In Denver this past weekend, the Denver team took on the Women's B Team and struck a deal where the men of Denver wore Life Jackets and the ladies pulled their shoulder straps down below their arms. While quite enjoyable yet difficult to ref this game (my mask kept steaming up, er, I mean fogging up), it did even out the teams so the women got to play their game rather than getting rolled over. While talking to a few of those that wore the vests afterward, a couple of ideas came out. The idea of having a beginner try to get to the bottom wearing a life vest for a few minutes as a training aid to keep kicking down came into the discussion along with training for more experienced players who quit kicking in their curls and end up floating up a bit. While I know this seems cruel to do to someone just starting out, I have seen many beginners get down far enough to fully extend their arm down to get to the puck leaving themselves vulnerable to anyone of any strength with only half-decent positioning. And for the vets, it could make a great kick through your curl drill as the second you stop kicking you start heading up. In the past at clinics when we tell players to keep their hips down and shoulders up we would always get the "Women have more floatation" argument. As soon as that came out we would grab a swim pull-buoy, prop it between our legs and show them that it could be done with extra floatation. Dead argument. So to where this is leading, has anyone done any real training using extra floatation? I ask as "real" training since we have done it as a model but never used it other than for demonstration purposes.

What sort of devices?
How were they used?
What was the intended purpose?
What was the result?

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.