My First Monofin

[yoda turtle]

I took delivery of my first mono fin Yesterday.
I got it from Water Ways.Its a Freediver Nemo Wing No.2 stiffness.
The foot pockets are a Little bigger than my regular 41 they are 41 to 43
but that works out just fine with a 7mm neoprene sock(fun to get on even more fun to take it off) my wife was amused to walk in from work last night to find me flailing around on the floor trying to work out if the angle between foot pockets and the blade was correct .... for max effectiveness when it came to propulsion .. well at least thats what I told her I was doing . I also ordered a bag with it which is nice and robust.
I'll be trying it out tomorrow in an empty pool(perks of being a swim coach eh!) The cost including the postage was 185 EURO. and it took just 5 days to arrive from the Ukrane !! I let you all Know how I get on with It.
watch this space

[Gwaihir]

nice.. i promise u will have fun,just give it some 5-6 days and you will be hooked. The firs session will maby confuse u and make u feel constricted,but stay in there and u will not go back.

Remember empty pool i s nice, but be shure u have someone watching/spotting you while diving.

[yoda turtle]

Thanks Gwaihir, and dont worry , the pool is empty but the life guards( friends) will be checking out thiere friend with the large wallpaper scraper attached to his feet !!

[ADELENELYNCH]

How's it going Yoda Turtle? I'm hooked!! Tried doing DNF after my DYF and it just wasn't as much fun. :P Definitely going to do it the other way round next time.

[yoda turtle]

Hey there ADELENELYNCH, good to hear you are getting to grips with it,
I've been having fun too mostly playing around with technique like head position or the undulation starting from the shoulders rather than from my head, I feel more relaxed with the mono and I love the sensation of the body wave instead of just Kicking my legs. so yes I am hooked too.....

[ADELENELYNCH]

Hey! Great to hear you're having fun! Same learning curve stuff I'm going through. What finning excercises are you doing?

[yoda turtle]

Hi, I do lots of work with short scuba fins. I found using a small kick float (arms stretched out in front) helpfull as it helps by pulling ever so slightly to the surface , which means you can work your upper back more on the down wards part of the undulation.... breath every 2 to 3 kicks and once it feels familliar enough then discard the float. another one i do is 25m staying close to the bottom of the pool with just enough space so as my knees don't hit the bottom of the pool, this one helps me regulate the undulations so that they all become fairly uniform.
keep your head down and go slowww.
my basic fin training is only about 1000m at the moment but I am starting to build it up now.bulk of the work is done in 200m slots on the surface, alternating between front and back plus about 16 x 25m dynamic, thats it so far apart from land training ...sit ups (all sorts) and lower back work and of course good stretching.
I think its probably important to switch over to doing more of the training in the mono rather than the fins ...after all thats what i will be using out there in the big blue

[ADELENELYNCH]

That's cool! Surface finning with the board sounds like a good idea. I do 25m dynamic laps at the moment to focus on technique and it's improving gradually. Feel a lot more comfortable now. Like you, I use to train with my scuba short fins and when I switched to monos, it felt weird and i was tempted to switch back.

Read on another thread you'll be heading to Dahab. Sweeeeeeeeeeet.......... Hope you have great fun in the water with your monos.

[LachlanWA]

I think I don't use my monofin enough. I was in the pool today and I am finally starting to get the knack of using it. With a really slow breathup before I get my first contraction just before my first turn at 50m. I've never done a max attempt, but its fun to feel my technique improving over time. My CNF technique could use a good swim coach, I still look a bit constipated; I need to get much smoother.

[yoda turtle]

Yeah off to Dahab..Ha Ha. Have been training hard so I am in the best shape I can be, got three weeks to go
The mono is so different from the scuba fins that I find training with them now wierd too ! have you seen the Dave Mullins video ( on your Problem with mono finning thread) he is a kick and glide man.... Really good to watch how when he stops the kick how he leaves the fin trail quite high behind him . Don't get any foot cramp any moore either.

[ADELENELYNCH]

Just got back from Sipadan Malaysia with two freediving friends where we had three days doing scuba and one day freediving. First time taking my monofin into the ocean too. Was great fun although staying at the surface was tough as I'm not use to it. I'll have to practice staying afloat with my monos. Not use to have my feet stuck together at the surface coz usually I do lazy big frog kicks to stay afloat. We dove to 28m where the bottom was. Great viz so we could see down to 20m or so.

Yoda Turtle, you off to Dahab yet?

Lachlan, hi again! Made any trips since Koh Tao?
My CNF is cr*p! I just don't "glide" when I'm not kicking or pulling. Not sure why. My technique sure needs a lot of improvement.

[yoda turtle]

Hi there, wow you trip sounds awsome, yeah I know what you mean about being at the surface ...... I was out in a lake this weekend with my mono and it was not easy holding still on the surface !! couldn't do any freediving as vis was nil so spent 40 mins dolphining the entire length of the lake while my wife did her open water triathlon swim.... I kept getting ahead of her and she is a good swimmer!!!
18 Days to go till we leave for Dahab and its all I can think about... well almost.

[ADELENELYNCH]

Yeah, the trip was awesome. Not often we get conditions like that to dive in. Not in Singapore definitely. Have a great trip in Dahab and start counting down!

[salibandy]

Oh Dahab... Go there soon, this padawan will. Haha. Please post a trip report when you get back! And pictures!

[yoda turtle]

Originally Posted by salibandy

Oh Dahab... Go there soon, this padawan will. Haha. Please post a trip report when you get back! And pictures!

Refuse I can not......