Wow am I that bad with air?

[nimoh]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think being correctly weighted was the major problem. Even if you over weight yourself, it just means you will need more air in your BC to compensate your buoyancy. If you had perfect propulsion technique and trim, judging by also the depth of only 15-20feet (not a lot of room for air expansion / compression to mess with buoyancy) there shouldn't be a lot of air wasted there.

You can also try putting air in BC through your mouth instead of the virgin air in the pump. But I digress.

I don't think we can judge a diver's experience by "how long since they certified." Especially with only 20 dives in the span of 5 years. There probably is a problem in terms of trim and propulsion techniques. These take a lot of dives to perfect.

Like other's suggest, go slow, watch your trim, and kick slow with the right techniques. you'll find your sac / rmv to improve quite dramatically. Practice your buoyancy with lung shouldn't need to touch the BC for your dive profile after you get the right amount of air in.

normally overweighting causes bad trim, but yes, it is possible to have too much weight in key places that facilitate proper trim.

However, even with proper trim and buoyancy, it still takes more work to get all that weight moving

 

[SailNaked]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think being correctly weighted was the major problem. Even if you over weight yourself, it just means you will need more air in your BC to compensate your buoyancy. If you had perfect propulsion technique and trim, judging by also the depth of only 15-20feet (not a lot of room for air expansion / compression to mess with buoyancy) there shouldn't be a lot of air wasted there.

You can also try putting air in BC through your mouth instead of the virgin air in the pump. But I digress.

I don't think we can judge a diver's experience by "how long since they certified." Especially with only 20 dives in the span of 5 years. There probably is a problem in terms of trim and propulsion techniques. These take a lot of dives to perfect.

Like other's suggest, go slow, watch your trim, and kick slow with the right techniques. you'll find your sac / rmv to improve quite dramatically. Practice your buoyancy with lung shouldn't need to touch the BC for your dive profile after you get the right amount of air in.

If you are over weighted the weight on your belt fights with the air in your BC and you swim at an angle, not horizontal and efficient.
also extra air in your BC means that for every small change in depth a larger change in bouyancy and more lung adjustment.

Diving experience has nothing to do with trim, I have friends with several hundred dives that still swim upright what you need is someone to show you what it looks like, show you how to place your weights for your body and then to let you know when you are doing it right. you can get it down in 2-3 dives.

Air consumption reduces with confidence and relaxation. focusing too much on breathing will give you a headache from too much CO2.

 

[japan-diver]

Proper weighting is one of the things that will greatly effect your air consumption. Getting the right amount of weight will help you not only control your buoyancy better but allow you to use much less air. After determining the right amount a weight then getting it put in the right place so you trim out nicely will help with your air consumption. Also working on relaxing your breathing and a slow even breathing cycle matching inhalation and exhalation speed looking for a 10-15 second breathing cycle. 5 sec in and 5 sec out.
Do not bother orally inflating your BC while diving to save air, the interruption in your breathing cycle and clearing the reg will use more air than a quick tap on the inflate button on your BC. If you do not have a good mentor to show you how to properly weight yourself then hiring an instructor for a quick one day clinic should get you squared away.

 

[ajcyang]

Ah~ I see! thanks you guys for the clarification
It's just I never had problems with weighting, I was about 6.6lb weight / 3mm wetsuit in salt water with AL80 when I did OW, and hasn't changed since.
However once I corrected my trim and propulsion my sac /rmv increased dramatically.

Though, unlike SnailNaked suggested, I actually had to focus on my breathing a lot... I do this to make sure I am breathing slowly but into the right areas (stomach protruding). Some of these rental gears from my LDS has off IP / cracking probably, I had to actually slow the regulator down physically with my tongue to waste less air haha.

 

[Howie411]

Ah~ I see! thanks you guys for the clarification
It's just I never had problems with weighting, I was about 6.6lb weight / 3mm wetsuit in salt water with AL80 when I did OW, and hasn't changed since.
However once I corrected my trim and propulsion my sac /rmv increased dramatically.

Though, unlike SnailNaked suggested, I actually had to focus on my breathing a lot... I do this to make sure I am breathing slowly but into the right areas (stomach protruding). Some of these rental gears from my LDS has off IP / cracking probably, I had to actually slow the regulator down physically with my tongue to waste less air haha.

Here is my first dive (looks like a SAC of 86.