Instructors: teaching neutrally buoyant

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Interesting. Had forgotten that some people wear weightbelts (as per the picture above). I guess that having a weightbelt and aluminium tank makes the rig more neutral.

Doing that stunt in cold water with a drysuit and twinset** would be exceedingly dangerous and foolhardy. You'd have several kg (lb x 2) buoyancy in the drysuit, with several kg/lb of negative buoyancy on the kit. That strain would mean you wouldn't be looking like the photo above.

In summary, it's primarily a recreational and warm-water thing.


** Typical example of a steel 12 litre twinset, stainless backplate, wing, 5kg of V weights, one or two big batteries (lighting & suit heater). Drysuit would have sufficient undersuit for the temperature and duration of the dive; drygloves. Definitely no ditchable weight (which is dangerous) so under the crotch strap if used in winter.


We had to do this for my Advanced Rec Trimix course, and you are right, it doesn't look anything like on the picture, but its very doable.
And yes, in a drysuit, no weight belt and no discharge weights. The biggest pain was really threading the crotch-strap with cold fingers and drygloves on when "assembling" the rig again
 
Another instructor also said he saw this happen often. What ball park % would you say out of new divers (or not so new) do this?
No earthly idea. I'm not the Scuba police and my eyes are on the reef and/or my students. In my ten years living in Key Largo though, I probably saw it 50-60 times. Maybe more? I know when I had gear issues, I used to settle on the bottom to straighten things out. It wasn't until just before I became an instructor that I had it pointed out to me by @MB. When I took my IDC, both @MB and Reggie Ross always had awesome trim and buoyancy. Reggie is the one to drill into me "Dive like you want your students to dive". I call it Monkey see: Monkey dive.
Doing that stunt in cold water with a drysuit and twinset** would be exceedingly dangerous and foolhardy.
I posted how to do that earlier. The BC always stays on top of you. You do the moving around and not your BC.
 
Thank you for all of the feedback everyone! Happy Diving!
Can I ask a dumb question please...

Why would one remove one’s rig underwater? On the surface makes a lot of practical sense especially if climbing onto a boat, but not underwater when there’s a big risk of dropping it and a rapid ascent.

Is this just a "confidence" skill?

Hey, I haven't looked yet to see if anyone else replied but one good example of why you may need to take it off uw is possible entanglement, or something going on with your gear you need to look at/work on. One can always hope your buddy is right there and can help you so you don't get stuck in a predicament of having to do this, but things happen sometimes. I got caught in some kelp once after a seal kept going around and around me tangling me up n my buddy was ahead of me and I couldn't get his attention so I started to take off my BC just enough to get it untangled from my first stage, which worked without having to take it all of the way off of my body. Happy diving!
 
Thank you so much everyone for the ideas/feedback. It's great to hear from students, DM's and Instructors because it's different perspectives which is great. It's great to have a platform to reach out to for ideas/advice. Happy and Safe diving everyone!
 
Interesting. Had forgotten that some people wear weightbelts (as per the picture above). I guess that having a weightbelt and aluminium tank makes the rig more neutral.

Doing that stunt in cold water with a drysuit and twinset** would be exceedingly dangerous and foolhardy. You'd have several kg (lb x 2) buoyancy in the drysuit, with several kg/lb of negative buoyancy on the kit. That strain would mean you wouldn't be looking like the photo above.

In summary, it's primarily a recreational and warm-water thing.


** Typical example of a steel 12 litre twinset, stainless backplate, wing, 5kg of V weights, one or two big batteries (lighting & suit heater). Drysuit would have sufficient undersuit for the temperature and duration of the dive; drygloves. Definitely no ditchable weight (which is dangerous) so under the crotch strap if used in winter.
Hi Wibble. I agree, that does sound like a pain to do. And if you're doing it while entangled, staying under the rig as @The Chairman suggest might be tricky. To my ear, it sounds like the V weight is the problem. Have you considered moving that 5kg to a belt or weight harness?

I dive in California waters, around 10C, in a drysuit with medium thickness undies, steel backplate. With a single steel HP100 (similar to steel 12L), I need about 7 kg of lead. I put 2 kg in trim pockets, and 5 kg on a rubber weightbelt. That puts the weight where I need it to achieve good trim. And this allows both my body and my rig to be much closer to neutral in the event I wanted to loosen or remove my scuba gear. Diving double steels I'd probably remove a couple kg of lead, but make sure to keep most of it on my body for the same reason.

Cheers.
 
Might have a play with dekitting when in a shallow lake. Certainly the last thing I'd want to do when deep as the drysuit's very buoyant.

Kind of challenges DIR as well. Keep everything on the rig and trimmed correctly. Hence the 5kg = 11lb V weights (2kg in freshwater) which don't move around.

Nowadays dive a rebreather, so would need to bail out to dekit; with only a 1m (3ft) hose that could be very fiddly. Sounds like a fun challenge in 2m/6ft of water.


Hopefully only another month of lockdown in the UK, looking forwards to some diving in March. With a bit of luck it'll be a whole diving season this year!
 
I was trained by UTD in San Diego when I crossed over.......it’s a requirement to teach neutral from day 1......they offer workshops to improve your skills......give them a call.
 
Doing that stunt in cold water with a drysuit and twinset** would be exceedingly dangerous and foolhardy. You'd have several kg (lb x 2) buoyancy in the drysuit, with several kg/lb of negative buoyancy on the kit. That strain would mean you wouldn't be looking like the photo above..

Not necessarily. I was able to take off my kit, while living in MT diving in cold mountain lakes, wearing a drysuit.

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This picture is very good example as to when and why one would take off their kit. When living in the islands I witnessed a lady doing this when her tank slipped out. Her buddies didn't even notice and I couldn't help because she was at a depth in which I couldn't take my students below (I would have if she had needed help). I bought her a nice drink later that day for doing a good job and maintaining neutral buoyancy.
 
I like to teach all classes neutrally buoyant. It makes for a much better diver, but a lot of class structures and accepted practices within the industry are not designed to make it work. Some thoughts:

- Never allow students to kneel as it promotes an upright position as the muscle memory "happy place". Lying flat on a non-environmentally sensitive bottom, transitioning to a pivot and then hover works much better.

- Spend some time in adjusting students equipment so that they are naturally flat and neutral. Everything is hard if you are fighting against equipment that tips you forward or back, and getting a stable platform should be achieved before any skills.

- You need to spend much longer on just getting comfortable and achieving horizontal neutral buoyancy. The first couple of hours of confined spent mastering this is not unusual. You can then do all the required skills neutral on later or additional dives.

- This does not work for big classes, or quick classes. The fact that most agencies allow ratios of 1 instructor to 8 students and a class that takes less than 3 days does not make for good divers. Personally, the maximum I allow for any class is 3 students. Classes that have 8 students and are finished in 2.5 days are ****** classes.
 

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