The recent thread located here and some of the subsequent exchanges got me to thinking about something. The comment below, as well as the ones following it reminded me of my own start to diving.
The tone of the discussion was trending towards the fact that diving was much easier today than it was years ago. Rather than being a genuine adventure it's more akin to a "Disneyland Adventure Syndrome" and doesn't require the same degree of training that it used to.
When I started diving, a little over 10 years ago now, I was excited about the potential for adventure. With little opportunity for easy local diving, my first excursions entailed traipsing to every mudhole I could find in Texas. Before I discovered ScubaBoard, there was little info to be found on most of them other than just going to check it out for ourselves.
Not knowing what we'd find ourselves faced with (dark water, entanglement issues, snakes and gators, remote areas, depth, cold, etc.) I took AOW, Nitrox and Rescue courses in rapid succession after finishing up my BOW class.
My forays into local lakes were punctuated with a trip to Cozumel and a couple of trips out to the Flower Gardens before I finally found myself drawn to the springs in Florida, and ultimately to cave diving a year later.
The point of my reflection is that while responding in the other thread I realized that by taking multiple classes (BOW, AOW, Nitrox, Rescue) in rapid succession to prepare for my adventures that I had mimicked the standards of classes that others lament are lost in the days gone by. At the same time I'd effectively done what many criticize as a "Zero to Hero" course where someone goes from relative new status to some sort of advanced certification.
My conclusion is that no matter what happens, there will always be a faction that disagrees with the training methods. Break the class up into several pieces that are quick, cheap and easy and people well tell you how good the OW classes used to be. Take all the training at once and you've gone from "Zero to Hero" and you should slow down and get some experience at your current level in order to get the best out of your training before moving on to the next step.
How do you think training should be?
The U.S. Navy Diving Manual and the University of Michigan Research Diver's Manual where both available 40 years ago. 10 years ago the ScubaBoard function was filled by GENIE. Do you really think that all 13 weeks are filled with forcing people to blow bubbles in a shallow water pool for weeks on end? Hardly the case. By the time you finished a semester long class you had the equivalent of OW, AOW, PPD, NITROX, RESCUE, ADV. RESCUE, BOAT DIVING, SURF DIVING, U/W NATURALIST, U/W PHOTOGRAPHY and a few others.
The tone of the discussion was trending towards the fact that diving was much easier today than it was years ago. Rather than being a genuine adventure it's more akin to a "Disneyland Adventure Syndrome" and doesn't require the same degree of training that it used to.
When I started diving, a little over 10 years ago now, I was excited about the potential for adventure. With little opportunity for easy local diving, my first excursions entailed traipsing to every mudhole I could find in Texas. Before I discovered ScubaBoard, there was little info to be found on most of them other than just going to check it out for ourselves.
Not knowing what we'd find ourselves faced with (dark water, entanglement issues, snakes and gators, remote areas, depth, cold, etc.) I took AOW, Nitrox and Rescue courses in rapid succession after finishing up my BOW class.
My forays into local lakes were punctuated with a trip to Cozumel and a couple of trips out to the Flower Gardens before I finally found myself drawn to the springs in Florida, and ultimately to cave diving a year later.
The point of my reflection is that while responding in the other thread I realized that by taking multiple classes (BOW, AOW, Nitrox, Rescue) in rapid succession to prepare for my adventures that I had mimicked the standards of classes that others lament are lost in the days gone by. At the same time I'd effectively done what many criticize as a "Zero to Hero" course where someone goes from relative new status to some sort of advanced certification.
My conclusion is that no matter what happens, there will always be a faction that disagrees with the training methods. Break the class up into several pieces that are quick, cheap and easy and people well tell you how good the OW classes used to be. Take all the training at once and you've gone from "Zero to Hero" and you should slow down and get some experience at your current level in order to get the best out of your training before moving on to the next step.
How do you think training should be?