SM Diving and Buoyancy Exercises

Hello -
I recently took a SM class in Florida geared more for Technical diving, as that is what I am getting into. I haver access to use a swimming pool, which has a deep area. I practice there often, but now that I have the SM gear, I wanted to start focusing on improving my Buoyancy skills. While I feel w/ SM and the setup I am using, I have great trim, I want to work on improving my Buoyancy.
Does anyone know of a book or exercises that they have found useful to perform in a pool to help their Buoyancy? I heard there is a book out there that has a number of exercises, however I am not sure of what the title is?

it was described by someone, that you can put a weighted line hanging from something floating on the surface, and then near the bottom of the line, but a close-pin or other marker and then hold your Buoyancy there for a few miunutes, practice your valve feathering, and also practice out of air scenarios, and maintain your Buoyancy, good for task loading skills, etc. etc.

If anyone knows the name of this, or exercises that can be performed like this, please let me know

That first exercise you noted sounds like something out of the Six Skills by Steve Lewis but don't quote me on that as it's been a while since I read it. I don't know of any other books with specific exercises but any basic skills performed over and over with the goal of not changing depth in ever decreasing increments will certainly help. I have my OW divers do this in the pool while trying to keep a pool tile or line on the wall in a level plane with their line of sight. You can also try helicopter turns while clearing a mask or feathering your valves. Deploy and restow hoses.
If that gets boring take some pool toys and play pickup with them while focusing on staying less than 12 inches off the bottom. Then do it with your eyes closed. Pay attention to how your ears and body feel. You can become attuned quite accurately to changes in depth by feeling the change. The idea is to just get creative and task load yourself with more and more stuff. Especially things that you may not think of aS normal tasks on your actual dives.
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Keep in mind though, learning how to dive by watching internet videos is not the wisest choice.

I agree, but its better tham half of the sidemount "instructors" I have seen.

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Good points, I will be in the pool tomorrow and will give the above exercises a go vs just swimming around and watching the other students, and sometimes laughing at what I see :-0
who knows they will probably be laughing @ me...

I agree w/ the repeating over and over, I did discover that something sounds easy like valve feathering. I practiced it in the shallow open water, and did fine w/ it, get in a overhead area while trying to maintain buoyancy, and well my once new dive light now has some scratches, on it, from banging off the top of the cave, and when I started w/ the exercises I was nicely situated in the middle right near the guide line...

So the task loading and getting comfortable w/ things will really help out. I suspect repeating the same skills over and over and over until they require little or no thought will feel that I can do these skills if/when a situation arrises. I got some practice to do.

the biggest trick to any diving is to do a buoyancy/weight check with whatever gear you have on, then use little bursts of air either in or out and take a few breaths to see if you have to add/remove air from your BC, to further improve your use of air, if weighted properly you will find that you will not need to add very much air, try to manually add air to your BC. This air from your lungs is already used, so use that one or two breaths into your BC and save what is in your tank!. Gas conservation at deep depths is important, hence back to buoyancy control/proper weighting!. I usually have my students kneel on the deep part of pool, then add very tiny bursts (like 2) to BC, and breath!,keep doing this basic skill until you just lift off the bottom then slowly go up to the next depth level and hover at that level for a bit, controlling your depth, imagine you are going over a coral reef, what you touch you kill, and of course damage gear!. I actually spend quite a bit of time on buoyancy control/weighting with my students and it really pays off in the end! And if you are going Tec, or just advancing your skills, use a reel and deploy a safety sausage or lift bag, then like Jim Lapenta mentioned go up at slow increments and do skills all the time. One should never get bored diving!, either in a pool or OW! Remember, develop a conditioned response with all skills and you won't have to think, just do,,,,,,,,,,,and have more time to enjoy what your down for!. We also used to have hula hoops with a weight, try to go thru those!

I learned buoyancy control very quickly by practicing a lot in a 1.4 metre pool. Too buoyant and my head with be at the surface with the fins splashing about. Too negative and something will be scrapping on the floor. Just nice and a whole new world will open up where that 1.4 metre pool was just as big as any open water site. Because of the depth (or lack of) of that pool, you didn't need a depth gauge to tell you when you were going wrong so you could develop your skills unconsciously and quickly or the other way round.