TOUGH TALK ABOUT BuoyancyQuest

"THERE'S NO SCULLING IN SCUBA!"

"No Performance Requirement in SCUBA Diving is more poorly defined or less often achieved than....Buoyancy Control!"

"TOUGH TALK!"

[ why you may think that we have AN ATTITUDE ]

Altogether (the two of us) have about 30 years of diving and/or instructing experience. We have participated in standardized agency dive education and continuing education situations and have certified about 600 divers, between us, of beginner status as well as more advanced training levels. We spent 9 years in a local dive shop atmosphere. It was a factory operation....but a better than average one with a staff attitude that was geared toward "actually creating divers" as well as loyal customers.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, and when we put some distance between those times and present times and we add more personal experience, some of which was gained within the scope of technical diving, we can see or think of ways to improve on how we used to do things. While the way we did things then may very well have been better than the way most of the leadership corps currently does things, we are still not satisfied with how much better we could have done...."had we known then what we know now." We did it their way....now we are determined to do it our way.

An overwhelming number of dive educators traffic in substandard advice about Fundamental SCUBA Skills and when they are not touting their, seemingly endless, indexed lists for "how to realize better buoyancy", they demonstrate their own pitiful underwater ability. Why? Because "almost no one" cares! It's a fact....and you do not need to take our word for it. Look around the next time you are underwater....anywhere. If you don't see what we mean, maybe it is because you have never seen really good buoyancy control. It is, truly, rare! It is like the difference between being able to ride a bicycle and being able to ride a unicycle, only everyone can understand that difference. The difference between exceptional buoyancy and mediocre or substandard buoyancy is not widely understood.

John became a "FULL CAVE" certified diver in the mid 1990s and had the opportunity to measure the buoyancy skills that he had acquired "BEFORE" becoming either a technical diver or an instructor, to the buoyancy skills that others brought to both their cave class and their instructor training programs. John had recognized the buoyancy skills that he wanted, early on, when he was able to compare two Cozumel Dive Guides who, for lack of a better term, dove with finesse, to the clumsy substandard skills that he had witnessed, from the instructional staff, during his open water class in the United States. He had simply decided that he would rather look like these Mexicans. After a while he did! By the time he decided to progress to leadership diving, he was already well aware that, while he wasn't always the most knowledgeable or experienced diver present, he was more often than not, the diver with the best buoyancy skills. The up side, after he completed instructor training, was that students began to imitate him and he began to get feedback from colleagues and students who recognized him as the standard that they wanted for themselves. The down side was that many cave divers put him in a much higher experience category after seeing his buoyancy skills. While it may be flattering to be on the receiving end of such praise, it is more important to see that there is a lesson, in this, for all of us, because inexperienced technical divers and technical diving candidates "ALMOST NEVER" demonstrate buoyancy skills that are superior to divers who enjoy a more prominent status. At the very least, an instructor, of social security age, that no one has ever heard of, who has that level of fundamental dive skills, is unusual. At the very worst it is an indictment of the sport of SCUBA, because such an individual should, by all accounts, be lost in the shadow of legions of dive professionals who exhibit magnificent buoyancy control skills. The reality is that SCUBA Diving has much more than its' share of celebrity and elite divers who managed to create a name for themselves without ever perfecting foundation skills to support their reputation. The tragedy is that this goes unnoticed and instead of being remedied.....it is allowed to be copied by novice divers.

Many might say, that we, at BuoyancyQuest, are divers, who because of our status, should not be able to claim to be experts on Buoyancy Control SKILLS. Experts on Frog Kick & Buoyancy is exactly who we are. Like it or not, it is not our fault that "almost" everyone else has failed to visit "first base" . We perfected our dive fundamentals FIRST, while "almost" everyone else has not perfected them at all. We saw what was missing and rather than trying to progress to "COURSE DIRECTOR" or "CAVE INSTRUCTOR" we decided, instead to become mentors and to offer what we do best, which is: FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS.

"WHAT A CONCEPT!"

Chances are you haven't liked anything that you have read so far but we aren't making this stuff up. Frog Kick & Buoyancy Control SKILLS are what we mentor. These are the skills that we know best because they are the skills that we do best. We know good or exceptional fundamental skills when we see them. We also know when we don't see them and that is more often than we do see them. We are on a par with some very well known tech divers, who have allowed video of their skills, to appear on the internet, as have we.
Who is the best? We don't know but even if we do not concede that "they are better" or claim that we are better, it doesn't matter. In this context, who is "a little bit better", doesn't matter. What matters is the gap between our collective skill ability (the level of proficincy that we share with them) and the skill level of too many others....some of whom are celebrities. What does matter is that we are willing to share what we know with others! We offer to be mentors! That is exactly what we are selling! And we promise you that it is unlikely that any of the famous divers who have skills on a par with ours will be "your mentor" any time soon. They are either too busy teaching "high end" technical diving or they are keeping their talent, to themselves, in order to secure their personal status.

What you will find is too many 2 dive buoyancy certification classes that amount to nothing more than buying a plastic card. They are taught by instructors who, although they may be certified by this or that agency to teach buoyancy skills, are not qualified to do so. Why? Because it is not possible to share with others....a skill that has not been mastered by the teacher. Studying the night before class to stay a few steps ahead of the pupils doesn't cut it when the subject is better basic dive skills.

"No performance requirement in SCUBA Diving is more poorly defined or less often achieved than...Buoyancy Control." We believe that to be true. It is a quote (original to us) that appears beneath the banner on nearly every page of our website.

We know how many phonies there are in Recreational Diving. We know what an "up hill battle" it is to market remedial buoyancy control to an audience who thinks that surely "their" buoyancy control skills are "GOOD ENOUGH"!

Perhaps it seems that we really do have a "pull no punches & take no prisoners attitude".

...because WE DO!
FOR THE RECORD: there's no such thing as Buoyancy Control SKILLS that are....

"GOOD ENOUGH!" .

STILL PHOTOS only capture how good a diver was for a fraction of a second....VIDEO IS BETTER!

WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?

WE TRY TO LIMIT THE CHEST THUMPING....to the few "humble skills" that we worked hard at and that we do best....and that we offer to share with you.
WE EXIST....because we've seen the buoyancy skills that too many of you bring to your dive travel destinations and that more than a few of you, "mostly instructors", bring to the first day of your cave diving course in double tanks and tech gear.

WE MENTOR "ONLY" BUOYANCY CONTROL SKILLS....BECAUSE WE CAN!

WE INVITE YOU: to view our videos and to comment or ask questions.... BuoyancyQuest@comcast.net

"STOP SCULLING!"

"LEARN TO FROG KICK"

"IMPROVE YOUR SCUBA!"

WE AREN'T PRETENDING TO BE MORE THAN WE ARE!

DON'T GET CAUGHT PRETENDING TO BE MORE OF A DIVER THAN YOU ARE!

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