Why no hands?

[tbone1004]

@gr8jab it's typically a sign of general discomfort in the water, which is often times combined with poor buoyancy control and trim. People tend to fidget when uncomfortable and that is typically the sign of what we call "Nemo fins" when training. We have our students hold the inflator and clasp their hands to prevent that. When they get uncomfortable or task loaded they unclasp first, then lose the inflator second and that helps us gauge their mental state

 

[jadairiii]

Most, if not all, of the inefficacy with hand swimming comes with the the "reload" or release of the stroke. Surface swimming, all of the release is out of the water, in the air, even breast stroke (done properly). Underwater, your release is in water so the drag wastes energy and momentum.

A long with everything else everyone said.

 

[tursiops]

There is no fish anywhere that has to take off a bail out bottle, harness, weight belt, unzip a wet suit jacket and pull down a farmer john to take a dump, and then put everything back on, or so I've heard. Give humans some credit.

My point was that arguing we should be able to do something because a fish does it is a poor argument.

 

[The Chairman]

gr8jab it's typically a sign of general discomfort in the water, which is often times combined with poor buoyancy control and trim.

This is it, in a nutshell.
using your muscles generates CO2. CO2 makes you breathe. The fewer muscles you use, the less air you'll use. Stop swatting flies and you'll see your SAC improve.

 

[tursiops]

This seems a bit in the category of scuba myths. A mask on the forehead indicates distress. Flapping the hands indicates discomfort and often poor buoyancy and trim. If only those "indicators" were so reliable....
Challenging the "Rules" of Scuba Diving | Scuba Diving News, Gear, Education | Dive Training Magazine

 

[martincohn]

Get him a camera with a small tray, just big enough that he wants to use both hands. Problem solved.

 

[The Chairman]

If only those "indicators" were so reliable....

Actually, that's a great indicator of someone who is not in control of their diving. I breezed through that article. They were stupid enough to include "touching the bottom" was not a big deal, and I believe it is. However, I didn't see a thing on sculling.

 

[tursiops]

Actually, that's a great indicator of someone who is not in control of their diving. I breezed through that article. They were stupid enough to include "touching the bottom" was not a big deal, and I believe it is. However, I didn't see a thing on sculling.

LOL. Which way do you want it? the article is right (e.g., masks on foreheads indicate distress) or the article is wrong (it is not OK to touch the bottom). Not mentioning sculling, is that in the "it must be OK because it is not in the article" category, or is it in the "it must be bad because otherwide they would have mentioned it" category?

Hey, be careful. Are you going to tell Mike Nelson he is in distress?

My point is.....everybody gets this backwards and doesn't actually think about what they are saying, like "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't care less." If a person is in distress, they might want to put their mask on their forehead; but seeing a mask on a forehead does NOT mean they are in distress!

Flapping hands might mean discomfort, with or without buoyancy/trim issues, but it might also mean they don't know they are doing it, are quite comfortable in the water, and just need some good feedback and suggestions. Wasting energy is a good reason to stop; stopping because your buddy thinks you look dorky is not compelling.

 

[happy-diver]

Never, ever make contact with the bottom.

"In some instances, making contact with the bottom is considered an acceptable practice.
Guilherme Garcia photo

If you haven’t wanted to burn me at the stake by now, here goes. Over the years we have occasionally published photos of divers kneeling on the bottom. This usually results in a flurry of reader letters calling Dive Training out for promoting bad diving practices. Most recently, in the July/August issue, we ran cover photos that feature two divers standing/kneeling on a sandy bottom while on a shark dive at the famous “Tiger Beach” dive site off Grand Bahama Island. I am one of the divers pictured in the photo. I’m not sure where or when the “never touch the bottom” rule got started, but I can assure you there are several instances in which kneeling in the sand is an accepted practice. Tiger Beach is a perfect example. The site is shallow (less than 30 feet [10 m]), there’s usually a moderate current running — and the water is filled with sharks. For these reasons, attempting to stay neutrally buoyant, kicking hard against a current while hovering a few feet off the seafloor and keeping an eye on the sharks would be impractical — and potentially dangerous. Here, kneeling in the sand is the best practice. Dive operators in other parts of the Bahamas, Fiji, Tahiti, the Maldives and other popular dive destinations follow this practice.

Those who teach underwater photography know it is better to position beginning photographers in a sandy patch adjacent to a reef than to have them crashing into the coral while just starting out with a camera. Yes, the sand biome contains marine life, but in most instances it is not as delicate as fragile corals. A diver who carefully settles on a sandy area will have minimum impact on the environment.

In parts of the world where strong currents are common, dive operators instruct divers in the use of “current hooks” as a means of having minimum impact on the environment. A current hook, as its name implies, is a large hook attached to a short length of line with a clip at the other end. The clip attaches to a D-ring on a diver’s BC. Divers learn to hook into an area of coral rubble in order to stay put in a strong current. By using the hook, they avoid grabbing the bottom with their hands.

Here’s one more real-world “contact” scenario: If a diver accidentally ventures too close to the reef, rather than kicking to attempt to move farther away, using a one-finger touch of a dead or algae-covered section of reef to carefully push up and away from the reef is likely to prevent the diver from damaging living coral.

The “look but don’t touch” mantra is ideal, but there are instances when it’s not always practical. What I’m suggesting here is careful and conscientious contact with the bottom (and with dead sections of coral) when conditions warrant it."



Now it's me speaking
Well it actually goes like this and don't worry everyone will be back
for hundreds of pages more of inane never concluded discussion

Gotta love it when some actually open links

A really informative article


Challenging the "Rules" of Scuba Diving | Scuba Diving News, Gear, Education | Dive Training Magazine

The reason most of us are here

 

[tbone1004]

@tursiops when you're teaching it becomes very obvious which are nervous/uncomfortable actions, panic actions, and deliberate actions. We only want deliberate actions while diving.

There is a myriad of reasons why MOF isn't good with the big two being mask defog in the eyes, and masks getting washed off from wave action, but it is also a panic reaction by most divers. We require our students to put it on the back of their head. First failure is to sing I'm a Little Teapot on the pool deck, and they get worse from there. We do that because we want all actions to be deliberate actions to prove comfort in the water, with the added benefit of back of the head being better. Do I always assume a MOF is a panic action? Not in and of itself, but when I see it I do tend to look harder.

Sculling is functionally never a deliberate action. Using your hands to go backwards or turn is usually a deliberate action since it is a conscious effort to create motion, but hand sculling is not. If someones hands are just flapping around, then it is almost always an unconscious action, usually indicating discomfort in the water often induced by task loading. Whether they know better or not, it is still indicative of lack of comfort because they're fidgeting. It's worth talking to them about why it's not good and ways to mitigate the natural tendency for fidgeting *holding inflator with hands clasped, hooking thumbs to D-rings, crossing arms, etc*.

One of the better quotes from The Great Dive Podcast uses with this type of discussion is the 3 C's, comfort, confidence, competence. It's a common concept, but they use it pretty frequently and in this type of discussion. Divers that have any sort of non-deliberate actions are not competent, which means they are not confident, which means they are not comfortable. Helping them to become competent will improve their confidence and ultimately their comfort which means they will be less prone to non-deliberate actions, especially the nervous ones like sculling hands.