FUNDAMENTAL SCUBA SKILLS: BUOYANCY CONTROL & TRIM       
SCUBA Diving FUNDAMENTALS
WE HAVE BEEN MENTORING BUOYANCY CONTROL SKILLS & FROG KICK SINCE 1996 ....
but we don't dress up as tech divers to do that......................even though one of us is a CAVE DIVER
SINCE 2006, we've used the name BuoyancyQuest
"No Performance Requirement in SCUBA Diving is more poorly defined or less often achieved than....Buoyancy Control."

MOST DIVERS:
believe that their own Buoyancy SKILLS are "GOOD ENOUGH"!



Don't be like: MOST DIVERS


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
SCUBA FUNDAMENTALS

When we say FUNDAMENTALS we aren't talking about things that you can hold in your hand. YES, we favor HOGARTHIAN techniques, but not when they are employed to promote "make believe" TECH DIVER COURSES. Wearing 50 year old RUBBER FINS will not make you into a better diver. Always diving, or being photographed with,  an expensive canister light with a goodman handle won't either.  Neither will  having big "combat pockets" on your  thermal suit or  always diving a 7 foot long hose when a 5 footer would be plenty long enough in "open water"; which brings us to "open water side mount", a really expensive "dress up and pretend course" that is favored by far too many divers who haven't even begun to address their own buoyancy control skills issues.
john noftall

DO YOU REALLY LOOK AS GOOD UNDERWATER AS YOU LOOK ON PAPER OR PLASTIC?
DO YOU LOOK LIKE THE DIVER THAT ANYONE ELSE WOULD WANT TO BE?
WE BELIEVE: that there's no such thing as Buoyancy Control that's: "GOOD ENOUGH"!
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".
scuba buoyancy control
SCUBA Diving FUNDAMENTALS


THE PHOTO ABOVE:

Is the "only" one you will see of us in cave diving equipment. We want our message to be that good buoyancy control and a good kick are the foundation of everything else in SCUBA Diving.
Exceptional fundamental skills are for "all divers" not just tech divers.

You won't "dress up and pretend"!
YOU WON'T GET A C-CARD!

YOU WILL HAVE BETTER DIVE SKILLS!
ONE OF US IS A CAVE DIVER

But "only" a cave diver. Not a cave instructor and not a famous cave diver with lots of exploration credits or pending patents on "state of the art" scuba gadgets.


A CAVE DIVER who "only" mentors the kind of buoyancy control skills and the kind of kick that you need to have when you show up for your first day of cave diving class.

YES....AN OPEN WATER INSTRUCTOR; but let's not include acronyms and instructor numbers here because selling "only" fundamentals without the carrot on a stick [ dressing it up as tech diving ] is difficult enough without identifying with an agency that is not famous for producing good divers or good instructors. When you see your instructor on the sales floor of your local dive shop you are probably seeing him/her at their best.

MANY OR MOST of the open water instructors who show up for cave diver training can not claim ownership of remarkable buoyancy skills in a single tank set up. Chances are good that you learned about diving from one or more of them.

WE DON'T OFFER PP SKILLS or other "Mickey Mouse" certifications.

WE PROMISE: you will gain buoyancy control skills and a frog kick that will put a smile on your cave instructor's face. IF you have no plans to...."EVER"....be a technical diver, you'll still be nothing less than a diver with "cave diver quality" fundamental dive skills.

SHOULDN'T EVERY DIVER WANT THAT?
DON'T
SCULL WITH YOUR HANDS: sculling is the Hallmark of Substandard Diving
WEAR GLOVES IN WARM WATER: just wear a sign saying your Buoyancy SUCKS!
EXPECT YOUR EQUIPMENT TO MAKE YOU INTO A BETTER DIVER!
HAVE DANGLIES: try to have a silhouette without any light holes in it while diving.
HAVE HOSE HALOS: shorten or re-route your hoses and reduce your girth!
DON'T
IMITATE any instructor who does any of the ABOVE!
LOOSE TANK STRAPS DO OCCUR....but if you don't have any photos without loose or flapping tank straps....
YOU DON'T HAVE ANY STILL PHOTOS OF GOOD DIVERS!

  • 13 DIVES IN A WORLD CLASS DIVE DESTINATION.

  • CAVE DIVER SKILLS WITHOUT THE TECH IMAGES.

  • A MENTOR WHO TEACHES ONLY FUNDAMENTALS.
  • NO CERTIFICATION CARDS & NO  RETAIL SELLING

  • A "FUN" DIVE TRIP WITH A DIVE SKILLS BONUS!

  • CLICK THE PHOTO TO LEARN MORE >>>>>>>>




scuba buoyancy control
"LOOK....NO HANDS!"
( HAS ALWAYS BEEN OUR MOTTO )
BECAUSE:
  SCULLING IS THE SIGNATURE OF POOR BUOYANCY SKILLS
THERE'S NO NEED....to dress up or pretend to be a cave diver in order to learn or demonstrate GOOD  SKILLS!
GOOD Buoyancy Control SKILLS are not just for TECH DIVERS!
scuba buoyancy control
scuba buoyancy control
scuba buoyancy control
scuba buoyancy control
scuba buoyancy control
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: only records how good a diver was for a fraction of a second....VIDEO IS BETTER!
WATCH OUR VIDEOS....CONTACT US: with your questions & comments.   BuoyancyQuest@comcast.net
"STOP SCULLING!"

"LEARN TO FROG KICK!"
"Meet us in MEXICO!"
YOUR CRAWL STROKE is a poor indication of your Fundamental SCUBA Skills!
THE STATUS QUO has failed, for 70 years, to establish a STANDARD for "Neutral  Buoyancy Control SKILLS".
SO surface swimming skills....HAVE BEEN SUBSTITUTED i.e. "watermanship" ~ "POSITIVE BUOYANCY SKILLS"
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LEARNING SCUBA FUNDAMENTALS [ buoyancy control ] "FIRST"....IS LIKE LEARNING TO WALK OR RUN "FIRST"
 "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!"
scuba buoyancy control
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.
[ WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?]
We're offering to mentor "ONLY" the skills that we do best; "Buoyancy Control SKILLS".....
Nothing else in Recreational SCUBA Diving is more "HUMBLE" than that!
TRY NAMING: all of the other Cave Divers who "only" mentor Buoyancy Control....TRY NAMING ONE MORE!



copyright: BuoyancyQuest,LLC. 2012    all rights reserved