TEACHING BUOYANCY
1. Breathing is
about buoyancy...
the fact that it
keeps you alive is
a side effect.
1. This mean the focus on breathing while diving has to
only be buoyancy. We tell the students that if you breathe to
control buoyancy, you will absolutely get enough oxygen
molecules to stay alive, because you must constantly adjust
your buoyancy due to the movement of the water pushing
you around. It’s simple. If you are going down inadvertently,
breathe in. If you are going up, breathe out. Instructors:
notice the bubbles coming from your students’s mouths. If
you student touches the bottom with one finger and bubbles
are coming out of their mouth at the same time, they are
breathing to stay alive, not breathing to control buoyancy.
2. the breathing
cycle continues
regardless of
whether there
is a regulator in
your mouth.
2. Some recreational divers are taught to blow little bubbles
constantly when the regulator is not in their mouth. But, of
course, this does nothing except advocate bad buoyancy
control. The reason they do this is because, in lieu of
teaching good buoyancy, they teach to prevent a lung overexpansion injury during a loss-of-buoyancy event. If you
teach proper buoyancy in the first place, there is no reason to
blow bubbles all the time, although it is critical for students
to understand never to hold their breath while ascending.
So if the regulator is out of your mouth for any reason, the
breathing cycle continues...if you are going up, breathe out.
If you are going down, put the regulator back in your mouth
and breathe in.
3. breathing for
buoyancy has to
be pro-active, not
reactive.
3. If you are inadvertently ascending and you breathe out,
it is too late. That is reactive buoyancy control. You must
breathe out before you go up. That is pro-active buoyancy
control. The same is true about going down. Once you start
an inadvertent descent, breathing in will only fix it, not prevent it. Be pro-active. Learn to adjust your breathing to control your buoyancy before you inadvertently to up or down.