Whew. What a ride. I had been thinking about monofins since before I even knew they were a real thing and now that I'm actually getting one I can't believe how complex the world of monofins is.
First off this is my first post on this site but I've been a lurker here for a year or so .I feel like a ghost that people can suddently see and talk to. So... Yay:friday.
With regard to the monofin issue, There is a bit a of a backstory to my decsision.
I have no formal (or informal) training for any kind of diving, but My friends and family say that I've always been a comentable swimmer. Most tellingly I've always used the dolphin kick to swim and have always been a good diver. Everything else except the frog kick just seems weak and unatural to me.
About three years ago I bought a pair of stiff broad cressis made for scuba but considered acceptable for limited free diving. I used them in the ocean for the fist time and it was like a revelation. You can got that powerfully underwater?
After a while though They started to feel to weak. I would dolphin kick with What felt like a medium stroke but I could tell that they were completly folding back to a 90 degree angle both up and down unless I used a very low amplitude kick.
Using the high amplitude kick though I was still able to go down in excess of a minute to a depth of 119 feet on my first (real) free diving attempt. I actually thought was mearly at 80 feet until I later checked a dive map. Actually my dive was probably deeper than that because I didn't go strait down but instead just followed and underwater wall to the bottom at a bout a 30 degree angle, and then back up soaring over a hill at about 70 degrees.
I was actually surprised I did so well on it but the whole time I couldn't escape the mushy sensation of the folding fins. On the way up I gave shallower amplitude thrusts and the inertia from floating upwards made my kicks feel more solid.
To me this all seems like I'm just naturally inclined to need something more substantial and broad on my feet.
I think I understand that hyperfins from leaderfins, starfins, specialfins, and waterway are fairly standard to fin swimmers using monos today but I don't really see many non athlete types using them. I'm a big overweight guy (314lb) and rely on powerfull broad strokes to really shove me through the water. Like a walrus or a grouper, they have broad soft fins and flipers and use broad wavy strokes to swim, completely diffent from a dolphin or a mackeral.
So I'm torn with regard to how stiff my fin should be. If I use learn to use slightly shallower kicks at a slower rate then a softer fin then that could be a good "cruiser" for saving air and keeping a steady pace, as well as being more forgiving for a beginers. But without knowing what a monofin handles like I may be overestimating the fin and end up with someting that still doulbes over when I wan't to give it a good shove.
Like wise the excercise component of this may suffer if I'm going to soft. Even with stiff cressis I really had to work to make my leags feel tired. I had a hard time getting a lactic acid build up unless I purposefully abused myself.
But for all I know even a soft monofins is a bigger challenge than a very hard longfin. If not though then I may need the challenge of a medium fin for moderate practice strokes.
I have overestimated other fins in the past and ended up with pairs that I could hardly bend past halfway back unless I sat on the base but still looked like I was swimming with a pair of drapes on my feet when underwater form other peoples perspective. And they felt corespondingly mushy.
Likewise, I'm absolutly positive that I'll just murder a pair of cheap monofins. No point wasting money buying more than one and then doing it again.
The other issue is the surprisingly murky nature of monofin production and distribution. There's companies that I know lot's of people use but have no clue what their prices are like and ones that people take pictures of when they see them like they were UFO's.
Then theirs the foot issue. I know from other dive sport specialists that Europeans producers have narrower taller foot sockets and American and Brittish producers tend to have more boxy shapes. It's seems like some producers are just wonderfull for some people with a particular kind of foot shape but generate huge ammounts of cramping and rubbing complaints for other people.
Boiling down these issues my list of advice needs can be sumed up as:
1. How much difference in challenge is there for stiffness levels with monofins compaired to bifins? Depending on the manufacturer what kind of firmness would be approriate for a really strong begginer? Are some brands better for softer and others better for firmer? What level of firmness do you use?
2. Where can I find prices on starfins, rocket fins, or tropols. I know some of these are actually custom orders but I don't know If the general cost is comparable to a good pair of learders or more like 800 bucks. Likewise what are the tropol's prices like (and actually, What ever happened to the tropols? I can't find anyone distributing them, but I still see people using seemingly new ones here and there).
3. My feet are moderatly flat and fairly square. Starfins does customs so I won't bite into that issue yet, but what about the standardized brands? I've seen so much disscussion about what foot sizes translate into for different manufacturers, like people ordering a size over the recomendation for leaders (I think). Is that true? What about rocketfins or tropols?
I thank anyone in advance for help and am totally jazzed about this.
Big swimmers swim through the water slim swimmers swim between it. Onitologically were the ones doing it right.:ycard
First off this is my first post on this site but I've been a lurker here for a year or so .I feel like a ghost that people can suddently see and talk to. So... Yay:friday.
With regard to the monofin issue, There is a bit a of a backstory to my decsision.
I have no formal (or informal) training for any kind of diving, but My friends and family say that I've always been a comentable swimmer. Most tellingly I've always used the dolphin kick to swim and have always been a good diver. Everything else except the frog kick just seems weak and unatural to me.
About three years ago I bought a pair of stiff broad cressis made for scuba but considered acceptable for limited free diving. I used them in the ocean for the fist time and it was like a revelation. You can got that powerfully underwater?
After a while though They started to feel to weak. I would dolphin kick with What felt like a medium stroke but I could tell that they were completly folding back to a 90 degree angle both up and down unless I used a very low amplitude kick.
Using the high amplitude kick though I was still able to go down in excess of a minute to a depth of 119 feet on my first (real) free diving attempt. I actually thought was mearly at 80 feet until I later checked a dive map. Actually my dive was probably deeper than that because I didn't go strait down but instead just followed and underwater wall to the bottom at a bout a 30 degree angle, and then back up soaring over a hill at about 70 degrees.
I was actually surprised I did so well on it but the whole time I couldn't escape the mushy sensation of the folding fins. On the way up I gave shallower amplitude thrusts and the inertia from floating upwards made my kicks feel more solid.
To me this all seems like I'm just naturally inclined to need something more substantial and broad on my feet.
I think I understand that hyperfins from leaderfins, starfins, specialfins, and waterway are fairly standard to fin swimmers using monos today but I don't really see many non athlete types using them. I'm a big overweight guy (314lb) and rely on powerfull broad strokes to really shove me through the water. Like a walrus or a grouper, they have broad soft fins and flipers and use broad wavy strokes to swim, completely diffent from a dolphin or a mackeral.
So I'm torn with regard to how stiff my fin should be. If I use learn to use slightly shallower kicks at a slower rate then a softer fin then that could be a good "cruiser" for saving air and keeping a steady pace, as well as being more forgiving for a beginers. But without knowing what a monofin handles like I may be overestimating the fin and end up with someting that still doulbes over when I wan't to give it a good shove.
Like wise the excercise component of this may suffer if I'm going to soft. Even with stiff cressis I really had to work to make my leags feel tired. I had a hard time getting a lactic acid build up unless I purposefully abused myself.
But for all I know even a soft monofins is a bigger challenge than a very hard longfin. If not though then I may need the challenge of a medium fin for moderate practice strokes.
I have overestimated other fins in the past and ended up with pairs that I could hardly bend past halfway back unless I sat on the base but still looked like I was swimming with a pair of drapes on my feet when underwater form other peoples perspective. And they felt corespondingly mushy.
Likewise, I'm absolutly positive that I'll just murder a pair of cheap monofins. No point wasting money buying more than one and then doing it again.
The other issue is the surprisingly murky nature of monofin production and distribution. There's companies that I know lot's of people use but have no clue what their prices are like and ones that people take pictures of when they see them like they were UFO's.
Then theirs the foot issue. I know from other dive sport specialists that Europeans producers have narrower taller foot sockets and American and Brittish producers tend to have more boxy shapes. It's seems like some producers are just wonderfull for some people with a particular kind of foot shape but generate huge ammounts of cramping and rubbing complaints for other people.
Boiling down these issues my list of advice needs can be sumed up as:
1. How much difference in challenge is there for stiffness levels with monofins compaired to bifins? Depending on the manufacturer what kind of firmness would be approriate for a really strong begginer? Are some brands better for softer and others better for firmer? What level of firmness do you use?
2. Where can I find prices on starfins, rocket fins, or tropols. I know some of these are actually custom orders but I don't know If the general cost is comparable to a good pair of learders or more like 800 bucks. Likewise what are the tropol's prices like (and actually, What ever happened to the tropols? I can't find anyone distributing them, but I still see people using seemingly new ones here and there).
3. My feet are moderatly flat and fairly square. Starfins does customs so I won't bite into that issue yet, but what about the standardized brands? I've seen so much disscussion about what foot sizes translate into for different manufacturers, like people ordering a size over the recomendation for leaders (I think). Is that true? What about rocketfins or tropols?
I thank anyone in advance for help and am totally jazzed about this.
Big swimmers swim through the water slim swimmers swim between it. Onitologically were the ones doing it right.:ycard
