Spent 2 years wrecking my back before a deckhand on a crew boat in the Gulf set me straight

I was always arching my back hard during deep dives, fighting the current like an idiot. One day this old salt on the boat says 'you're a kite, not a warrior' and showed me how to relax my hips and let the water carry some weight. Took me 30 dives in Port Fourchon to unlearn it completely. Anyone else have a bad habit a random crew member fixed for you?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley_grant331mo ago

Gotta disagree hard on this one. Arching my back on deep dives kept me stable when the currents got nasty down there. Tried the whole relaxed hips thing once and nearly got slammed into a piling.

christopher_west11mo ago

Gotta say @wesley_grant33, sounds like you're making this way more dramatic than it is. A piling is solid concrete, not some monster hunting you down because your hips weren't locked. Maybe just pick your spots better instead of acting like a stiff back is the only thing between you and disaster.

barnes.brian1mo ago

Have you ever considered that maybe neither one of you is completely right? It sounds like both the "arch hard" approach and the "go totally loose" method are just two extremes on the same problem. I've seen this pattern a lot in the gulf where guys think they have to pick one rigid style. The real trick is learning when to switch between tension and relaxation based on what the water is doing that second. Currents shift constantly down there, so locking into one body position for a whole dive is asking for trouble no matter which way you bend. Maybe the real bad habit is committing too hard to any single technique instead of staying flexible.