Diving techniques: New vs Old

[Eric Sedletzky]

be careful where you put your hands in low visibility.

We don't have any real nasty spined fish to really worry about exept for maybe a sculpin. I am more worried about getting an urchin spine in my forehead, there are thousands of those things around and easy to run into one. I use kevlar gloves so getting poked in the hands is minimal.

If you think about the Sea Hunt swimming technique, there arle not a lot of ways to show speed in swimming for the camera. This, I think, was a way to visualize the drama of a chase scene underwater.
SeaRat

I suppose you're right there. They probably did it for more dynamics and drama. But I can imagine the ribbing the stunt doubles took when they would get a beer with their regular buddies. I'm sure the answer was "Yeah, but at least I'm on TV and you're not".

 

[fisheater]

Thanks everyone for an interesting and informative thread!

(If only other threads were as civil and enlightening.)

 

[Akimbo]

… When I got into the USAF, I was sent through the US Navy School for Underwater Swimmers. …

Great post. I had forgotten the push-ups with doubles 90s.

… If we ever separated from our buddy (Mike Nelson style), we got to carry the "buddy line" for a day; it was a long piece of rope about 4 inches in diameter, and we got to sleep with it--it was a good way of emphasizing the buddy system. (I now routinely dive solos--that's a different story though.)…

They made us carry 3-4' of 4" Die Lock Chain! That's what I get for going to a damn salvage school. That chain went everywhere except the head, class rooms, and in the water; but only during training hours. I was at San Diego's 2nd class barge in 1970. Once my buddy and I saw that chain we never lost hold, even on the pool harassment dives. It's a good thing we both smelled bad.

Not to hijack the thread, but what did divers have to do in the USAF? There were Sailors, Marines, and Solders in my class but no Air Force, Coasties, or foreign military.

…Now, about those comments about hand and arm motion "pumping water through a wet suit" and chilling people--not true. …

OK, I should have explained better. I was deriding the tailoring more than the material. I never got a decent fitting suit until the Deep Submergence Group sent me to Dick Long/DUI for a custom. I didn’t realize until then that my proportions weren’t even close to stock sizes. What really made me feel stupid was discovering Dick learned to make suits near were I grew up! Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass!

Everybody I learned to dive with had great bulges of material under their arms, brass front zip jackets, and waist high pants. I even tried making my own suit in High School but learned fast that I totally sucked at it. My hat is off to you, I never could have handled diving Oregon snow melt.

To be fair, you can still get suits that are fully glued and blind stitched; just not easily. The current crop of Neoprene blends with Nylon-1 do have a much better stretch coefficient than Nylon-0 Rubatex G-231. At the surface, they even have better thermal resistance. Unfortunately, they give up a lot of compressive resistance and the insulation that goes with it. They also have much lower mass so it "feels" better in the shop, but you figure out the more-lead part later. I know ZKY is interested in suits so this is not technically a thread hi-jack.

 

[Gombessa]

Now days the style seems to be to have the arms bent and crossed in front of the diver with the legs at a 90 degree angle with the lower leg verticle and a sculling or modified frog kick for propulsion. The wing used exclusively for water column positioning (elevator), and any deviation from this position (trim) unacceptable by modern standards.

Funny, I don't see this at all being any kind of modern standard. It definitely sounds like a "DIRish" position, but of all the training agencies out there teaching all the new OW students, I'd be surprised if even 1% used "modified frog" or any kind of frog kick or non-silting kick as "the standard." In my PADI OW class, there was brief mention of "horizontal" being the natural swimming position in the water, but I never learned about different types of kicks, what to do with my hands (other than to cross them over my chest if I was feeling cold) or anything else. Maybe it's a combination of the internet echo chamber and the somewhat higher population/popularity of DIR in the OP's home region, but I get the feeling this "modern standard" is far from actually being so in the real world.

As far as using your hands to increase speed, this guy comes to mind (I'm pretty sure I'd need a DPV just to keep up with him )

[youtubehq]Dun_GC9cdw8[/youtubehq]

 

[duckbill]

No way that wasn't happening, back then diving without a buddy was a BIG taboo more so than today.

Back when? I think I'd have to disagree with this. It is my understanding (not having been there myself) that when lung diving began here in the States, the divers were almost exclusively crossovers from spearfishing who were usually solo divers by nature of the sport. Also, in the very early days I think you would have been pretty hard pressed to find a diving buddy, as very few engaged in the sport at the time. As for Sea Hunt, except for the first several episodes the mantra heard as to never dive alone. Of course, Mike was the ultimate hypocrite on that count!

BTW, those Handee Fins are no joke. They are a vintage product, one of several models under different names that I have seen, so there obviously was some marketing going on for that style of swimming. I don't know if the marketing was taking advantage of what was being seen on Sea Hunt and the like, or if people actually did swim that way, but apparently some were trying the hand stroke. I tried it and found it extremely difficult to coordinate with my kicking, was tiring, and I didn't notice any appreciable gain in speed for the extra energy I was burning to do it. Lesson learned, probably like many found out who tried it, and why no one does it today.

ZKY, I would have tied the back of my mask strap to me with a piece of monofilament line just to see the look on their faces when I was able to make my mask magically reappear every time several minutes after they slapped it off my forehead!

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Gombessa,

Clark Presswood, the guy in the video, is not using his hands to increase the speed, but merely to balance the kicking action with his fins. For every action, there is an opposite reaction--something about Newton here. So by pushing down with the opposite hand from the kick, he was simply balancing the forces he created with his kicks. But it has no propulsive effect. What it does is to help his streamlining by balancing his body against the kick, so in effect that would increase speed a bit. But not much. He also is not really swimming extremely fast. It just looks that way because of the amount of body motion he has going.

If you want to see fast underwater swimming, take a look at finswimming:

http://texfinswim.blogspot.com/2009/03/by-robert-h.html

SeaRat

 

[Gombessa]

Gombessa,

The guy in the video is not using his hands to increase the speed, but merely to balance the kicking action with his fins.

Very cool, thanks for that tidbit! To me, it still stands as a contrasting image to the idea of having "quiet hands" in diving, regardless of whether that's any kind of standard being taught or sought after today.

 

[AfterDark]

Duckbill I can agree to disagree. Solo diving was always done but the negative reaction was a lot stronger when I started in '68 than today. IMO it would have been quite unlikely that a solo course would have been presented back in the 60's. It was a hold over from never swim alone.

Somebody only gets one chance to knock a mask off my head. I was told on a charter one time that it would cost me 25 cents every time I had my mask on my head. I even ate lunch with my mask on my head, they never collected. The more time goes by the more I like solo diving. Lot of A-holes out there.

If I remember correctly the no hands style came from Club Med back in the late 70's along with the taboo against using hands.

 

[Akimbo]

… It wasn't bad, but it hurt a lot. So be careful where you put your hands in low visibility...

Are we talking about diving or my first date? I'm getting good at this our of context stuff, my Internet comedian thing isn’t working too good so maybe a political commentator?

 

[Akimbo]

My underwater swimming was sluggish and slow.......That was before I used Handee Fins! Now I swim like a gillmanfish!

Tried them too, but equalizing sure sucked.