introduced in the pool on scuba and insisted on in every session from that point on and on every checkout dive. It starts with proper weighting and learning to control ones position in the proper position with the BC and breathing before any other skills are attempted. Mask and reg (snorkle clear simulates a reg clear) need to be done before the diver is ever put on scuba in the swim and skin diving session that should come before any scuba training.

When my husband teaches, emphasis on buoyancy and trim is built into the six pool sessions, as he tries to maximize free swim time for all the students. We try very hard to encourage it in OW, too, although it's hard when students are transitioning into heavy cold water gear for the first time, and dealing with low viz.

Ideally, the student would come out of OW with some basic skills AND a goal in mind; to my way of thinking, PPB would be a refinement class, best be taught after they have acquired their own equipment, and the instructor can help them adjust and weight it, as well as working with buoyancy exercises and body posture.

I fully agree with Lynne. She, her husband, a number of other instructors, and I contributed to an article in the PADI professional journal on the importance of teaching proper buoyancy control within the OW course.

Some people argue that PPB should be unnecessary if buoyancy is taught properly in the OW course, but I disagree. I agree with Lynne that it should be a refinement. In fact, I think a person who does the entire PB specialty should come out having pretty impressive control over buoyancy and trim.

Students learn bouyancy control as part of the basic class, but the results you hope to have after a PPB class require some practise and a little less task loading than what is going on in the head of a 2nd or 3rd open water dive student.
It's about first learning to walk.

Just tired of seeing people, who have many more dives than I do, seeming to disregard proper buoyancy by constantly silting and kicking wildlife. Guess the PPB course might not be a great solution, as it all depends on how much one wants to improve his/her buoyancy. But what other solutions are there?

It's a hard question, Scuba_Noob. I'm with you -- I deplore poor buoyancy and loathe silting. But I also remember being a new diver, and I was guilty of both. What turned me around was a good mentor, and in the past, I have tried very hard to get out with new divers and help them as I can. I have found, however, that not everyone is really interested in working to improve their technique, and I don't push anybody. I offer feedback if somebody asks or seems receptive. Some people really just don't care, as hard as that is to believe.

scuba noob NUMBER of dives in my opinion is less important for sub 50 dive divers or vacation divers than time between dives.
My last 2 dives were with a guy with around 200 dives under his belt. The first dive his boyancy frankly was all over the show-yep dropping fins in the sand and variations of over 6 feet as he dealt with his boyancy. By the second dive though he had settled down and was in good shape.

I just completed Advanced Open Water certification Friday, and we did not do Peak Performance Buoyancy. I didn't care, because I mastered that skill before I ever even considered an AOW certification. Incessant lobster hunting will do that for you. Worked wonders for me!

I think it often takes 100 dives to get buoyancy down. And if you have not dove dry that also takes some practice.

I think instructor's have an inflated opinion of themselves if they think they have a student mastering buoyancy in ONE dive which is what PADI provides. I mean wow, what a bunch of BS. It takes practice and diving repeatedly to master buoyancy. I've seen some divers have this down in a drysuit in 50 dives, but most take longer. Training helps, but it takes practice. If one dives with a bigger bladder (40+lbs) that makes it harder