Good Qualities of Ted Cole
This sticks out in memory: absolute stillness. Ted can swim through the
water with less waste of effort than any diver I have yet seen - (I have of
course seen plenty of others who do it better than I do!) - but Ted is truly
exceptional in that area. One gets the impression of a stone statue somehow
gliding through the water. I remember having a flashback to the statues of the
knights Templar, lying on their tombs in London's Temple Church - the hands
folded across the chest in the same way Ted does sometimes. Now those knights
have been there for 700 years or so so that's a pretty impressive standard of
stillness to measure up to. And in the water, Ted does!
Of course that stillness can only be achieved with nigh-perfect buoyancy and
trim in the water. I am still short of reliably getting it right. It is not
enough, of course, merely to be neutrally buoyant. The centre of gravity and the
centre of buoyancy must be on the same vertical line or you will naturally tend
to rotate in the water, a tendency that can only be stopped by breaking the
stillness with a fin kick or whatever. I am experimenting with my 2 to 4 pound
weight [necessary with the light alu tanks you tend to get in Mexico] in the
chest area rather than round the waist, because otherwise my feet tend to sink
(except in British waters where, wearing a drysuit, the feet can be filled with
air ..... maybe too much air though!).
Meanwhile.... Watch Ted!! His stillness is truly astonishing.