How long to master buoyancy?

[MXGratefulDiver]

Look at the bold-ed portions of the OP; buoyancy control is first about breathing control. If one always takes a "very deep breath" one will never have buoyancy control. The proper breathing pattern for optimal buoyancy control is to breath in when you need to breath in and breath out when you need to breath out; breathing control is what fin pivots and hovering are about.

Our lungs only process a max of 6% of the oxygen in a normal breath; as long as fresh air makes contact with the lung membrane the blood leaves the lung area fully oxygenated. Taking a larger breath does not significantly increase the blood oxygenation. The most important part of the typical recreational diver's breath cycle is the exhalation; getting the carbon dioxide out.

My questions to the OP, before www crystal ball prognostications, are;

What is your height and fitness level?
What are the reasons your normal above water breathing is taking very deep slow breaths and then long slow exhales?

Well, perhaps ... everyone's physiology is different, retaining air in lungs will affect buoyancy, etc. ... but unless she's got lungs like a linebacker, or had styrofoam hip replacements, or some other unusual physical situation that she hasn't told us about, 16 lbs in a 3 mm shorty and in fresh water does seem to be an awful lot of lead.

I think it's at least worth considering that it might be more than she needs ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[fnfalman]

For those of you who've been diving for a while now, how many dives did you do before you felt 100% in control of your buoyancy?

I finished my pool dives today. At one point during the class, we (three students) were kneeling on the bottom of the pool getting ready to perform a skill. Our instructor came swooping down from above, went in between two of us without touching either of us (and we were only about three feet apart) and came to a halt about four inches from the bottom of the pool, turning himself to face us without touching the bottom or sides and then just hovered in front of us. I was completely awestruck

I want to be able to do that

I know I'm probably overweighted. I was wearing 16 pounds in freshwater (I weigh about 160 and was wearing a 3mm shorty) and if I let all the air out of my BC I sank like a stone. However, with less weight I couldn't stay on the bottom. I was awful at doing the fin pivot and trying to hover. My normal above water breathing is taking very deep slow breaths and then long slow exhales. Maybe I should breathe a little shallower under water but it feels very unnatural. When I was trying to hover, I would put a little air in my BC to get me off the bottom but then when I took my usual deep breath I'd go hurtling towards the surface and letting air back out of the BC was the only way to stop the ascent. I know I'm new but I'm worried that I'll just never "get it". :depressed:

Mastering something, anything, takes a while. But you can be competent in a fairly quick time frame if you were to have a decent mentor.

I can get a person to be competent enough to keep at the same depth while swimming ever slowly within maybe a couple of hours of pool time.

However, doing what your instructor did would take quite a few dives under your belt.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For those of you who've been diving for a while now, how many dives did you do before you felt 100% in control of your buoyancy?

I finished my pool dives today. At one point during the class, we (three students) were kneeling on the bottom of the pool getting ready to perform a skill. Our instructor came swooping down from above, went in between two of us without touching either of us (and we were only about three feet apart) and came to a halt about four inches from the bottom of the pool, turning himself to face us without touching the bottom or sides and then just hovered in front of us. I was completely awestruck

I want to be able to do that

I know I'm probably overweighted. I was wearing 16 pounds in freshwater (I weigh about 160 and was wearing a 3mm shorty) and if I let all the air out of my BC I sank like a stone. However, with less weight I couldn't stay on the bottom. I was awful at doing the fin pivot and trying to hover. My normal above water breathing is taking very deep slow breaths and then long slow exhales. Maybe I should breathe a little shallower under water but it feels very unnatural. When I was trying to hover, I would put a little air in my BC to get me off the bottom but then when I took my usual deep breath I'd go hurtling towards the surface and letting air back out of the BC was the only way to stop the ascent. I know I'm new but I'm worried that I'll just never "get it". :depressed:

Karen ... let me address your concerns.

First off ... stop worrying. It's the rare person who "gets" buoyancy control fresh outta OW ... and then it's usually because they have an instructor who's willing to spend some extra time working with them. You'll get better with practice ... it comes from learning how to relax.

As for breathing ... do what feels natural. Long, slow breathing is preferable in scuba diving because it helps you displace the CO2 from your lungs more effectively ... but it's like any other skill in that you get better at it with practice. For now you have enough to worry about, and shouldn't be spending your mental bandwidth focusing on your breathing ... focus instead on being comfortable. Once you learn how to relax, everything else starts falling into place and the breathing will pretty much take care of itself.

If you sank like a stone, then you probably don't need all that lead ... the hardest place to sink is near the surface. As you go deeper, your suit compresses and becomes less buoyant. What's common for a lot of new divers is that anxiety tends to cause you to retain some air in your lungs ... in other words, you're keeping a bit more air in your "internal BCD" than needed, and that will tend to make you floaty.

To answer your question "how long does it take" ... well, that really depends on you. Some people master the basics of buoyancy control rather quickly ... others take a long time. When I was certified, my instructor counselled us to "give it 50 dives". I found that to be a reasonable rule of thumb, although some folks do get it more quickly than that.

The best advice I can give you is to quit worrying about it ... worry tends to make problems more complicated than they have to be. Focus on the things your instructor is asking you to do. And most of all, relax and remember why you're doing this at all. Have fun. Make buoyancy control a game instead of a chore ... play with it every chance you get. At some point it's going to just "feel" right ... and then you'll be on your way.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DeltaWardog]

I had the same problem that you are relating - large lung capacity and a penchant for filling my lungs to full capacity with each breath. I had to undo that subconscious habit to even start approaching buoyancy control. Also like you, when I did my pool lessons I was heading for the surface every time I took a breath, so I know where you're coming from.

I have learned, over my first 50 OW dives, to take shallower breaths than my body wants to naturally take, and control my position in the water with how much air I put in my lungs. I rarely have to use my BC inflator on OW dives anymore once I get to depth and compensate for suit compression. This will also come to you with time and experience.

I'd recommend taking some time for the Peak Performance Buoyancy class (preferably in open water and not a pool). I took that early in my diving career and it was during that class that I really started to "get it". If you're not interested in the taking the class, maybe go on a shore dive where your only intention is to fly around the sandy bottom as close as you can without hitting it. I enjoy playing that game myself in between reefs when I'm diving in Cozumel.

Just a few free suggestions, perhaps worth as much as they cost.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I think it's at least worth considering that it might be more than she needs ...

However, with less weight I couldn't stay on the bottom. I was awful at doing the fin pivot and trying to hover. My normal above water breathing is taking very deep slow breaths and then long slow exhales. Maybe I should breathe a little shallower under water but it feels very unnatural. When I was trying to hover, I would put a little air in my BC to get me off the bottom but then when I took my usual deep breath I'd go hurtling towards the surface and letting air back out of the BC was the only way to stop the ascent.

Patience is often a key. For some it will take a while to be comfortable breathing underwater. Have patience and strive to relax underwater. Tense body parts require more oxygen than relaxed body parts, even a tense brain. Often, when anxious about breathing underwater, there is not a full exhalation going on. Net buoyancy is higher when you "only" cycle from half full lungs to nearly full lungs, and the oxygen content in the lungs is less than normal because some of the used up lung air never gets out.

You have to get all the bad air out to get a real breath of good air in.

Most people do not take "very deep slow inhalations and then long slow exhalations" for their "normal breathing pattern. IMHO, most people take about a 2/3 lung full and then do not exhale completely, when breathing normally. For the typical person, I say breath in underwater however much your brain wants to breath in, but control your breathing by concentrating on a full exhalation, lasting about twice as long as the inhalation.

Patience is often the key. First attempts at hover are supposed to happen after successful fin pivots. If you were awful at fin pivots, It sounds likely your instructor should have worked with you on fin pivots more before attempting hover.

The way I was taught to teach these two skills is to; add "a little bit of air" to the BC and then breath a couple cycles, add a "little more air" if needed and then breath a couple cycles, repeat as necessary until lifting "a little" off the bottom on the inhales (breathing "normally" the whole time). Patience is key.

Now, the fin pivot is about learning our first buoyancy control by learning breathing control; breathing a "little more" than a normal breath will lift you a "little more" off the bottom, and completely breathing out "rapidly" can easily arrest the lift and allow the body to sink, without venting the BC.

"Quickly" breathing in can easily arrest the sinking and turn the momentum around to lift again. Rapidly and quickly are not the goals here, but they are common when first getting the hang of it; lung exhalation is way quicker at buoyancy change than BC filling/venting.

Feeling the change in momentum is key; when you first feel the body rising (or sinking) is when the exhale (or inhale) needs to happen, for it to be a smooth controlled oscillation. Once you have the feel of the momentum change and the timing necessary to make "normal-ish breaths" while rising and falling in a controlled fashion, then you are ready for the hover. By controlled I really mean you can both make small rise/falls by making small volume inhales/exhales and make larger rise/falls by making larger inhales/exhales.

Now, the hover is identical to the fin pivot up to where you start lifting off the bottom a "little bit." Taking a "little bigger" than normal breath will lift you a "little higher" off the bottom, and the air in the BC expands "a little more" to give "a little more" lift as well. So we counteract this extra lift by exhaling as much and as fast as necessary to arrest the lift. When the lift changes to sink we need to inhale as fast and as much as necessary to keep from hitting the bottom. If we can not keep from hitting the bottom with a quick full inhalation, we may need "a little" more air in the BC. If we can not keep from bobbing to the surface with a quick full exhalation, we may need "a little' less air in the BC.

If one really wants to hover with less than 2 inch oscillation, in an 8 ft deep pool, the breaths are not normal; the breaths are "as necessary" to be in significant control of the momentum shifts.

Of course, that's just the static typed version, spontaneously spewed just now and based on my own personal training and experience, of concepts that are hard to elucidate in a static typed way. It's a lot easier with face to face demonstration and witty sarcasm.

 

[cocoajoe]

Here's another thing I learned the hard way: When you're over weighted, that air you squirted into your BC to compensate for the lead? It doesn't go away with one pull of the cord.

Vent early and often or up you go. Uncontrolled ascents are scary even from shallow depths.

 

[diver 85]

It varies from diver to diver-----some ?~ 20 dives, others ?a couple hundred...the real answer lies somewhere in between I would imagine.....

 

[LenC]

Well, it seems Carnac the Magnificent has been multiply reincarnated???

I want to applaud TSandM, Jim Lapenta, Saudi-Diver, vinegarbiscuit, danvolker, Team Casa, pjhansman and cocoajoe for not jumping to crystal ball conclusions, from a few typed words, that TexasKaren68 was overweighted.

The OP weighs 160 lbs and boulderjohn weighs 210 lbs. That's less than half the info needed for web divination. boulderjohn is male and HWP if his profile pic is recent (over 6' tall?); for all we know TexasKaren68 is only 5' tall (probably not) and has more than the "average" subcutaneous layer common to her gender (possible?).

Look at the bold-ed portions of the OP; buoyancy control is first about breathing control. If one always takes a "very deep breath" one will never have buoyancy control. The proper breathing pattern for optimal buoyancy control is to breath in when you need to breath in and breath out when you need to breath out; breathing control is what fin pivots and hovering are about.

Our lungs only process a max of 6% of the oxygen in a normal breath; as long as fresh air makes contact with the lung membrane the blood leaves the lung area fully oxygenated. Taking a larger breath does not significantly increase the blood oxygenation. The most important part of the typical recreational diver's breath cycle is the exhalation; getting the carbon dioxide out.

My questions to the OP, before www crystal ball prognostications, are;

What is your height and fitness level?
What are the reasons your normal above water breathing is taking very deep slow breaths and then long slow exhales?

My statement that she was overweighted did not come from her statement about her physical makeup and the amount of weight she was wearing. It came from her statement that she sank like a stone. You don't sink like a stone unless you are overweighted. Perhaps before you get on your high horse you might want to read what you are responding to.

Breathing is not the first thing in bouyancy. It affects fine control, but that is meaningless unless the diver is properly weighted. Weighting is the first and foremost thing and the only thing when it comes to new divers.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I too am a newbie, and I believe in Constant And Never Ending Improvement. I started at 16 lbs in the pool and after 7 whole dives am down to 14. I am learning to control my breathing to help with my buoancy. I have relaxed a ton since beginning (had a rough start in the pool) and am trying to find as much time and $$ as i can to get wet and improve my skills.

A very common practice on ScubaBoard is to pass judgment without hearing all the evidence, especially with regards to placing blame on dive instructors or dive operators.

AFAIUI, the OP is only done with the pool portion of her OW course. Do we just assume the instructor will not be able to do a little more "shallow" practice, perhaps with different exposure protection and different weighting, before even making OW dive #1 tour where no skills, other than just those necessary to make the dive, are on the agenda. And then I guess we just assume there will also be no chance for additional "shallow" practice of things that need additional practice, before heading to 15-20 ffw for the OW dive #2 skills, that do not include the fin pivot, but are supposedly followed by "underwater exploration and buoyancy control." Evidently we continue assuming there will still be no chance for additional shallow practice of things that need practice before heading down for the OW dive #3 skills that finally do include fin pivot but do not include hover, and are again supposed to be followed by "underwater exploration and buoyancy control." Still assuming there will be no additional shallow practice of things that need practice before heading down for the OW dive #4 skills, that finally include hover.

The Op is ahead of the curve with regards to most OW students, as she has found SB. Sometimes helpful SB members suggest a beginner who is less than confident after pool sessions ask her instructor for additional pool time. Then the instructor might say "we only had the pool for so long and I will practice with you shallow at the OW location, before we go deeper." Or the instructor might say "when can we get in the pool, or maybe you can get in the pool with another instructor."

I have had a number of students in shorty wet suits, of both genders, who could not have made it through the first pool session with just 16 lbs of weight.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

My statement that she was overweighted did not come from her statement about her physical makeup and the amount of weight she was wearing. It came from her statement that she sank like a stone. You don't sink like a stone unless you are overweighted. Perhaps before you get on your high horse you might want to read what you are responding to.

Breathing is not the first thing in bouyancy. It affects fine control, but that is meaningless unless the diver is properly weighted. Weighting is the first and foremost thing and the only thing when it comes to new divers.

In Your Opinion!

I will continue to have my own opinion, both of beginning divers and of your absolute typing style.

If a new diver does manage to "hear" the instructor say "exhale and you will sink" and actually does fully exhale from nearly full lungs, that new diver might describe descending with "just the necessary weight for CW session #1" as sinking like a rock. Without seeing it in person how do we really know just how fast she really sank?

The OP also typed...

However, with less weight I couldn't stay on the bottom.

I personally feel that if the tank was full and the BC was empty, a student at rest should be able to stay on the bottom, no matter whether the tone of SB approves of being on the bottom or not.

It kind of seems like 16 lbs was necessary, meaning for those pool sessions it is hard to conclude and state as fact that she had too much weight.