Mask breathing

I discovered mask breathing today and I believe it will change my diving significantly from now on. Mask breathing was mentioned here before by Marco and recently Greekdiver. I'm a skeptic of most tricks that improve diving. After the first time Marco mentioned it I gave it a weak attempt for a couple of reasons and it didn't work. First I hardly breathe through my nose at any time, I have a deviated septum which blocks my nasal passages and %95 of my breathing is with my mouth. I suppose this makes breathing only through a snorkel not a big deal for me. The second thing is that I was worried subconsciously that I'll inhale water through my nose at depth, so when I tried it I did a weak inhale, like a sniff, and got nothing out of it.

Today for some reason without much contemplation I tried it again. The difference was that this time I sucked hard which made the mask squeeze into my face, and I got a breath out of it. For the rest of the day, we did a lot of deep stuff, I was getting one breath out of the mask at around 45ft and another at around 15ft. One way of describing the feeling is that it feels like cheating, like it's no longer freediving.

This is what it feels like for me. Say I'm diving to 70ft, I hang there for just a little bit and start to feel uncomfortable, maybe get the hiccups. That's a definite sign to start heading up although ideally you shouldn't wait that long. On the way up I start to feel an urgency to get to the surface, and a relief when finally getting to the surface and taking that breath. Taking a mask breath it works like this; same thing to the point that I feel I should start up, suck some air out of the mask at 45ft and any discomfort and urgency is gone, getting to 15ft another breath just for the hell of it, I get to the surface with no rush and take a calm breath. I feel like I'm ready for another descent sooner. And like a residual affect I'm calmer on the bottom on the next dive knowing that I can breath the air in the mask on the way up yet not counting on it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is a magic fix to go deeper or have more bottom time. As to the actual physiology of it; I don't know how much of that mask air actually gets to the lungs, maybe it just helps push down air that's already close to the lungs, I don't know but I sure felt the difference. I believe that if you dive deep without this trick you will dive even deeper or the same but more comfortably using it. It also didn't feel like an advanced technique. I wonder how many guys that dive deep use this and don't mention it. I believe I just extended my hunting range to 90ft without having changed anything else about my diving technique.

This is an interesting point Luv, where is the balance between low volume and the possibility of getting a breath out of the mask. I use an omer abyss and it seemed about right for this application. With a Technisub micormask, being of much lower volume, you'd spend less air equalizing it but may not be able to get a breath. With that big mask you posted too much air may need to be used to equalize which will offset any advantage of getting air out of it on ascent.

Quote from LOMartin

When you say "I get a breath out of the mask" does this feel like a normal breath you would take on the surface or is it more of just a hint of extra o2.

Neither. It feels like a breath that you'd like to take or about to take but cut short. The immediate sensation is that you didn't get enough or hardly anything at all. But a few seconds later you realize that you did get something out of it.

Quote from greekdiver

If i could pack through my snorkel, i sure as hell would be doing that too.

Please explain this. Are you saying that packing is effective but that you can't use it because you can't pack through a snorkel? Why not?

I can pack, use a swallowing motion to bring down more air right? one time with a snorkel. I use it infrequently to stretch out my lungs or diaphragm (not sure which get's stretched), it allows me to achieve that relaxed feeling I look for before I dive when I can't seem to achieve it with a normal breath up.

Marco, I'd like to say thanks to you for having talked about the mask breathing before. Fortunately there are plenty of things left for us to disagree about

As far as the looking at the bottom.. we talked about it before here. I think it depends on what you're diving. If you have a specific target then yes I agree. But most of our diving is fairly flat reef, we have to spot the fish before we get to the bottom, especially in current. The best adjustment I can make to become streamlined is looking backwards instead of forwards when there's not current.

A proposito tu amigo Manuel es buena gente.

It was yesterday and it was terrible fish wise. But then we bought more ice than usual.. Manuel got the fish of the day, a 2-3lb pargo.

What's a Solie mask?

If and when you get a chance please take a closeup pic of it. Nice avatar.