PADI Rocks!!!

[RussR]

I have seen way too many posts on the evils of PADI or how PADI screwed me.

Without PADI I may never have discovered Diving. The Underwater world is a completely new world, so I am thankful to PADI for introducing me to something completely amazing.

I would never hold this agency or any other liable for my skills - or lack thereof (I know my own limitations and abilities)

PADI ROCK ON!!!

 

[dschonbrun]

PADI, like most agencies provides a starting point and access to a lot of educational material. What you choose to learn, how in depth, is a function of your instruction and personal desire to learn. PADI's strategy is to continue building on skills you learned in the last class.. it's a gradual process. It works for a lot of people. Is it perfect?... clearly not. The level and quality of instruction, and the interest of the trainee have a lot to do with the end results.

 

[nagel]

Well, there is something you don't read every day!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Without PADI I may never have discovered Diving.

Really? You didn't know there was such a thing as scuba diving until PADI told you?

Jacques-Yves Cousteau co invented open circuit scub to get underwater and you needed PADI?

My cousin rocks. He provided my first oportunity to dive. LOL

 

[Peter Guy]

Mike, so unkind.

I think the OP is, in general, correct in thanking PADI for creating a program which has opened Scuba Diving to so many. I think we all know that what PADI does (and probably ever other agency) with OW is to provide a "license to learn" but PADI appears to do this more efficiently than any of the other agencies.

We can argue (and will I know) whether that is a "good thing" to be that "efficient" in providing people with a minimum skill set to dive. I don't think we can legitimately argue that PADI has not created a program that gives many the opportunity to learn what it's like to be able to visit a "foreign" destination -- the underwater world.

The vast majority of divers will take their class, do a few dives and never do anything more. Their loss, perhaps our gain. But thanks to PADI, they've been introduced to the experience and are much more likely to understand and support things like sinking the Big O or not destroying habitat.

PADI deserves some thanks now and then.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike, so unkind.

I think the OP is, in general, correct in thanking PADI for creating a program which has opened Scuba Diving to so many. I think we all know that what PADI does (and probably ever other agency) with OW is to provide a "license to learn" but PADI appears to do this more efficiently than any of the other agencies.

We can argue (and will I know) whether that is a "good thing" to be that "efficient" in providing people with a minimum skill set to dive. I don't think we can legitimately argue that PADI has not created a program that gives many the opportunity to learn what it's like to be able to visit a "foreign" destination -- the underwater world.

The vast majority of divers will take their class, do a few dives and never do anything more. Their loss, perhaps our gain. But thanks to PADI, they've been introduced to the experience and are much more likely to understand and support things like sinking the Big O or not destroying habitat.

PADI does put a lot of people in the water. I think your description of it all is pretty accurate.

PADI deserves some thanks now and then.

Here is where I disagree. Thank them? Not likely.

 

[dave4868]

Quote:
Originally Posted by RussR
Without PADI I may never have discovered Diving.

Really? You didn't know there was such a thing as scuba diving until PADI told you?

RussR clearly expressed gratitude and enthusiasm.

Thanks, Russ! I share your positive attitude completely!

Dave C

 

[TSandM]

As much as I have issues with the way I was originally trained (and many of those issues have to do with not having been held even to the minimal standards which were suposed to have been used), I would not have learned to dive if there hadn't been a fairly brief and reasonably inexpensive class avialable in which to do so. I had no idea, when I signed up, that this was going to become a passion, and I had no idea that scuba was something that would really repay a greater effort to learn to do it well.

PADI's system gives a lot of people the opportunity to find out if diving is for them. There are a lot of flaws in the system, but you have to give it that.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Quote:
Originally Posted by RussR
Without PADI I may never have discovered Diving.




RussR clearly expressed gratitude and enthusiasm.

Thanks, Russ! I share your positive attitude completely!

Dave C

He also said this...

I have seen way too many posts on the evils of PADI or how PADI screwed me.

I haven't seen any posts saying that PADI is evil.

And...

I would never hold this agency or any other liable for my skills - or lack thereof (I know my own limitations and abilities)

Why not? PADI teaches diving and certifies divers. On what grounds do they do so? Why shouldn't they share a measure of responsibility?

 

[Tigerman]

FFS Mike, cant you just for once shut your piehole about how badly PADI sucks and let people enjoy the fact that they got in the water and accept the fact that PADI wont change regardless of how much you bitch about them on this forum?
This is getting real old and tiering!