Staying Still?

[diver0008]

Trim. You may be kicking to stay horizontal. Experiment with shifting your gear (tank, bcd...) around a bit, and adjusting your knee bend and arms positioning. And relax. You do have to have your buoyancy dialed in. I do this from time to time when unsure by going vertical and motionless and seeing what happens and adjusting air in the bcd in very small increments as necessary.

 

[MichaelMc]

Welcome. You're fighting far too much heads up trim to fix by moving your legs/head/butt. You need to shift some lead.

"Some weights in hand" trim exercise:
An exercise to do is take some of the weight from your belt and hold them in your hands.
You can still manipulate your inflator valve/mask/regs by putting all the 'hand' weights in one hand temporarily.
Descend in the pool
Extend the weights out in front of you and play with how far in front you hold them, (chest, shoulder, head, full arm length in front).
You should find a point where your body can be very level and in trim with little corrective effort from your legs.
Then hold it there while you play with your frog kick to move you about a bit.
This should give you a better idea of how little effort can be required to stay in trim, and how much weight you need to shift how much higher.
Typically, in trim feels a bit head down to the diver.

I have no connection to UTD, but their Scuba makeover videos demonstrate this trim exercise, though before putting the BC on. You could always do it sans BC by floating the BC above you.

Now you know what an in-trim weight distribution feels like. Doing a normal dive with weights in your hands is not very practical so some location needs to be found on your gear. Achieving that with what ever BC and weights you have on hand is a separate step that gets into details of what you have to work with. On the tank band moves it up from the waist, as does on the tank valve, but both also move it further behind your back when you are level and increase your tendency to roll belly up. On the top curve of the shoulder straps is fairly ideal for affecting weight distribution (it's almost as high as it can go and is inline with your body front-to-back) but can clutter up that area and is often hard to attach there with a jacket BC.

 

[rongoodman]

You're definitely letting your knees drop. To stay flat from shoulders to knees there needs to be a little tension in your glutes, not a strain, but enough to feel it.

 

[divad]

Yes...flex your butt.

 

[Landau]

It took me a long time to stop constantly sculling and finning. I played water polo competitively for many years where motionless was a bad thing. I could do it when thinking about it, but on a dive when thinking about the fish/coral/octopus/my buddy not so much.

It definitely gets better dive by dive for almost every diver.

 

[Dubious]

You're definitely letting your knees drop. To stay flat from shoulders to knees there needs to be a little tension in your glutes, not a strain, but enough to feel it.

Yes...flex your butt.

Thank you. I will pay attention to that. I was in the pool today again and notice there were times I could feel my feet dropping and other times were it seemed to be good. I didn't know what I was doing different but maybe it had to do with "flexing my butt".

As I struggle through this I have to chuckle that none of this we discussed with me at peak performance buoyancy class my wife and I took last year. In fact, I don't recall receiving any correction. The instructor spent all of their time with a student who was all over the place in the water.

 

[wKkaY]

Looks like you're on the right track!

I think the main issue you have is your center of gravity being behind.

Those jet fins are too negative for your swimsuit setup. Try your gosport fins again with the 2lb weight in your hands. Vary your arm position to change your center of gravity. If you tip forward, bring the arms in, and if you tip back, stretch the arms out.

Also, contrary to some other posters above, I don't think you have issues flexing your butt enough. Where your knees are look good enough to me at this point, and using your mental bandwidth to tense those muscles can be counter-productive to feeling stable.

 

[MichaelMc]

Yes, try the gosport, but with 3 or 4 lb. out in front and move your arms in as needed. That may be more lead than you need for buoyancy, but if it is comfortable, it should help you get in balance head to toe. Being in balance head to toe will make it much easier to have whatever trim you want. Such as horizontal.

If you have ballast to play with, it is just a matter of putting it where it is needed so you are in balance, like a playground see-saw. Then you need a way to attach it to you there. If you have no ballast to play with, it is a much harder game.

Your legs are heavy and your lungs light.
If you have a wet suit that might help by making the legs less negative. If your BC is a BP/W, I’d wear the plate (but no wing) with the wet suit instead of a weight belt, and have some weights in your hands to dial to the needed trim. With the goal of getting the sense of being still, aided by being balanced head to toe.

 

[Dubious]

I think the main issue you have is your center of gravity being behind.

Thank you. This has been very educational for me. It is one thing to just read about it and another to get in the water to see and feel it for myself.

If your BC is a BP/W, I’d wear the plate (but no wing) with the wet suit instead of a weight belt, and have some weights in your hands to dial to the needed trim.

I will do this. The swimsuit just gives me a quick way to get into the water while my kids are taking a break from swimming. I once tried working on my kicking while the kids were in the pool. I don't know how many times I was stepped on or kicked by them.

 

[seeker242]

What I have found is that the key to staying still, not moving forward, etc. is really just to relax. In the video your whole body looks really stiff and rigid. What you really need to do imo is find the position where you can stay in trim, but at the same time feel as if you have most all of your body, including the legs, be loose and relaxed, all except for the muscles needed to keep your knees and hips in alignment. Ideally, so relaxed that you could almost go to sleep in that position.