hands while diving

[MXGratefulDiver]

Your initial premise is faulty. It assumes that using the fins for turning would result in the instance of kicking your buddy.

Only incorrect use of the fins would result in this scenario. Flailing around with the feet in a miscoordinated manner, without proper trim or control. That is NOT using the fins for turning. That IS being a muppet.

Use your hands, or use correct turning technique.... SIMPLE!

Here's what I mean by correct technique.... not much chance of kicking a buddy is there?

... so where is that fellow's dive buddy?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Filming and staying back, as this guy could hit him in the face and damage the camera.


Happy Diving

 

[DivemasterDennis]

There is no "rule for hands." There are other rules, though, and that's what you ad all diver's should embrace. Rules like these: 1. Don't kick other divers; 2. Maintain neutral buoyancy so you don't need unnecessary movement of any kind to stay at depth; 3. If you touch another diver, do so with permission or else gently so as not to startle them; 4. Don't touch anything you don't absolutely have to, including a silty bottom, coral, plants, and anything else; 5. Live and let live- I agree with the silliness of prescribing proper hand etiquette- I just like my hands available to hold a camera; communicate, check my gauges, clear my mask, and adjust my bcd. All are better uses than "finning" for control.
DivemasterDennis

 

[TSandM]

One of the things we try to instill in our students (and at the OW level, you don't get too far with this) is situational awareness. Part of that is being aware of what is where your fins are, so you don't, as my OW instructor put it, "kick the c%*& out of the anemones". This also means thinking, if you try to turn, whether you will be kicking the same thing out of your dive buddy As Walter put it well, while swimming, there just isn't a reason to turn like that. I HAVE been involved in situations where several of us were milling around a certain point of interest, everybody looking at a different side or part of it, where it was easy to end up with your fins turned toward another diver. The best solution to this isn't the use of hands, but the use of the brain -- to recognize you are about to do that, and avoid it.

In quite a few of the classes I have taken, if a diver turns his fins toward his buddy, his buddy must then relinquish his mask to the instructor. It doesn't take long before everybody starts getting pretty vigilant about this sort of thing.

 

[Walter]

In quite a few of the classes I have taken, if a diver turns his fins toward his buddy, his buddy must then relinquish his mask to the instructor. It doesn't take long before everybody starts getting pretty vigilant about this sort of thing.

I like this idea.

 

[DevonDiver]

There are other rules, though, and that's what you ad all diver's should embrace. Rules like these: 1. Don't kick other divers; 2. Maintain neutral buoyancy so you don't need unnecessary movement of any kind to stay at depth; 3. If you touch another diver, do so with permission or else gently so as not to startle them; 4. Don't touch anything you don't absolutely have to, including a silty bottom, coral, plants, and anything else; 5. Live and let live- I agree with the silliness of prescribing proper hand etiquette- I just like my hands available to hold a camera; communicate, check my gauges, clear my mask, and adjust my bcd. All are better uses than "finning" for control.
DivemasterDennis

Where are those rules listed?

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Snob's for diving, is a book DM dennis wrote.


Happy Diving

 

[FlyingPig]

There is no rule not to use hands. Do what you want with them.
Sometimes you don't have a choice but to use the hand in the current when you are setting up for a shot...but that's not what we are talking about. It's the handle paddlers who flap around for the entire dive.
With that said, I do stay away from hand paddlers. I don't want to get scratched or pulled.
Some annoying stereotyping are also associated with the hand paddlers.
Most of them are extremely annoying and love to brag about their diving....and half of them end my dive early because they ran out of air. Obviously the annoyance applies to anyone who talk too much and anyone who cut my dive short....but the general observation is that hand paddlers fit that profile very well. It's hard not to associate them.
I am not one to critique people's techniques, but if your technique is affecting my safety and enjoyment, I "secretly" hate you