When learning technical diving<\/a>, many students will remark that mastering backmount valve drills can be amongst the most problematic skillset to aquire. In particular, they can have profound difficulties actually reaching the valves. In very rare instances this can be a problem that arises from diminshed shoulder mobility; either as a result of prior injury or a diver’s natural physiology – sidemount<\/a> configuration can be a solution for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far more commonly, it is due to fundamental skill execution errors that haven’t been identifed and remediated by their instructor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my experience as a technical diving instructor, the most common failure points when divers first learn valve drills are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n