bamafan
Contributor
Oliver you just don't understand. If you had certification allowing you to dive duck ponds or indoor swimming pools you might find this maneuver very helpful. Maybe the ducks like it.
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
As I said, precision and restricted fin movement and also in case you loose a fin or two.why would you ever need to use your hands and more importantly why would you want to?
Not many fish in the sea with only a single fin size on their body. Most use all of those.Your fins are very big, your hands are not.
Often you can't and that does not require any real 'restrictions', could be swarms of small animals or even other divers, restricted visibility, or just not looking hard enough into the gloom behind your shoulders before some backward fin strokes.If you are going forward, you can use a shuffle kick,
Depends. Vegetation for example can stop any backward movement.if you are going backwards, you can scull backwards without moving your fins too far
Most divers are not 'effective' at all backward.and will go backwards much more efficiently,
There are large an small movements.especially if you have as much room laterally as you need to get any propulsion from your arms.
It is more useful when you don't have anything within reach anyway.Alternatively, if you are in a small passage and don't have that lateral movement, you can push yourself backwards from the wall, but that should only be if you get stuck...
In such an exaggerated way, no. more subdued and practical movements, yes, very acceptable.Using the hands in such a manner is not acceptable.
As I said: you can use it to avoid or reduce silting or touching.It will disturb the silt, there is absolutely zero chance that it wouldn't.
You should probably watch more Steve Bogaerts videosNow I truly believe it works well in your indoor diving center or your favorite pond, but believe me that you'd not do well with it in most real life scenarios.
All propulsion and maneuvering efforts needs to direct the water away from the floor.
why?Using the hands can never achieve that,
The exact movement also works nearly touching ground and will not stir up sand or even lighter particles.unless you would do the hand movements above your head which would look even weirder than what you are doing in the video.
Taboos are always a big problem in diving education. Some are useful, this one is ridiculous if you start to think about it.Using your hands would make you fail any of my classes. It's a taboo, you don't use your hands, ever.
Yes it canNo it can't.
You understandably are confusing yourself. I am not the one here who seems slow on the uptakeOk, let me say it again hoping you finally get it.
Who is accepting?Using the hands to move, turn or otherwise maneuver in the water is not acceptable in technical diving.
Calling sidemount a technical diving speciallity is outdated. There are far more rec sidemount divers nowadays than tec.And that's the part of the forum you and I are posting in now.
When was your last dive with diving novices?In recreational diving it may be acceptable, sort of, as it normally has little negative impact in OW on the environment if the hands are used to help to move, turn etc..
I never thought people like Steve Martin laked 'finesse'.And once again, when the diving gets technical and finesse is called for (in all sidemount environments for example), the hands serve no purpose when it comes to maneuvering. That's what the fins or the scooter are for...
Nope, as shown by the Steve Martin vid above.Raz, the arm thing, it just seems to be you.
Gosidemount teaches certain movements (not those from my vid) in the advanced sidemount classes, from what I am told.No agency or instructor I know of condones, advocates or recognizes the use of this.
I am no inventor. I do not make things up, I copy.It really just comes down to you making things up as you think they might be useful in someway.
I do not mention anything on the internet that has not proven itself to be useful, except as a example for bad practice.One of these things may some day, be useful.
Please tell me the type of training and teacherI think it would benefit you greatly if you took recognized training and practised those skills versus creating situations in your head and inventing skills to overcome them.
Yes, one opinionJust my opinion.
I am actually a wee bit past open water classes.The use of hands will be a fail in my Open Water class.
Had a training like that myself just a couple of years ago.They aren't allowed to touch the bottom and they aren't allowed to swim with their hands with only one caveat.
I don't, often would look like mocking them. I do what I personaly can for a sucessfull dive and personally I cannot lift myself from a wheelchair one-handed, as some so called 'handicapped' divers can. In the water many handicaps can become advantages.Adaptive divers who lack the use of their legs and/or feet will obviously be allowed to take the class using only their hands to swim. What's more: I'll join them.
No, he is advocating using the hands for certain slow and precise maneuvers and only to his own students.You don't know what you don't know, and if Boegarts is advocating using hands for propulsion, he needs to have his instructor cards pulled.
For reference: how do you know that?For reference, I can back fin faster barefoot than you could with your arms,
Probably...all the while not disturbing the silt...
Show me going backwards or sideways by exactly 10 or 20cm using your fins.Students will regularly balk at backfinning saying they can't do it and I am at an unfair advantage due to using XXL jet fins that are quite large, but then I remove fins and can go backwards with ease. Nowhere near as fast mind you, but with no issues.
Tell that to the Coelacanth, the eel or the oarfish.Regarding the fish thing, note that fish don't have independent rear fins, so of course they have to use pectorals for direction.
One word for you: SealsWe have independent rear feet and as such have the ability to go forwards and backwards,
Most people think a sideway shuffle to be impossible.rotate on a 0 radius, shuffle sideways, and create positive and negative lift using just our fins requiring no motion from your hands at all.
correctIf you need to use your hands, you don't know how to kick properly.
Doing that 'constantly', rarely get 'trapped' anymore.If you are in heavy vegetation, you won't be able to go backwards regardless because you will get stuck, especially in sidemount where you have a nice gap between your tanks and body that would love to trap vegetation.
How would you even know if you never tried to?I have been technical diving since 2009 and never once have I had to use my hands for propulsion.
No it isn't, but I am probably the only one here who would not careI know that isn't as long as his holiness Steve, and his grace HP,
Me neither, but just because I do not need something I should not be unable to use it to my advantage.but I have been in many environments and have never encountered a need for my hands as propulsion in that manner.
Pull and glide is equally useful in many strong current or limited visibility open water situations.The only time I have had to use my hands is in high flow caves for pull and glide,
As I said, show me minimal movement. A full finstroke will take you a certain minimal distance and slow motion cannot completely avoid movement.or in very narrow restrictions where it is safer to use your hands to pull/push/navigate, but it is never moving water, always holding onto something and navigating that way. I honestly have no more accurate maneuverability with my hands than I do with my fins.