The "Official" SB Scuba Course?

[DCBC]

The course, as I understand it, is a Basic Open Water. The students do need to show a level of swimming skill. How far that goes seems to be a sticky point. At a basic level - where do you want them to be? If the course is to be a foundation of diver ed - then they need to learn to dive, theory, and practice.

Perhaps a more viable alternative is to require the swim in full gear at depth? Properly weighted, proper buoyancy and trim, etc. That's probably a better way to assess if a diver could save my butt in an underwater diving emergency. Or would that be taking diver education/training in the wrong direction?

The options are here to explore. Perhaps change is good - now would be a great time to make changes.

My dive buddy can swim like a fish, but can he/she save my butt below where I probably am located. At the surface I would hope he/she followed me up and is in close proximity. Just a different perspective.

K

We each come to the table with our own experiences and baggage. The more you have of one, there's a high likelihood of having more of the other as well. All each of us can give is our opinion and try to establish our basis on which it was developed.

I have never been a swimming instructor. The basis for my comments are largely vested in my background as a Director and contributor to the SCUBA Bronze program for the Royal Life Saving Society of Canada and the originator of the Canadian Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Program. In other words, I come at this from a diver rescue perspective. Added to this is my experience as a SCUBA Instructor, Naval Diving Officer and as a commercial diver throughout my career. I'm not saying my opinion is worth more than anyone elses, but it's important to know where people are coming from. Why they say the things they do.

A person who can swim efficiently is comfortable in the water and has a higher panic threshold than someone who doesn't swim as well. Swimming (both above and underwater) are an excellent preparation for teaching a diver. It gives him/her a basis to develop the skill-sets for diver rescue that a less effective swimmer doesn't have.

When I was small I crawled before I walked. I did the same thing with diving. Swim first, dive later.

The next thing is the use of fins, mask and snorkel. Years ago, this was a requirement that has been all but lost. Several weeks use to be spent perfecting these skills. The thought was that if you can do doff and don holding your breath, it would be easier with an hour's worth of air on your back. I found this to be a correct assumption.

By the time a person got to SCUBA, they were hyped, the wait was over. They glided through the skills. When it came time for them to transition to open-water, they were ready. Having passed a more difficult exam than a OW SCUBA Instructor (with particular attention to underwater physiology, physics, dive planning and decompression) they were good to go. When they completed the OW and were certified, they had a card they were proud of. They had accomplished something.

I would not hesitate for any of my family to dive unsupervised with any diver I certified immediately after certification. If I didn't feel that way, the person wouldn't get the card. For me, this is what I called minimum requirements.

So it comes down to philosophy. Do you want to create a diver to make money? For me the answer is no. I don't want to look in the eyes of the widow, if I know that it was my insufficient level of training that caused the accident. It's not going to happen. The question is if you are the Instructor, will you sign off on the course you develop here. Will you be able to look in the widow's eyes. For me that's what counts. Safety is first. Enough said, sorry this has become a dissertation.

 

[siikik]

The customers want shorter and cheaper.

And that's the truth. Everyone wants instant gratification... but I very much enjoyed my rather long course of six weeks because it taught me skills I'm still using today. It doesn't have to be a lengthy course to teach everything, but everything needs to be taught and not glossed over... don't finish the class in half the time just because there aren't any questions... a good instructor would know what the students are thinking by looking at the puzzled looks. Drowning is rather permanent.



Ken

 

[DCBC]

Not necessarily so. I took the Naui course in '80. Maybe it was changing then, but I still think it was a darn good course. It just needs to be brought up to modern times. It doesn't mean lower or drop the standards. Just come up with a better way to utilize the time to produce a comp diver.

In 1980, memory, memory... Ok. you had a requirement to swim 16 lengths (400M), (the additional 8 on the back was dropped by then I believe), drownproof 15 mins, treadwater 2/2/2, swim a minimum of 50 ft underwater unassisted I believe. These standards have been lowered, what I'm suggesting is to bring back many of the old standards. Yes, absolutely bring them up to today's technology, but don't discard material just to make the course more profitable.

 

[AfterDark]

And that's the truth. Everyone wants instant gratification... but I very much enjoyed my rather long course of six weeks because it taught me skills I'm still using today. It doesn't have to be a lengthy course to teach everything, but everything needs to be taught and not glossed over... don't finish the class in half the time just because there aren't any questions... a good instructor would know what the students are thinking by looking at the puzzled looks. Drowning is rather permanent.



Ken

The scuba diving course I took in 1968 took 12 weeks. We actually learned how to dive! I didn't know what was happening to diving while I was gone. No wonder there are so many cert courses these days. The skills we learned as part of a "basic" scuba diving course have been split up and used to spawn a gaggle of money making cert. courses. The industry along with the attorneys have gotten the charters in line so now it takes more money to really learn how to dive. I'm seriously considering "remaking" my logs from memory to try and get around this money trap. Darn shame.

 

[kjack_1]

We each come to the table with our own experiences and baggage. The more you have of one, there's a high likelihood of having more of the other as well. All each of us can give is our opinion and try to establish our basis on which it was developed.

I have never been a swimming instructor. The basis for my comments are largely vested in my background as a Director and contributor to the SCUBA Bronze program for the Royal Life Saving Society of Canada and the originator of the Canadian Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Program. In other words, I come at this from a diver rescue perspective. Added to this is my experience as a SCUBA Instructor, Naval Diving Officer and as a commercial diver throughout my career. I'm not saying my opinion is worth more than anyone elses, but it's important to know where people are coming from. Why they say the things they do.

A person who can swim efficiently is comfortable in the water and has a higher panic threshold than someone who doesn't swim as well. Swimming (both above and underwater) are an excellent preparation for teaching a diver. It gives him/her a basis to develop the skill-sets for diver rescue that a less effective swimmer doesn't have.

When I was small I crawled before I walked. I did the same thing with diving. Swim first, dive later.

The next thing is the use of fins, mask and snorkel. Years ago, this was a requirement that has been all but lost. Several weeks use to be spent perfecting these skills. The thought was that if you can do doff and don holding your breath, it would be easier with an hour's worth of air on your back. I found this to be a correct assumption.

By the time a person got to SCUBA, they were hyped, the wait was over. They glided through the skills. When it came time for them to transition to open-water, they were ready. Having passed a more difficult exam than a OW SCUBA Instructor (with particular attention to underwater physiology, physics, dive planning and decompression) they were good to go. When they completed the OW and were certified, they had a card they were proud of. They had accomplished something.

I would not hesitate for any of my family to dive unsupervised with any diver I certified immediately after certification. If I didn't feel that way, the person wouldn't get the card. For me, this is what I called minimum requirements.

So it comes down to philosophy. Do you want to create a diver to make money? For me the answer is no. I don't want to look in the eyes of the widow, if I know that it was my insufficient level of training that caused the accident. It's not going to happen. The question is if you are the Instructor, will you sign off on the course you develop here. Will you be able to look in the widow's eyes. For me that's what counts. Safety is first. Enough said, sorry this has become a dissertation.

First and foremost - I liked reading your 'dissertation.'

I agree with the walk before you crawl. A student can demonstrate a minimal swim on the surface (miminum yet to be determined - which would be the crawl). Underwater is where I need him (and that would be the walk).

I think you are very fortunate, and comfortable with the divers you certify. From what I have seen, it is not a universal thing. Too many flounders out there that have all the latest and greatest gear, but can't remember how to set their gear up, like to walk on the bottom, overweighted, and so on. But yes, they can swim.

A lot of what I've read throughout this (and other forums) believe that to learn to dive, you must dive. So teach/instruct them how to dive. Not my way, perhaps not your way - but a way where others divers can look at them and give them a thumbs up on their beginning skills. I've seen a few that I wonder who certified them so that I never utilize them. But that's my baggage.

You are looking from the top down, I'm looking from the bottom up. No doubt, in between all that is the formula. To think outside the box, it sometimes helps to be outside the box.

I am not a SCUBA instructor. So my money is not being made by this. However, your opinion is just as important as mine.

K

 

[kjack_1]

In 1980, memory, memory... Ok. you had a requirement to swim 16 lengths (400M), (the additional 8 on the back was dropped by then I believe), drownproof 15 mins, treadwater 2/2/2, swim a minimum of 50 ft underwater unassisted I believe. These standards have been lowered, what I'm suggesting is to bring back many of the old standards. Yes, absolutely bring them up to today's technology, but don't discard material just to make the course more profitable.

Yup - those skills sound about right. But I think the instructor made me his hard-case.

I agree with you....mostly. Folks here seem to be worried by time constraints. I am too. Darn it, I want to dive, and I want it cheap, and I want it now, with no effort. So change the modality of teaching. You want it fast and cheap - there are other agencies. You want to *learn* to dive - here you are and here is what you will be learning.

Build the course of instruction - then sweat the cost. If you worry about cost up front, it generally doesn't get constructed.

K

 

[Kingpatzer]

Build the course of instruction - then sweat the cost. If you worry about cost up front, it generally doesn't get constructed.

Not many people bought plasma TV's when they were $20,000 each. Cost has to be a consideration. A course that has no students is not much of a course.

I do like DCBC's idea of a "vacation diver" cert though. A "short" course comparable to something like PADI's time constraints to provide a cert that is good only in specific excellent conditions, is a time limited certification (good for 1 year maybe) and requires that the diver be either under indirect supervision of a DM or buddied with a fully certified diver isn't a bad compromise. Have a 'real' open water that is the much more in depth course that some are looking for, while retaining a competitive certification for the vacation diver.

 

[DennisS]

All I wanted from my certification was a card so I could buy air. My course was an early 70's YMCA course so it was pretty thorough. I didn't care, all I wanted was the air card so I could dive and enroll in my marine tech dive classes..

I took an Advanced Open Water course about 7-8 years ago. Some dive boats were requiring them to do wreck dives. I couldn't understand why they called it Advanced. Perhaps OW, AOW, Rescue courses should be just called part A, B, C.

 

[JeffG]

Agreed. The GUE course is different as it is designed for exploration diving.

No


GUE has an OW course. It is designed to teach people how to dive.

 

[Diver0001]

Jeff, How many divers have actually taken it?

The way it looks to me, given the numbers of GUE OW students I know of... it's just masturbation on paper at this point. I'm sure given GUE's track record with other courses that if anyone ever does take it that they'll be well trained.....

R..