SCUBA Buoyancy SKILLS

SCUBA Diving FUNDAMENTALS: are the basic skills that are needed in order to operate in an alien world. They are the foundation that supports everything else that a diver will ever pursue or accomplish. Buoyancy Control, underwater propulsion skills (fin kicks) and a horizontal profile with streamlining are as basic to underwater pursuits as walking and running are to terrestrial activities.
Underwater skills do not equal surface swimming skills. This author has seen magnificent surface swimmers who were hopeless divers and has know some truly spectacular divers who had surface swimming skills that were barely sufficient to keep them alive in an emergency.
Equating good swimmers with GOOD SCUBA DIVERS is a profound mistake that has been perpetuated by the "Status Quo" because they are unable to agree upon or recognize a standard for truly exceptional foundation skills. These are the same people, many of whom never bothered to perfect their own fundamental dive skills, who share their less than remarkable buoyancy control talent and the culture of substandard SCUBA Skills continues to prevail and dominate the sport.
EVEN WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS: ability that has not been mastered, cannot be shared with someone else. Awarding plastic recognition is very different from sharing real competence. This is true regardless of the credentials that are held or the reputation that has been established. A reputation that may exist mostly on paper or plastic and that may or may not be deserved. Leadership level divers who can not or do not share talent in order to maintain or protect their own status....are not mentors.

john noftall

WHO REALLY WANTS GOOD BUOYANCY?

Most divers are much more interested in collecting more C-Cards and more fancy dive gear, and even more T-Shirts, than they are in perfecting foundation skills. Like it or NOT, SCUBA Diving is an EGO Sport! "Bragging Rights" and "STATUS" , are more prized than actual diving ability.

Moving pictures are all that is needed in order to evaluate dive skills. Any use of hands for steering and propulsion is too much! Seeing a diver through the face plate of your mask is even better than watching video. Danglies can be seen in still photos. In fact, photos of danglies are a regular feature of dive magazine pictures. Both SCULLING (using the hands) and DANGLIES (hanging consoles, slates, octos and retractors) are all "hallmarks of a substandard diver".

"WE AREN'T AFRAID TO LET YOU SEE WHAT WE LOOK LIKE UNDERWATER!"
Compare how you look underwater to how we look underwater.... you decide, if you think there's a gap!
If there is a gap....ask to meet us in:MEXICO

"WE SELL ONLY SKILLS....if you have nothing to learn....we can't help you!"

AS MOST BUOYANCY CONTROL SKILLS CLINICS

YOU WON'T wear doubles. YOU WON'T get a C-Card. YOU WILL improve your buoyancy. YOU WILL learn to frog kick.

WE WON'T DRESS IN CAVE GEAR TO SHOW YOU HOW....AND YOU WON'T NEED TO DRESS THAT WAY EITHER

www.BuoyancyQuest.com

ABOUT SWIMMING

We agree that swimming is a good thing to know....and not just for divers. This author conducted beginner classes through a local dive center for nine years and certified almost 600 divers of different levels up to divemasters. The training agency required a "swim test before certification" but, because they did not want the test to appear to be a condition for taking the course, they suggested waiting until the end of the confined water (the pool) sessions to apply the swim test. IF the reader has not already guessed, there were no less than five students during that time that failed the swim test on the 5th night of confined water training AFTER performing well on SCUBA in both the shallow and deep ends of the pool. The first thing that this brings to mind is the comfort level that must be required to pull that off. This defies imagination if you are a swimmer. This is followed by the realization that , if a non swimmer could out perform a swimmer on SCUBA, and in some cases this was true, then surface swimming becomes "only" a test of surface skills, without equipment. We agree that there should be a test for minimal surface survival. What we object to is the use of superb swimming skills being substituted, under the moniker "watermanship" that is used as a substitute for a "real standard" for Buoyancy Control Skills [neutral buoyancy skills]. Better still.....we would prefer to see and hear an encouragement to exceed any and all standards for FUNDAMENTAL DIVE SKILLS.

john noftall

MY FIRST DIVE MASK

My first dive mask was an "Adolph Kiefer" signature model from Sears Roebuck. It was triangular in shape, blue in color and included no option for pinching the nose to aid with equalization of the ears. Adolph was a champion swimmer from the 1930s & early 1940s. Nobody in the United States had ever heard of Jacques Cousteau or Mike Nelson [ both were still years* away from their TV impact ] so "a swimmer" was chosen to endorse a dive mask. I'm not suggesting that this was the beginning of substituting swimming skills for dive skills but I think comparisons can be drawn as to why so many current "elite divers" are forgiven their less than spectacular fundamental dive skills "IF" they are good swimmers!

john noftall

*not that many years....it was 1953.