BUOYANCY_CONTROL_SKILLS_&

WE are trying to market SKILLS rather than TOYS....

Real Buoyancy Control Ability is a lot like wisdom; it requires time and effort to acquire and then it is almost impossible to give away, much less sell. There are many more divers who are pretending to be elite, than the total of all divers who have exceptional buoyancy skills. For every cave diver in jet fins there are dozens of divers wearing jet fins in order to be mistaken for a tech diver. Some of them put on double tanks, wear single window frameless black masks and expensive canister lights and even flock to sidemount classes, the latest tech diving technique to go viral among a diving population that has never bothered to master buoyancy control skills. Without having that fundamental ability (aka. good buoyancy), all of the other equipment and ambitions have no foundation. All of this is true and the fact that most of the Recreational SCUBA Diving Community fails to recognize or acknowledge it or continues to exist in a state of denial....does not alter that truth.

Most divers think that their equipment will provide them with all that they need and that technology will conquer nature. Some others think all that they need to do to have good buoyancy skills is to "just go dive" and somehow , "like magic", better Dive Skills will be the natural result. The current crop of celebrity divers, within the STATUS QUO, do not support that notion when they are viewed underwater. How a diver actually looks underwater, says more about his status than any amount of c-cards or equipment that he has collected or even how long he has been diving or how many dives he has done.

Some divers hope that the big training agencies with their buoyancy certification courses will direct them to their diving destiny. Most divers who opt for a two dive buoyancy certification course look, underwater, like a person who paid for a useless plastic card.

MENTORS: (qualified mentors) who can demonstrate above average buoyancy skills underwater, are what is needed! Mentors can be your friend or dive buddy or they can be a paid professional but in either case they must be able to focus the attention on skills rather than toys and they must be able to look like the diver that you would like to be when you see them underwater. First and foremost , the goal of the mentor should be to transfer ability to the protégé! For profit or from a spirit of fraternity....the mentor must be able to invest in the other diver even if that pupil might, some day, exceed the ability of the mentor. Experts who do not share in order to preserve their own status....are not mentors.

BuoyancyQuest is not a training agency and we don't award c-cards so even though we are one of the very few places where real attention to "Exceptional Buoyancy Control Skills" can be found, it is still very difficult to convince people that some obscure, two person, operation can get it right or that the big training agencies with their recognizable acronyms could have gotten it so wrong. It is all but impossible for most people to believe that there is more merit in seeking training from someone who, they have never heard of, but who looks good underwater, than there is in staying with the notion that only the big entities have any worth and that only divers who look good on paper or who have many c-cards are worthy.

We are both instructors, with many years of teaching and many students certified, for a big training agency. An agency that is now owned by a hedge fund and run, no doubt, by "bean counters". We see that as a step backward from the "equipment salesmen" who founded that franchise. One of us has a 5 digit number, which means we have been teaching for, at least, about 20 years . We know what the big shots are doing and we know what their priorities are. We saw it first hand for many years. We have eyes too so we know what most divers look like underwater "TODAY" and we see that buoyancy skills are a disgrace....even among most instructors.

Trying to sell buoyancy skills without packaging them as a tech diver course or awarding a plastic card is like being a circus acrobat without a net. Instructors who conduct "mickey mouse" buoyancy courses can talk the talk and do a tap dance to conceal their own shortcomings as long as they award that card. Mentors who promise to share real ability must walk the walk! There is no place to hide if the promise is noticeable improvement!

"WE DON'T NEED TO HIDE!"

WHAT SETS US APART FROM THE OTHERS IS NOT WHAT WE DO....IT'S WHAT WE DON'T DO:

> We never scull with our hands.
> We have no danglies or hose halos.
> We "almost" never flutter kick!
> We never pretend to be more than we are!

WE DON'T TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR....WE TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR!

There is one training agency that boasts that they offer no remedial courses for buoyancy and/or other elements of their diver education program. The message, of course, was not lost on us. We know their point is that they get it right in the first place. We hope so....but we must remain skeptical....after seeing some video of their "head honcho" in sidemount....

We offer:
"ONLY REMEDIAL TRAINING"

Most of the divers who take a cave diving class are instructors.
A lot more than half of these do not have the buoyancy skills that are needed to just show up.
Almost all of them get a card just like they did for every other level of certification.
Because of money! IF the promise is a card the instructor is not likely to turn away a big payday.
It is very likely that these are the same instructors that you have depended upon for your training...but all you really got was a piece of plastic.

A C-CARD that no one will ever ask to see.

MEET US THERE>

You have to see good buoyancy in order to identify your goal....

There are one or two videos, on the internet, of tech divers or at least people who are dressed up like tech divers who are demonstrating hovering, and flat turns, aka “helicopter turns” and a somewhat choppy frog kick. Some of them have the skill level that we are talking about....We aren't the "only" instruction option who can introduce you to above average buoyancy....were just one of the few!

We didn’t dress up like tech divers in order to show you how good we are. We hope to show viewers that we are good enough that we can “keep our promise” to mentor these skills. If you opt to attend our workshop we promise to show you how to close the gap between your skills and our skills. We promise you will look better underwater. You will look more like the diver that you have always wanted to be.

We often use the bicycle riding analogy to compare to fundamental dive skills because part of the problem is that most divers have no idea of the subtleties that define really great buoyancy control. We believe that our buoyancy skills equate with unicycle riders skills. Most bicycle riders can’t begin to imagine what it is like to ride a unicycle but they, can at least, recognize that there is a gap. Because the difference between great buoyancy and mediocre or even abysmal buoyancy skills is less obvious, divers fail to see the difference. In other words, most divers fail to recognize or acknowledge great buoyancy talent in the same manner that they might understand bicycle or unicycle riding skills.

Many divers are like bicycle riders where buoyancy control is concerned and this includes most dive leaders aka. “the instructors”. Too many divers are like tricycle riders or bicycle riders with training wheels and this includes some dive leaders. Poor buoyancy is NOT limited to beginners. Poor buoyancy is like an epidemic and it is contagious and is passed on by ego and bad example. Practicing something “the wrong way” only guarantees that you may, in fact, excel at what you practice! You may perfect the "wrong thing". You may improve upon a myth! Remember that the next time that you hear or read that “IF YOU DIVE MORE” you will master buoyancy control. That is NONSENSE! The available evidence points to the contrary in too many cases. Status and EGO play a much greater role in diving than finesse .

We are like unicycle riders, where buoyancy skills are concerned , and we can show you how we got from where you are to where we are. We can show you what you need to practice and how to practice. We can be your mentor! What we can’t do yet, is show you how to juggle on a unicycle or how to ride one on a high wire.....that is to say that we can’t show you more about buoyancy skills than we know or have mastered ourselves. We can only share with you what we can demonstrate well. Too many leadership level divers are hung up on offering multiple specialties, none of which they have bothered to master. We prefer to "walk the walk". SO using that same criteria, ask yourself who is the diver that you want to imitate? What does the diver that you want to be.......look like? Do you even know? Have you even thought about that? Have you ever been really told that you should think about that? IF the people who introduced you to the sport were mostly salesmen, they probably weren’t selling what they didn’t have. So they sold you what they did have.....more cards and more gear. And they probably could "talk the talk"!

We are good at buoyancy & we can "walk that walk"!

We’ll never tell you we are “the best” because there is no such thing as “good enough”!

We never stop practicing our fundamental skills.

We admit that we are not good at marketing Buoyancy Control Skills__
What we are good at is Mentoring Buoyancy Control Skills!

STILL PHOTOGRAPHY: only shows how good a diver was for a fraction of a second....
VIDEO: validates EXCEPTIONAL FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS or betrays SUBSTANDARD ONES!

NO HANDS MEANS NOT SCULLING

LEARN TO FROG KICK

MEET US IN MEXICO