Description:
Most new divers carry too much weight. They compensate with inflated BCDs, fin harder than necessary, and burn through gas faster than experienced divers on the same dive. The course starts there. You're weighted properly first — usually with two to four pounds less than you've been using — and then you practice neutral buoyancy until it stops feeling effortful. The instructor watches your trim too: how flat you are in the water, where your knees and elbows go, whether your fins disturb the sand below you.
Several drills feature. Hovering at a fixed depth without finning. Hovering inverted or vertical. Swimming through a hoop without touching it. Picking up small objects without using your hands. None of these matter in themselves — they're just isolated skills. What matters is what they build. Better gas consumption (often 20-30% better after the course). Less sediment kicked up. Easier photography. Easier penetration of overhead environments later. Calmer dives, full stop.
Open to PADI (Junior) Open Water Divers aged 10 and up. Two open-water training dives with the instructor focused entirely on you and your buoyancy, not on covering new content. If you're planning to do underwater photography, wreck diving, or any technical course later, this is the right specialty to do first — every other course downstream goes easier once buoyancy stops being a thing you have to think about.
Technical
