How's Your Finning?

[PlatypusMan]

Originally Posted by JugglingMonkeys

but i need to try frog kicking - that seems to be popular!

Frog kicking is fairly easy to do.

First, sneak up on a frog that's facing away from you...

[JugglingMonkeys]

Great tip!


thanks very much.

[rubberduck]

I'd rate my finning as poor to average. Something I'd definately like to improve.

[brutus_scuba]

My Frogkick is the strongest part of my diving. I love the frog kick in my opinion it should be used 99.9% of the time in Scuba. It works great in quarries where the silt bottom gets kicked up by the flutter kick. It works great in overhead situations it works great in open water. It keeps the feet up a little over coral. It is hands down the least intrusive kick on the underwater enviroment.

[cutter77]

Mostly flutter, unless close to reef ---- then it's frog.

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by in_cavediver

I'd say my finning is lazy. The least effort for the most reward.

It took Advanced Nitrox and Cave training to learn them and really be able to do them but boy has it made OW dives nice. When I dm'd, I would do one frog kick (in drysuit/doubles) to a students 5-8 flutter kicks. AOW students got to a 1:3 ratio. Of course, many of them soon figured out what I was doing and wanted to learn themselves.

That said, best kicks to know:

1) Frog kick - teach it at OW
2) Flutter kick - teach it at OW
3) Modified versions of both - teach in OW

4) Helicopter turns - Intro OW, practice AOW
5) Back kicks/sculls - Intro OW, practice/learn AOW

There are others but these are the biggies. If more divers knew or were at least introduced to them, there'd be happier divers. (IE, they choose thier most comfortable kick)

I agree, overall!

I don't know that OW students are going to be quite ready for heli and back kicks, however. I think showing the frog kick in OW would be a great start, and the rest should definitely be taught in AOW. The biggest issue with the modified versions is they really only work well when you have proper trim... and it's a rare OW class that turns out divers who swim in proper trim.

Teaching the frog kick, however, would go a long way towards encouraging proper trim, even outside of class, since that's one kick that definitely rewards good trim: great for positive feedback.

Of course, showing off the efficiency of frog kicks might lead to a rather dramatic loss of sales of expensive split fins for the dive shop, so I don't know that we'll ever see that...

[Capt Hook]

Not the best but i drift dive so whats it really matter?