Question regarding neutral buoyancy

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Doesn’t help that PADI teaches buoyancy as a seated Buddha position.
PADI does NOT teach buoyancy as a seated Buddha position. Yes, some individual instructors have traditionally done that, but it has never been official PADI anything. As mentioned before, the new PDI DM course has all skills taught neutrally buoyant. It's hard to do that in a Buddha position.
 
PADI does NOT teach buoyancy as a seated Buddha position. Yes, some individual instructors have traditionally done that, but it has never been official PADI anything. As mentioned before, the new PDI DM course has all skills taught neutrally buoyant. It's hard to do that in a Buddha position.
Some? Sure that is the best word choice? :popcorn::poke::wink:
 
Some will disagree about the fin pivot (is it still in the OW course?)-- because fin tips are on the bottom. I don't see how it really can hurt.
The fin pivot was created many decades ago as a means of teaching students that inhaling makes you rise and exhaling makes you sink. That was its only purpose. Then it took on a life of its own, with instructors demanding precise form, etc. For that reason, PADI removed the NAME more than a decade ago and replaced it with telling the instructor to do an exercise teaching the effects of breathing on buoyancy. If you are teaching students neutrally buoyant from the start, students already have that by the time they reach that part of the course.
 
Some? Sure that is the best word choice? :popcorn::poke::wink:
I am sure it was a lot more common a decade ago than it is today, but that unfortunately does not fit you rabid need to bash PADI at every opportunity, so go ahead and quote whatever statistic you want to make up.
 
I am sure it was a lot more common a decade ago than it is today, but that unfortunately does not fit you rabid need to bash PADI at every opportunity, so go ahead and quote whatever statistic you want to make up.
lol, oh John. Look at my responses to others saying this problem wasn't just PADI.

You are too sensitive and think any remark is bashing PADI. That just isn't the case.
 
If I were to work with you based on what you wrote, my first step would be to evaluate your weighting. My long range diagnosis is that you are overweighted, probably by a lot.

I came here to say this... @chimong , I had the same problem you did when I started diving because I was grossly over-weighted.
 
The fin pivot was created many decades ago as a means of teaching students that inhaling makes you rise and exhaling makes you sink. That was its only purpose. Then it took on a life of its own, with instructors demanding precise form, etc. For that reason, PADI removed the NAME more than a decade ago and replaced it with telling the instructor to do an exercise teaching the effects of breathing on buoyancy. If you are teaching students neutrally buoyant from the start, students already have that by the time they reach that part of the course.
Thanks, I thought it was removed to a degree. Were (are) there any specific exercises suggested by PADI for instructors to show the effects of breathing on buoyancy? Or are they left to do that on their own?
 
Hello. Relatively new diver here who recently finished padi aow. I used most of my aow dives to improve my buoyancy skills and I have one question:

After establishing neutral buoyancy, your body still ascends or descends as you inhale or exhale. Maybe I inhaled too much or at the wrong moment, I started to ascend more than I would like and it became difficult to bring myself down again. This happened a few times during my dives and I had to pull the exhaust valve quickly to prevent myself from continuing to ascent.

Afterwards I asked my instructor that to avoid this problem, if it's better to remain slightly negative buoyant. With slightly negative buoyancy, you can be neutral when you inhale. When you exhale, you will descend but you can easily control it by kicking. And you don't need to worry about accidental ascending anymore. My instructor said it's ok.

I want to ask if this is a right approach to neutral buoyancy. If not, what's the problem here and what's the correct thing to do?

Hi @chimong! I couldn't read all the thread, but two things come to my mind:
1) as others already suggested you, take your time to master the skill, don't rush - and do not add weights!
2) it is actually possible that you are already overweighted. If so, removing weights will help you improve your buoyancy control (not adding them!); have you ever done a proper weight check? could you describe to us how you did it?
 
This is a basic scuba page, so I won't express my honest feelings to adding "a couple lbs" other than say don't.

Which is why proper weighting makes buoyancy way easier.... It minimizes the air in the BC, and therefore the buoyancy swing from depth changes.

My long range diagnosis is that you are overweighted, probably by a lot.

It is the fault of the instructor to not do a proper weight check and then to purposely overweight students.

I came here to say this... @chimong , I had the same problem you did when I started diving because I was grossly over-weighted.

have you ever done a proper weight check?

Many of you have pointed to overweight as the possible culprit here, and upon more reflection of my experiences, I think you are probably right. I checked my divelog and it turned out I was given 3kg(6.6lbs) more weight in my aow course than in my ow course(my physique hasn’t changed much), and I remember this wasn’t much of a problem during ow. My aow instructor actually mentioned that he was giving me more than enough weight for reasons I don’t remember and probably didn’t understand. He said you will need less weight as you get better, to which I thought “ok?”. Indeed all the dives except one deep dive were also done with less than 10m(33ft) depth, that explains the more drastic change in buoyancy brought by air volume expansion.

Neither in ow nor in aow did the instructor do the float-at-eye-level weight check with me, probably due to time constraint or other logistic reasons. Now I understand how important proper weight is, I will request a weight check if and when I take another course.

Thank you for your wisdom!
 
When I first started diving, I paid a little too much attention to all the "don't hold your breath" and "breathe slowly and deeply" stuff, and it made it hard to control my buoyancy. Learning to just breathe normally helped a lot.

That's 100% me too. :clapping:
 
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