Hi guys,
I am trying to crack the handsfree equalizing nut and hoping for a bit of advice/suggestions.
I am able to "open the tubes" at will on dry land and hear my breath and feel the pressure push/pull the tympanic membrane as I breathe. It works from standing up to until an angel slightly below horizontal and I can do it for at least 30 seconds at a time.
However, when in water, there is no way I can make it work, head up or head down--it doesn't matter. If I attempt to "open the tubes" and exhale really hard through the nose, the resistance of the mask will make enough pressure that I can actually make it to the bottom of a 4 m pool without squeezing the nose (head upwards). This is obviously not what I'm looking for since the mask will leak tons of air in the process. Same thing head down, forget it.
I've practiced on land with (different) masks, with or without breath-hold, everything works. The problem only exists when in water. It is a bit frustrating, like winning the lottery but being unable to cash the ticket
My current strategy is to keep practicing this, in water, head up, until I hopefully get an epiphany...
Maybe I should add that I usually do Frenzel and to make that work, I have to actually do the tube opening thing before the throat-piston thing. It it a lot harder for me to equalize head-down than head-up, which limits my dives to somewhere between 15 and 25 meters where I seem to "run out of air". This, I figure, is mostly due to bad technique which I am working on, just thought I would add it.
I tried searching a bit but apart from a couple of comments that water is a whole different ballgame compared to dry land, I didn't find anything that seemed to address this issue.
Suggestions?
I am trying to crack the handsfree equalizing nut and hoping for a bit of advice/suggestions.
I am able to "open the tubes" at will on dry land and hear my breath and feel the pressure push/pull the tympanic membrane as I breathe. It works from standing up to until an angel slightly below horizontal and I can do it for at least 30 seconds at a time.
However, when in water, there is no way I can make it work, head up or head down--it doesn't matter. If I attempt to "open the tubes" and exhale really hard through the nose, the resistance of the mask will make enough pressure that I can actually make it to the bottom of a 4 m pool without squeezing the nose (head upwards). This is obviously not what I'm looking for since the mask will leak tons of air in the process. Same thing head down, forget it.
I've practiced on land with (different) masks, with or without breath-hold, everything works. The problem only exists when in water. It is a bit frustrating, like winning the lottery but being unable to cash the ticket
My current strategy is to keep practicing this, in water, head up, until I hopefully get an epiphany...
Maybe I should add that I usually do Frenzel and to make that work, I have to actually do the tube opening thing before the throat-piston thing. It it a lot harder for me to equalize head-down than head-up, which limits my dives to somewhere between 15 and 25 meters where I seem to "run out of air". This, I figure, is mostly due to bad technique which I am working on, just thought I would add it.
I tried searching a bit but apart from a couple of comments that water is a whole different ballgame compared to dry land, I didn't find anything that seemed to address this issue.
Suggestions?
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