Fingerless gloves for first trip to FL - yes, no, dunno?

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elgoog

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Hello -

I finally have a cave trip to FL on my calendar! I'm doing GUE C1 right before Thanksgiving.

While reading about diving in flow, I see photos and reports of folks using fingerless gloves to aid in pull and glide and prevent tearing up your fingers. Is this something I should think about at this point? From what I read, you should not use your fingertips to pull and if your technique is bad, the gloves aren't going to help that much anyway since the fingertips aren't protected. Right? Am I missing something here? Honestly, I don't know how much bandwidth I'll have to focus on this with everything else going on during the class.

This is going to be my first time in meaningful flow. The closest I got in Mexico was Dos Palmas but that's super gentle compared to Devil's where I'm almost certain to be during this trip. I get the impression that even Peacock has more flow than Dos Palmas - any one who has dived both can comment on this? I'm really curious now about what to expect.

Thanks in advance,
elgoog
 
You’re right, fingerless gloves wouldn’t matter anyway, I was told to use palms of hand, never thought that was of any good use, maybe I just don’t know how to pull and glide using my palms, but in either case, I never tore up my fingers during training, use finesse, if you’re gonna muscle the cave, the cave will win.

As for the gloves, I do use them, more so for the comfort on the Goodman handle than anything
 
You’re right, fingerless gloves wouldn’t matter anyway, I was told to use palms of hand, never thought that was of any good use, maybe I just don’t know how to pull and glide using my palms, but in either case, I never tore up my fingers during training, use finesse, if you’re gonna muscle the cave, the cave will win.

As for the gloves, I do use them, more so for the comfort on the Goodman handle than anything
My hands get cold, so I wear 3mm neoprene gloves with the fingers and thumb cut off to about the 2nd joint. Side benefits are Goodman comfort, and pull-and-glide with the palms is very comfortable.
 
I wear gloves with the fingers cut off.

Best form is to try and use your palm/hand ‘heel’ to pull, but I see much more “finger pulls” in the real world. A lot has to do with how well you can read the cave, get out of the flow and make strategic pulls. There is a long standing joke about serving cave students hot wings at the Great Outdoors, ...raw fingers suffering the burn from the hot sauce.

The flow was ripping This week at Ginnie, and there were certainly some finger pulling going on.

Peacock is much less of a pull and glide cave.
 
You can safely use your fingertips to pull and glide without tearing them up if you do it properly. Pull with short stokes that do cause you to rotate your finger tips before, during, or after the release. Your hands should never end up further back than the top of your head or you went too far. It is the sliding on the limestone that cuts and scrapes your fingertips, not the mere actual contact.

My second day of class, I showed up sporting custom duct tape bandages around each of my fingertips. The third day, my buddy broke down and asked to use some of it himself.
 
I wear them. Long rebreather dives the added warmth, and the comfort benefit having the goodman on for hours at a time is worth it to me. Caveeagle and dsix36 have covered the pull and glide stuff well enough already.
 
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

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