We dont get many threads related to enjoying the magical submerged world.

Comment on the type of gear you think is good and what is just a gimmick.

Comment on places / times of year / times of day you like to dive or hunt

Comment on how you refine you techniques for diving such as reducing SAC rate, increasing breathold times, handfree equalization, better trim and buoyancy, dealing with increased task-loading, better spearfishing tactics...

I am planning to get into cave diving. Not necessarily through tight restrictions but just general overhead environment. Every couple of dives I focus on finishing a dive by simulating certain malfunctions. I might set my gradient factors very low, so that I get some deco obligation and I bring another bottle of same gas just to practice gas switches. I sometimes up the complexity by doing it without a mask and/or without the fins, which increases the difficulty of staying in a horizontal trim.
Sometimes I do the majority of a dive maskless and practice reading the gauges with a bubble in my hand. I don't feel like this skill is useful beyond making you a bit more comfortable in the water as I bring a backup mask on any dive where I cannot just simply swim to the surface in a minute or two.

>>2822987 (OP)
I improve different aspects of my game in the following ways:
>SAC rate
Just dive as much as possible, stay warm and hydrated and have good cardio. Good trim help reduce work required for movement and good buoyancy control will enable you to not need to take breaths that are too big just for the sake of buoyancy control.

>Buoyancy and Trim
Dive more and make your buddy pay attention to your trim so you consciously work on it. Ditch the fins and keep good trim with body tension. For buoyancy, keep a feet from the ground and grab a big rock while staying in trim in the same position neutrally buoyant just by breath control.

>Breathold time
Apnea walks. Do a couple of big slow breaths and don't hyperventilate. Then just walk for as far as you can, pushing through as many convulsions as you can. O2 and CO2 tables also help, but are boring to do.

What I think is missing here are some good resources to up your game.
I like lectures from Simon Mitchell on yt on decompression science. Mark Powell as well. DAN south africa has a couple of nice vids as well.
As far as books go, I am partial to Simon Pridmore's scuba fundamental, scuba physiological and scuba exceptional, Stig Avall Severinsen wrote Breathology which is a good book for pure apnea and free diving. I dont know anything of quality for spearfishing. If anyone has a good book on either technique or history, please share. Two popular titles are Breath and Deep by James Nestor. I found them pretty bad. Maybe ok for somebody who is completely new to the sport. Dont waste your time. It feels like a redditor wrote them after doing 2 min of research