Is horizontal position really better?

[Blackcrusader]

Why do people feel attacked when they can't hold horizontal trim?
And I believe that people frequently misinterpret proper trim and buoyancy as always having to be horizontal. Trim is individual, as long as you breathe in the middle of the lungs, and don't kick up silt or destroy corals, it's fine. After a lot of diving you should start leveling out either way IMHO.

Looks rather comfortable for this diver in this position.

 

[Dainius]

I am nooby diver. When I jumped in with rented gear I was praying not to float belly up, like a dead fish. That is really uncomfortable trim, I can say.

Step one is horizontal. Staying horizontal is most versatile position. Dive after dive I move towards being neutral on any axis. For me it will take a few years, to achieve something decent. I do not dive that often. My instructor can just stop at any angle he wants. I think that's the ultimate goal for everyone.

 

[MichaelMc]

Dive after dive I move towards being neutral on any axis. For me it will take a few years, to achieve something decent.

Neutral (Balanced) on any axis is having your centers of mass and buoyancy in the same spot, or close. It is not years of practice. It is moving gear or lead so you have a balanced weight distribution. If you rotate when you hold still it is because your center of mass is on that side of your center of volume.

Moving your center of mass closer to your center of volume (by moving the tank or lead) will slow down that rotation, so then you can hold any orientation with small shifts of legs/fins to make minor dynamic adjustments to your center of mass and volume. (And getting weight pockets in new places if that is what it takes. And having lead in something other than big three or four pound blocks.)

Its like tuning a race car's shocks, springs, and suspension (which I know little about), you do not just throw any mix of components on the car. You adjust their strengths and placement so that the car responds smoothly. As a diver, if you just throw the gear and lead anywhere on you, you will likely have an unbalanced weight distribution and holding a desired orientation will be harder. (Unless you "desire" to almost always be near vertical, in which case you are set. )

 

[Wibble]

Looks rather comfortable for this diver in this position.

View attachment 718794

Mildly scary the diver appears to be using a single with no gas resilience in what appears to be a cavern, or worse still a cave. No sign of a line either.

Did they all get out safely?

 

[Wibble]

I am nooby diver. When I jumped in with rented gear I was praying not to float belly up, like a dead fish. That is really uncomfortable trim, I can say.

Step one is horizontal. Staying horizontal is most versatile position. Dive after dive I move towards being neutral on any axis. For me it will take a few years, to achieve something decent. I do not dive that often. My instructor can just stop at any angle he wants. I think that's the ultimate goal for everyone.

Well said.

We all felt like that in the beginning. Think of it like when you learned to ride a bicycle as a child; you may have used stabilisers at first; you'd definitely have struggled; you'd definitely thought it was hard. After a short while you'd mastered it and would fly around on your bike jumping up and down kerbs... OK, and a few skinned knees

Diving's like that. The core skills of buoyancy, trim and finning are difficult to master. However, they're absolutely the skills which every other diving skill relies upon. You need time to perfect this. The good news is you can do this in a (warm) swimming pool. The hardest skill of all is being completely still in the water for minutes: no moving, just using your breath control. Then move up a metre and repeat.

It's actually fun to learn and master a new skill. Sort out the core skills and everything becomes easier.

 

[Dainius]

It is not so simple. You want to have center of mass around your lungs, otherwise you rotate as you breath. Then tank gets lighter towards end of dive.
For me - half year it is drysuit. Wet suit during summer. Partly rented gear during trips.
I have only 25 dives under my neck. It is getting better every time, but it will take 50 more to trim it perfectly.

 

[MichaelMc]

It is not so simple. You want to have center of mass around your lungs, otherwise you rotate as you breath. Then tank gets lighter towards end of dive.
For me - half year it is drysuit. Wet suit during summer. Partly rented gear during trips.
I have only 25 dives under my neck. It is getting better every time, but it will take 50 more to trim it perfectly.

Ok, you have the general idea. Cool. Constantly changing gear and renting gear makes dialing it in harder, and a moving target.

If you are renting BCs, one idea is to bring say four trim pockets with you. Two for mid to upper back on cam bands and two for the shoulders, which you can mount with some shock cord. Then bring say four half kilo weights with you. Do your best guess at weight distribution with the dive shops weights putting your trim weights about mid way on your body. Then if you are off you can move some of them up or down for that specific set of gear.

You may already be doing this. Just some tips. Having say a third of your lead in half kilo blocks and the rest in kilo and 1.5 kilo blocks will let you move a kilo at a time up or down between the three general weight spots of hip, mid back and shoulders. That range should let you dial in for that trip fairly quickly.

And keep notes of gear combos and weight distributions. My dive log is mostly a gear config, weight distribution and resulting balanced or imbalanced log.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Mildly scary the diver appears to be a single with no gas resilience in what appears to be a cavern, or worse still a cave. No sign of a line either.
Did they all get out safely?

I assume at least the photographer did. I believe it's from a Cenotes dive in Mexico so not a cave dive just a swim through.

 

[Wibble]

I assume at least the photographer did. I believe it's from a Cenotes dive in Mexico so not a cave dive just a swim through.

Does look lovely. Have a two month cenote trip on my bucket list.


But to the point... The principle of being horizontal in the water is being in complete control. If, for some reason or other, you have to stop then it's a matter of a backfin and you're stopped. No vertical or horizontal movement, just stopped. Many reasons: your torch failed, someone kicked out the visibility, you need some time to react to something or think...

Whilst finning with the flappy leg thing -- as per that photo -- is really easy, it masks myriad issues such as the buoyancy not being bang on, or your trim being out (centre of force different to the centre of buoyancy). Not to mention sending thrust to the bottom to kick up the silt.

This is why core skills -- buoyancy, trim, finning -- are so inter-related and are an absolute requirement for "advanced" training (that ain't AOW Tonto).

 

[Adobo]

It's funny is that I went through the formal process of reporting this days ago on the theory that no mod has noticed all of this talk. I haven't gotten a reply. Maybe it's just me.

What did you report?

Is this really a bot or is it just a person who posts non-sense? Is the latter a violation of ToS?