Do freedivers make better scuba divers?

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Eric Sedletzky

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All this talk lately about plates/wings, no BC diving, streamlining, minimalism, etc. I'm just curious as to how many here were freedivers before they became scuba divers, and if so did it help your scuba diving?

For me I freedove up in Northern California for abalone, which is a huge draw and an activity in this area that is probably more popular than scuba. As such many people get into freediving for abalone first then decide to take it a step further and get scuba certified. Those people tend to become regular scuba divers in our local area more so than people who just go straight to scuba and get certified to go on vacation.
I freedove for a few years before I decided to do scuba, a natural progression I guess, but in learning to freedive first I was already acclimated to the water and conditions, I knew what to expect and what I was going to see. Being that I was also used to freediving I already knew some things about weighting, wetsuit warmth, streamlining, body positioning for maximimum efficiency whilst moving through the water, etc. A freediver naturally seems to find out that aiming your body toward the direcdtion of travel like a torpedo yields the best results. Plus the most efficient fin kicks and a host of other skills that people don't think about (mask squeeze, equalizing ears by both methods, etc).
So when I finally got certified it was a cake walk. All I had to do was a few skills that I wasn't used to freediving like mask off breathing (which was a trip since it goes against everything your body tells you to do when ice cold water hits your bare face), air shares, buddy breathing, and some physiology, but all the other stuff was there including being really comfortable in the water. Every other person in the class was doing the feet first descent while I was naturally trying to tip forward and swim down just out of habit. And of course the ocean was all new to them, AND they had to do all the skills so I could only imagine the task loading they were going through.
I just can't thank freediving enough for bonding me with the ocean way before scuba. I probably wouldn't have gotten certified if I wasn't involved with skin diving first.
I know that the Sonoma State University scuba program teaches a full skin diving course first plus ocean acclimation before they even use scuba gear for the first time. I think it's fabulous.

Would you recommend to someone thinking of getting into scuba to do some freediving first and learn some skindiving skills?
(If they have time)
I know they removed skindiving from most OW classes, but do you think that was a mistake?
 
NC State used to have a dedicated skin diving course before taking full scuba but it was dropped. The current course takes about 4 weeks for skin diving only, then they get on scuba, and it certainly does help especially with breath control and general streamlining. I think more skin diving should be incorporated into the current scuba classes but it is mainly for acclimation to the water and being comfortable under it. Not many skin diving skills transfer to scuba diving, different kicks *ideally dolphin kicking for distance and then modified breast stroke for hunting around while freediving, and flutter for long surface kicks then modified breast for everything else*, snorkeling is certainly a useless skill when you are on scuba, and skin dives in general don't translate, but the big one is just being comfortable under the water and skin diving certainly forces you to gain control over your breathing reflexes and that can be the difference in life or death in an emergency.

I practice skin diving skills regularly and love the freedom that it gives me, the only closer thing on scuba is a double hose with a lp72/J-valve on a plastic plate, or freedom plate if you can find/afford one :blinking:, no wing, and a one piece harness. That's a pretty liberating feeling compared to the usual sidemount/twinset rigs that I'm in, but nothing compares to hopping in the water with a hawaiin sling and a wetsuit and spearfishing that way.
 
Every other person in the class was doing the feet first descent while I was naturally trying to tip forward and swim down just out of habit. And of course the ocean was all new to them, AND they had to do all the skills so I could only imagine the task loading they were going through.
I just can't thank freediving enough for bonding me with the ocean way before scuba. I probably wouldn't have gotten certified if I wasn't involved with skin diving first.

Hmmm...as far as I know, head first ascents are not typically used and even frowned upon. Maybe it's different in the tropics, but the preferred method of descent we do here is descending in trim position. Skin diving is still taught w/PADI, 4 skills in the OW pool sessions. Are they necessary? Perhaps.

You are right that it definitely helps with being comfortable in the water, understanding of buoyancy and having good propulsion strength. But the finning used in freediving may not be what is used in SCUBA.

Do I think skin-diving can benefit a diver trainee? Yes. Do I think SCUBA divers could benefit from getting free-diving training/experience? Yes. Is it necessary or a big benefit? Not really, at least in my area.
 
… Would you recommend to someone thinking of getting into scuba to do some freediving first and learn some skindiving skills?
(If they have time)
I know they removed skindiving from most OW classes, but do you think that was a mistake?

Yes I think it was a mistake. I know Eric has seen it before but this is my recommendation for preparation and dive training:

1. Master buoyancy, not as a diver but as a swimmer: Understand that the only thing that needs to be above water during the times you are actually breathing is your mouth and maybe your nose. Any other part of the body, especially the high density skull, that is above water is a waste of energy.

2. Master swimming: You don’t have to set speed records or learn all the strokes; you are after endurance. The value here is knowing that you have plenty of time. An embarrassing number of diver drownings occur on the surface. It is incomprehensible to me how anyone can drown in a wet or drysuit at or near the surface. DUMP WEIGHT!

3. Learn basic diving physics and physiology: Pick up a book or video to learn about pressure, gas compressibility, displacement & buoyancy, and principals of oxygenation. By this time, much of it will reinforce what you have discovered in earlier steps. Don’t worry about decompression, embolism, and oxygen toxicity at this point.

4. Learn to snorkel and freedive: You can learn to snorkel from friends and gain a lot of experience. When you feel ready, pay the big bucks for a good freediving course. You will learn how to safely extend, test, and learn, your limits. Tell the instructor you want to experience hypoxic blackout under their guidance. Pool static training will give you ample opportunity. Again, the end objective is to learn you have time.

5. Buy an old used regulator and Scuba Tank: Put a paint-ball sticker on it if you have to in order to get it filled. Take the second stage apart and see how it works. Really play with it. Just don’t take it in the water yet. Try to take apart and reassemble the first stage if you are mechanically inclined.

6. Take Scuba courses through Nitrox, add rescue if you are inclined. Diving Nitrox is not the objective, gaining the in-depth understanding of diving physics, and to a lesser extent physiology is the goal. In the process, find an instructor who will guide you through free ascents starting in a swimming pool and graduating to as deep as you like. Avoid instructors who view BCs as elevators, free ascents and dangerous, and self-learning as lost income.

This foundation will serve you well regardless of how much farther you want to go. At that point technical diving, rebreathers, or commercial diving through Saturation becomes far more about mastering systems than diving.
 
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Make better SCUBA divers than what???..........If you're comparing to an asphalt layer---or elephant hunter--probably so.....
 
I was free diving for a year before I got certified. By the time of my first pool session my then-wife and I were the only ones comfortable in a wetsuit and had no problems swimming the length of the pool on one breath. Before I switched to a drysuit, backplate/wing and huge camera rig I usually made a pike dive/head first descent.
 
Hmmm...as far as I know, head first ascents are not typically used and even frowned upon. Maybe it's different in the tropics, but the preferred method of descent we do here is descending in trim position. Skin diving is still taught w/PADI, 4 skills in the OW pool sessions. Are they necessary? Perhaps.

You are right that it definitely helps with being comfortable in the water, understanding of buoyancy and having good propulsion strength. But the finning used in freediving may not be what is used in SCUBA.

Do I think skin-diving can benefit a diver trainee? Yes. Do I think SCUBA divers could benefit from getting free-diving training/experience? Yes. Is it necessary or a big benefit? Not really, at least in my area.
Feet first descents or even flat descents and flat ascents are a phenomenon of the BC era. Prior to the BC or wing, staying flat wasn't the norm since scuba diving grew out of skindiving. The norm before the BC was to weight yourself the same as you would for freediving (adjusting for tank/reg) and gliding around the same as you would as if you were freediving.
So since I was freediving prior to scuba training I just thought this was the way it was done. Not until I saw other open water students in class doing feet first descents like they were trying to land feet first did I realize that was considered normal in the scuba world. I had never been in the water with scuba divers before to know any different.
The instructor tried to weight me the same as he did all the other students but I thought something was wrong when they tried to put almost 20 lbs more on me than what I was normally using with the same wetsuit and freediving. Their explanation was that this was scuba and not freedivin, and in scuba it was important for divers to be able to sink easily and stay put on the bottom so they could do their skills.
At first I really didn't care much for the gear, it seemed very constricting and clunky to me. It was cumbersome, awkward, heavy, too many hoses sticking out everywhere, and difficult to move forward with any sort of efficiency. It felt like I left the parking brake on.
I used rental gear for the first 25 dives or so and it was the usual poodle jacket with all the trimmings. At the time nobody used plate and wings for recreational diving.
It took some time to shed gear and get my rig stripped down and streamlined to where I was comfortable and could move around with ease.
A few bad experiences in the kelp at or near the surf zone with a sizable swell pretty much cured me of excess clutter. That was the turning point for me to explore minimalism even further.
That's where freediving came back as the first teacher of diving principles for me.
 
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I'm pretty sure that had free diving been required prior to SCUBA I would never have bothered with it.
 
I think free-diving has made me a more EFFICIENT scuba diver. And if you're not kicking all the way down, well, your fish are coming up on my stringer.
 
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