Learning Frenzel and BTV

[kevtron]

Equalization has always been my problem, so it's also something that I've been working on really hard to prepare for my training trip in Thailand in two weeks (can't wait!). I worked through a lot of the BTV training, as well as Frenzel, and would like to share what I've learned, as well as the difficulties I've encountered.


First lets work with BTV: After going through the guide I've found that I can control my eustachian tubes quite a bit more easily than before. I can easily make them 'pop'. Yet I can't always get them to truly open. I test this by 'popping' them, and then humming. If it's louder it's open. What I've found here is that I can always (read 100%) open up my right side (but that's always been the easier side to clear as well), yet can only get the left side some of the time.

The interesting thing here is that it seems that I can open up both the left side much much easier in the morning. And this lasts for a good part of the day. I tend to clear my ears and play with it all day, but of course remember more during free time (ie. commute to and from work/breaks between classes). So by the time I'm heading home at night it's nearly impossible to open and get the loud humming on the left side. I'm still not sure why.

Onto Frenzel: This one has seemed to show the most progress, and I think will be the most helpful once I get to depth, yet I don't think I'm doing it 100% correctly. First let me point out I never practiced packing with the snorkel as is described in the guide, so I might not be doing it completely correctly. I feel that I can control the muscles pretty well when breathing, though find it quite difficult to know whether or not I'm completely controlling them when trying to clear my ears. I think I'm doing it right, but can't really feel the muscles opening or closing so well.

I've found over the past couple weeks of randomly throughout the day clearing that I think I'm not doing it 100% correctly, and that I am still actually applying lung pressure to clear. The strange thing here is that I'm not only applying lung pressure. I've tried doing Frezel which clears my ears, and then immediately after only using lung pressure (even in shorter bursts instead of one long push as sometimes with Frenzel I have to do the tongue thrusts a couple times) which doesn't work as well.

I've also found that at some points in the day (usually lying in bed before sleep) that it's really difficult to clear using just Frenzel, and that I need to push a bit harder at the same time.

My conclusion here is that I'm doing a bit of a hybrid. ie. I'm keeping the soft palate neutral, but opening up the Epiglottis (at least a bit). Yet I'm pushing air out, while tongue thrusting, so the combined force clears my ears easily.

I'm not 100% sure this is actually what is happening inside, but it seems consistent with my many many random daily/hourly tests.


I certainly intend to keep playing with all this and I'll post again when I actually get in the water in a couple weeks with an update. But I wanted to share this in case anyone else has gone, or will go, through this, to compare notes.

 

[Simos]

I have a feeling that what your doing or what you have experienced is not that uncommon. I've started with BTV too but like you, one of my ears (right) was not always equalising. After some practice it's now fine, you have to experiment a bit with different face/jaw positions to find out what will open the other tube. For me I think what does it is opening my jaw as much as possible while keeping my lips shut.

BTV works great for me up to 10m but after that I had to use my tongue/cheeks to help push the air up the tubes, ending up in some combination of frenzel and BTV (more like assisted BTV). I am still not happy with my equalisation as I lose quite a bit of air doing this so I think the next thing to work on is epiglottis/soft palate control...
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[mud wiggle]

Hey
I'm keen to hear how you're getting on with learning to Frenzel??
I'm also trying to learn how frenzel. I've found that I can equalise fine when upright, hands free even, but as soon as I turn head down I can't equalise. So, I'm trying to teach myself to Frenzel, hoping that it will be more effective than pinch and blow (valsalva) which is how I first learnt to equalise (when I learnt to SCUBA dive).
I'm finding it one of the hardest things to learn since no one can SEE what I'm doing wrong! Duck diving, finning etc are much easier to get tips on how to improve, but not equalising.
I'm currently working through the instructions from the Freediving team of Finland's website: The Frenzel Technique

 

[kevtron]

I actually started testing equalization SCUBA diving a few months ago, and found that I was able to do it upside down... though I wasn't doing Frenzel at that point.

I actually just got back home from a trip down to Thailand where I trained with We Freedive, and the instructions that they have in the AIDA slides are WAY more simple than the long instructions I found online (and linked above). Basically the slide said to plug your nose, and basically make a guttural 'kuh' sound.

You wont actually make much noise of course, as no air will really be escaping, but that's ok. What I found was that before I had been trying too hard to make it happen. Really the movement of your tongue is much smaller than I thought. It's really only the back part of your tongue moving up to push air. Previously I had thought I was supposed to move my whole tongue, kind of cupping air and pushing it back. The other way to know that you're doing it right is that you're adam's apple will move up. What's more interesting, and useful for diving, is that you can continually do this, multiple times a second because what you're moving is actually so small.

It's actually quite difficult to describe here... but I hope this helps. Try making the 'kuh' sound, and see if you can replicate what's happening without actually making the sound. Just moving your tongue up.

My last piece of advice would be to just practice it all day, and at depth if possible. Doing my AIDA ** I actually wasn't able to get past ~13 meters due to equalization, but once I got into the *** I hit 20 no problem. This was a) because I figured out a bit more what I was doing, but primarily b) I'd be exercising my eustachian tubes a lot during the ** and they were much easier to open later. Also after my *** I was just fun snorkeling, and was down to 10 meters without even a thought because the stress was gone and again, because I'd been exercising them. So now that I'm back on dry land with no depth around I'm just doing it whenever I think about it (like now) to keep the muscles in shape.

 

[mud wiggle]

So I've been practicing Frenzel exercises as much as possible during a normal day, trying to get my tounge working as a piston, soft pallet neutral and all that. And yesterday I went out line diving and I managed to EQUALISE while UPSIDEDOWN!! Like a proper freediver! This is the first time I've been able to do this so I'm pretty excited.
I only managed to get to 5m at first, pulling myself down headfirst. And then doing a constant weight I managed to get to 10m before equalising stopped working.

But I still have morre to work on, why am I failing at 10m? I'm losing a lot of air out my mask when I let equalise it. Maybe I'm equalising too often and losing too much air from my lungs? I think my technique might need a bit of work too. It sounds like I need to concentrate on the 'kuh' movement rather than just lifting my whole tounge.

I also find the instructions I have been using explain the individual movements and then how to put it together for one frenzel, but then what??
I would appreciate if anyone can explain how to put it all together during a dive, how equalising mask comes into it etc

 

[pingshui]

Your problem might be that you are not relaxed enough. At least I made the experience that if I failed to equalize I wasn't relaxed and probably had my head in the wrong position looking towards the target.

What helped me to practice Frenzel was fully exhaling while bending down and then coming back up and trying it. Since there is not much air left in your lung you have to use the air in your mouth. If you manage to equalize with your tongue this way, then you frenzeled

 

[kevtron]

I'll agree with pingshui as well. Relaxation is key. And I think that will come with more and more practice. The more you do it, the easier it'll become. I had the same problem, and couldn't get past about 13 meters. Then the next time I went out suddenly the bottom plate at 20 was staring me in the face. Not sure what I was doing different, but I think I was just more relaxed. Oh, and good job getting it upside down!

As for equalizing too often: no you're not. You can just keep pushing up your tongue over and over again, so even in the first 10 meters you can do the maneuver ~20 times. It's better to do it more often than less.

For the mask I would just keep my hand on my nose for equalizing till I felt the mask squeezing, release my fingers for a fraction of a second, push just a little bit of air into it, and it'd be comfortable again. You don't really need to blow hard to get the little bit of air that you need in your mask.

Keep at it!