Neutral Buoyancy- Yes! It can be done!

In the September / October 2016 issue of  Dive Training magazine Barry and Ruth Guimbellot addressed this very topic! 
They described a skill known as the Fin Pivot Skill to master Neutral Buoyancy. This skill is described as one of the key ways to help the novice diver to become comfortable when neutral in the water, and it can be easily practiced in the pool!
The Fin Pivot Skill involves using your lungs to control your buoyancy when at depth. Here are the basic steps:

• Don your scuba gear, including weights.
• Fully deflate your buoyancy compensator (BC) and lie flat on the bottom with your power inflator in your left hand and a finger on both the inflate and the deflate buttons.  
• Stretch both hands in front of you and depress the inflator button slightly, just enough to add a SHORT BURST of air into the BC. DO NOT HOLD DOWN THE BUTTON as this could cause you to add too much air!
• Breathe normally, and notice how each breath affects your buonyancy. You should rise slightly with each inhalation and sink with each exhalation. Your goal is to keep your fins on the bottom while your upper body rises and falls as you inhale and exhale.
• If the first short burst does not raise your upper torso off the floor, then gently add another short burst of air and continue doing so until you feel your upper body start to rise. 
• If you have to add several bursts of air to your BC to keep your torso off the bottom, you might be overweighted. Try reducing the amount of weight you are wearing!

This is the Fin Pivot! Mastery of this skill will help you to master neutral buoyancy thus increasing your enjoyment of your underwater world, while disturbing it as little as possible!