Challenging a specialty

[Thalassamania]

But you do have credentials, don't you Mr Ego?

I have not called you names, and I'd appreciate the same consideration. I could quite easily go in for the cheap kill and go on and on about what kind of idiot thinks that there are more than 20 useful PADI specialty courses, and allude to the unmitigated and unrelenting rapaciousness it takes to attempt to sell them all ... etc., etc., etc. But I didn't, and (except for this explication) I won't (... so are they all, all honorable men!).

Lots of credentials in scientific diving etc etc etc. You turn up at a boat...and you have something to validate yourself with.

Most of my "credentials" have come through being mentored in one way or another, not through what you would recognize as a course. I have carefully selected, courted and been accepted by those whom I wished to have as mentors and I have striven to reflect well on the time and energy they invested in me. That's not a course that you can sign up and pay for, there's no plastic card nor certificate suitable for framing.

You taught courses...same as taking them. You understand the programme...

Similarly, most of what I've "taught" has been part of a formalized mentoring program that only superficiality resembles a course.

Anyone can dive...any depth...any time. As long as they get away with it, then they feel they are 'qualified' to do that diving. As long as everything goes perfectly, then they are the perfect diver.

What hogwash, the next element of that syllogism is, I suppose, the classic non sequitur "therefore it follows that the moon is made of green cheese."

What OP 'Mr DIY Dive God' lacks though, is the formal training and reaction conditioning to get his ass out of trouble should something go wrong...and you don't learn that from 'getting by' on perfect dives.

Really? What he said was:

Several agencies give you credit for experience...( for example you can get SDI Advanced Diver if you have the required number of dives and demonstrate proficiency or equivancy for the required specialties) How come you can't do this for such certifications as the PADI DSAT program, PSAI or other Technical programs?

I think you are reading into it things that are not there

You have an amazing habit of generalising all instructors, whilst insulting the greater majority of professional divers...just to boost your own ego.

I have not insulted any professional divers, I may have ruffled the feathers of some puffed up, preening, sports diving instructors who, in true Walter Middy fashion, like to pretend to wear the verdigris of a professional diver and affect the swagger of said same; but then you can judge a man as much by his foes as by his allies and I'll happily take the hit ... pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. That's not my ego boost, I'm just a scientist who helps other scientists to get their underwater work done; I am not and make no pretense of being either a professional diver or one who makes his living flogging dive gear, trips or courses.

Generalizing always has its pitfalls and there are exceptions to every rule. I must admit that I have, on occasion, been wrong as a result of applying a generalization to an individual, even that almost universal cliche that that the person who takes the greatest offense to a generalization is usually the most egregious example of it. I think it was Machiavelli who observed, "Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations."

The diver must be qualified. Not necessarily 'certified'. However, apart from dinosaurs like yourself (ooops, I meant pioneers),

Ah ... again the snide innuendo and rapier sharp quip. The clear implication is that anyone who was around, "back in the day," couldn't possibly be "current." That is the most foolish of the base canards that you fling. By and large, people who have reached my level have not done so by luck, nor by overweening ego; they have done so by dent of the hard work that it takes to not only stay "current," but also to stay slightly ahead of the curve. We do tend to be resented by those who, for what ever reason, can not seem, to do the same, despite having taken all the courses and having a wallet full of C-cards to prove it. As a result of their tuition and their endeavors they see themselves as equally or even more qualified; but they can't seem to bask in the acclaim that they feel they justly deserve, it just does not flow their way; and they fail to grasp what it really is that holds them back from similar recognition.

most modern tech divers are the product of a formal training programme. That gives them qualification...then they gain experience. They qualification shapes their experience - it is the foundation on what they build.

I can't speak to your generalization, save to recall Alexandre Dumas' statement that, "All generalizations are dangerous, even this one." (later cribbed by Mark Twain as, "All generalizations are false, including this one." In my general (ah, what word again!) experience, it is not the course that makes a tech diver, it is the mentoring after.

Without 'qualification' then those divers (the op) may have pretty rotten 'foundations' at best. Who knows? Who cares? Only those stupid enough to trust their lives to him on a dive......

That's what I've been saying. Certifications have grown to be irrelevant, when someone shows me a card I make nice noises, but my next question is, "Who did you train with? Whom do you dive with?" That's what counts.

Really? Well, they must love living in their own little cliques then. Aside from a few 'major names' in the game... I am sure most of us need to show some credentials when buying helium away from home turf....

I'm hardly a "major name," yet I have never had any problem buying helium anywhere that it was available. All one need do is talk to the people respectfully and knowledgeably, and they know. What you are advocating is something that I find anathema, courses not as training per se, but solely as barriers to entry, the same crap about having an "Advanced" card to go on a boat.

So...of the thousands of divers you taught (as stated above)...none of them demonstrated the right stuff?

Why do you train people....when you are not an advocate of training?

Hypocritical surely??

As I mentioned earlier, its more of a formalized mentoring program, a preceptor program if you will, than what current scuba instructional courses have become (it's a Shakespeare kind of day, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks.").

With luck and hard work sometimes a course will develop a diver to the point that they can then secure a quality mentor, but it is not the course that made them a tech diver, the course just opened the door.

On this we do not disagree.

That was my entire basic point. So why are you nattering on to the point of going so far as to try to personally insult me?

 

[Kingpatzer]

That was my entire basic point. So why are you nattering on to the point of going so far as to try to personally insult me?

I won't presume to speak for your interlocutor, but I'd be a little peeved at the implication you seem to be making that any formal training anyone has is worthless simply on the basis that it is formal training and not "mentoring."

Training is useful and necessary, it can be formal or informal, but without it a person certainly shouldn't be in the water.

Some people will accept a person's word that they've had training. Others will require some proof that there is at least some basic level of training the person has received, even if such a check is merely a perfunctory bureaucratic act. Frankly, should something go horribly wrong, the guy who did a card check is going to have a bit better liability shield than the guy who merely took someone's word that they belonged diving.

 

[Thalassamania]

I won't presume to speak for your interlocutor, but I'd be a little peeved at the implication you seem to be making that any formal training anyone has is worthless simply on the basis that it is formal training and not "mentoring."

Perhaps I stated things unclearly ... I do not feel that all training is worthless and that the only way to learn is through mentoring.

Please remember, the topic of this thread is: "Challenging a specialty."

Training is useful and necessary, it can be formal or informal, but without it a person certainly shouldn't be in the water.

Some people can do fine with naught but a book, others with a mentor and other still do best in a formal training circumstance ... assuming that the course syllabus is worth a damn, and from what I've seen those courses in diving today are few and far between, but that's a different topic.

Some people will accept a person's word that they've had training. Others will require some proof that there is at least some basic level of training the person has received, even if such a check is merely a perfunctory bureaucratic act. Frankly, should something go horribly wrong, the guy who did a card check is going to have a bit better liability shield than the guy who merely took someone's word that they belonged diving.

That's a common mistake, you take on much less legal liability to open the rail at the back of the boat and say, "Ocean's open!" than you do to say, "Please show your card as you exit!" But that also, is rather a different topic.

Let me summarize the points that I was tryin to make, IMHO:

1. The requirement of a particular certification courses as a way to bar entry to a given activity or course without an experience option is nothing but laziness, lack of imagination, raw naked greed or two or the above or all three.
2. The rather low quality of most diver (and leadership) training has rendered the certification card useless as a means of actually determining what (and what not) a diver is actually capable of. I had any number of people with leadership credentials who could not pass a rather simple checkout dive.
3. In the real world of "big dives" it is more about team integration and relationships than it is about certification. One of the few things that I like about DIR is that GUE understands this and makes it work for them. In all other situations being a tech diver needs to be more about getting into the appretice program and working your way up than it is about how many cards you've got.

Is there a place for training in tech diving? Sure.

What does it get you? A card, a certificate suitable for framing, a patch, and maybe a chance to try out for the team.

 

[Kingpatzer]

1. The requirement of a particular certification courses as a way to bar entry to a given activity or course without an experience option is nothing but laziness, lack of imagination, raw naked greed or two or the above or all three.
2. The rather low quality of most diver (and leadership) training has rendered the certification card useless as a means of actually determining what (and what not) a diver is actually capable of. I had any number of people with leadership credentials who could not pass a rather simple checkout dive.
3. In the real world of "big dives" it is more about team integration and relationships than it is about certification. One of the few things that I like about DIR is that GUE understands this and makes it work for them. In all other situations being a tech diver needs to be more about getting into the appretice program and working your way up than it is about how many cards you've got.

I understand your points, and from the perspective of a diver, I think they are quite reasonable. But we are also operating within an industry and that brings business decisions into the mix. Business is, well, anything but rational in most respects.

1. The reality is that many people use various certification agencies both as a means to solicit business and as a business partner to provide various services including insurance to their operation. The scale involved renders more imaginative solutions difficult to standardize across the resulting system. Yes, it is "lazy" in the sense that it is a minimum functional solution. However, there isn't a better business model out there currently. Should someone come up with one, I expect they will compete quite well.
2. I don't disagree. I would never argue that a card should be the only requirement for a diver to engage in a particular dive. Check-out dives are, in my mind, important for dives at all skill levels in all environments when an operator is dealing with an unknown diver. But a card as a starting point to decide if an operator should spend their time having a diver do a check-out dive is not an unreasonable business decision.
3. I don't disagree with this point. But I also recognize that a diver may well want to charter a technical dive and without a way to bring such a person along (provided they do check-out well) there is a lost business opportunity. But if an operator holds check-out dives for every one who asks, that can be a poor decision as well.

Is there a place for training in tech diving? Sure.

What does it get you? A card, a certificate suitable for framing, a patch, and maybe a chance to try out for the team.

[/quote]

I'd argue that it gets you an appropriate starting knowledge from which to develop the required skills and competencies. It also is a starting point for developing relationships so that one may find better divers to dive with so that those skills can be developed.

If Joe AOW diver shows up at your door and says "Hi, I'd like to learn how to be a tech diver, and I hear you're a great mentor." Do you take them in and spend the time diving with them to develop their skills? I kind of doubt it. Even if they have a thousand recreational dives under their belt they present themselves to you as a totally unknown quality.

My guess is that you need to know them in some capacity before you'd spend your time mentoring them. But how do you get that knowledge about them as a diver if they have no way to engage with you? Now you may not hang around tech diving shops but many good divers do. And they'll get to know the new students, and they'll hear from the instructors which one's are showing promise. They'll see which one's are in the pool practicing the skills they learned in class. And those people are the one's who will one day get an invite to come on some "easy" dives, and eventually become a regular member of a team.

It is in large part about who you know. But getting to the point where you can build those friendships requires an entry point.

And that is one of the most valuable aspects of a formal training system.

 

[Thalassamania]

I understand your points, and from the perspective of a diver, I think they are quite reasonable. But we are also operating within an industry and that brings business decisions into the mix. Business is, well, anything but rational in most respects.

Most of the problems in the sports diving industry come, IMHO, from putting the cart before the horse, that is to say force fitting the training model to a business plan and then engaging in rather rococo ex-post facto rationalization to justify this practice; rather than developing a business model around what was a far superior, and rather well established, training regimin that was already in place.

1. The reality is that many people use various certification agencies both as a means to solicit business and as a business partner to provide various services including insurance to their operation. The scale involved renders more imaginative solutions difficult to standardize across the resulting system. Yes, it is "lazy" in the sense that it is a minimum functional solution. However, there isn't a better business model out there currently. Should someone come up with one, I expect they will compete quite well.
2. I don't disagree. I would never argue that a card should be the only requirement for a diver to engage in a particular dive. Check-out dives are, in my mind, important for dives at all skill levels in all environments when an operator is dealing with an unknown diver. But a card as a starting point to decide if an operator should spend their time having a diver do a check-out dive is not an unreasonable business decision.
3. I don't disagree with this point. But I also recognize that a diver may well want to charter a technical dive and without a way to bring such a person along (provided they do check-out well) there is a lost business opportunity. But if an operator holds check-out dives for every one who asks, that can be a poor decision as well.

1. My intense dislike of the current model is rooted in two truths: First is that the current paradim was put in place at the expense of a better one (at least from the perspective of diver quality at the O/W certification level as well as the quality of leadership personnel) for no other purpose than squeezing a few more bucks out of the customer and reducing the cost of hiring instructors. The concometent costs are a high dropout rate and perhaps the only acurate observation that Geore Irvine ever made: "It is my opinion that the horrifying strokery that we see out there is the fault of the instructors... and most of them suck, just plain suck." Second is the establishment of a system that nurtures a basic conflict of interest, there is a reason that I do not buy gear from my ski instructor, I ask her advice, but she has no stake in the transaction and that's the way it should be.
2. At this time a card is not longer a meaningful starting point to decide if an operator should spend their time having a diver do a check-out dive. If that is your "business decision" that's your business, but please understand if those of us who have lost all respect of the "certification" process see that good "business decision" as nothing more than a way to profit from a diver who may well not profit from the required course.
3. I have no problem with an operator charging for a checkout.

The reality is that many people use various certification agencies both as a means to solicit business and as a business partner to provide various services including insurance to their operation. The scale involved renders more imaginative solutions difficult to standardize across the resulting system.

"Business Partner?" that's a joke, historically kickbacks on insurance premiums have been one of the largest sources of personal income to the "leaders" of agencies. It appears that this is one of the primary reasons that the sports diving industry has never been able to move in the sensible direction of sky diving, defense only insurance, which would cost infinitely less and would make the deep pocket disapper; yet all the while the industry hypocritically whines.

Yes, it is "lazy" in the sense that it is a minimum functional solution. However, there isn't a better business model out there currently. Should someone come up with one, I expect they will compete quite well.

There are better business model out there, but the good old boys who are in charge are not about to let survive a model that does better for the diving public, for diving instructors, and for LDSs but that cuts into their god given right to carve a new life out of the diving public.

I'd argue that it gets you an appropriate starting knowledge from which to develop the required skills and competencies. It also is a starting point for developing relationships so that one may find better divers to dive with so that those skills can be developed.

Our disagreement will revolve about your use of the word, "appropriate."

If Joe AOW diver shows up at your door and says "Hi, I'd like to learn how to be a tech diver, and I hear you're a great mentor." Do you take them in and spend the time diving with them to develop their skills? I kind of doubt it. Even if they have a thousand recreational dives under their belt they present themselves to you as a totally unknown quality.

My guess is that you need to know them in some capacity before you'd spend your time mentoring them. But how do you get that knowledge about them as a diver if they have no way to engage with you? Now you may not hang around tech diving shops but many good divers do. And they'll get to know the new students, and they'll hear from the instructors which one's are showing promise. They'll see which one's are in the pool practicing the skills they learned in class. And those people are the one's who will one day get an invite to come on some "easy" dives, and eventually become a regular member of a team.

It is in large part about who you know. But getting to the point where you can build those friendships requires an entry point.

And that is one of the most valuable aspects of a formal training system.

I think that is basically what I said, but the point of the thread was that there should be ways to challenge specific previous certification prerequisites.

 

[rjack321]

As a tech diver, I don't give a damn what AOW card you have or how many "deco" dives you did in the NE or whatever. I wanna know who you trained with, who you have been diving with and what dives you have been doing (recently).

If you tell me "I'm self taught" I am going to do ALOT of digging about who you're diving with. And I am going to be asking them some seriously tough questions about you. Like why they are diving with a "self-trained" person when training is so readily available and quite honestly cheap compared to expensive charters and even more expensive fills.

 

[muddiver]

Seems entirely rational to me that you were refused diving.

If you haven't done a tech course, then you aren't a tech diver. A history of going deep and using 'tech gear' doesn't make you a tech diver.

If you are too cheapskate to pay for the proper training...and learn the things that you need to learn...then WHY would any technical divemaster risk their lives by taking you into those situations?

I don't dive technical with anyone..unless I've done a check dive with them previously. I wouldn't take you on a tech dive because you may lack the key training and mindset to be a safe dive partner on such dives. As such, you may put my life in danger.

Wow! If that isn't someone how is full of themselves.

I have not been tech trained and therfore I am not tech.... hummmm.... I guess tech diving is now nothing more than expensive recreational diving. Therefore I must fall in some other catagory because I use diving equipment that is not mainstream recreational (i.e. the PADI defined SCUBA diving setup), but I am not certified to be a "tech" diver.

Thal, which pigon hole do I fit in to?

And DevonDiver, how dare you list your location as Subic Bay when you don't hold a BSAC rating!?!!?!! The local constabulary will be down on you at any moment.

 

[muddiver]

Ooops! I stand corrected, you do list BSAC. Then, how allowed you to aquire all those other non-BSAC certification? Isn't BSAC an elitist, no American agency allowed, diving club?

 

[Thalassamania]

Wow! If that isn't someone how is full of themselves.

True or false, let's try to not get personal.

I have not been tech trained and therfore I am not tech.... hummmm.... I guess tech diving is now nothing more than expensive recreational diving.

There are those who would have that be so, a way to sell a new set of classes and gear to rec divers who never going to do any actual "tech" diving.

Therefore I must fall in some other catagory because I use diving equipment that is not mainstream recreational (i.e. the PADI defined SCUBA diving setup), but I am not certified to be a "tech" diver.

Same here.

Thal, which pigon hole do I fit in to?

When you figure that one out please let me know too.

 

[Kingpatzer]

While this is going a bit far afield of the original discussion . . .

There are better business model out there, but the good old boys who are in charge are not about to let survive a model that does better for the diving public, for diving instructors, and for LDSs but that cuts into their god given right to carve a new life out of the diving public.

It's hard to argue the previous model was better for the diving public when more people are diving now than ever have before. The very fact of the increase in size of the diving public is an ostensive testimony to the value the current system has brought to the public.

It's also hard to argue that the previous model was better for the local dive shops when there has been an explosion of local dive shops over recent years. Granted, like all small businesses many of them fail, but the number of shops in most areas is still much higher than it was 25 years ago.

The proof of a better business model is in the successfulness of the business. If there is a better model out there, someone is going to decide that making more money is better than making less money and will pursue said model.

I'm not about to suggest that the skill of the average diver is better today than it was in <insert year when you thought diving skill peaked here>, but I'd also argue that for the average diver who makes less than 10 dives in a lifetime and largely tools around a 40' reef with a large group it doesn't matter. The safety record of recreational diving is pretty darn impressive. I'd also argue that the per-dive incident rate in technical diving is better as well.