How Rigorous Should Training Be?

[JahJahwarrior]

There haven't been many new posts in here lately, and I feel like rocking the boat just slightly.

This is discussed often, and some people take it incredibly seriously.

How hard should cave training be?

There are minimum standards, but instructors vary greatly in terms of the quality of students they produce.

In the years past, cave training wasn't a short certification course, it was a months or years long process of mentoring.

Nowadays, some people go and do a course in Mexico while others do a course in Florida. Within Florida, some do a course entirely at low flow caves while others do their course at high flow caves. Some instructors meet minimum skills requirements while others go above and beyond, pushing students to handle more drills than are required. Is there a difference in quality of diver? Is the diver who has never dove in a Florida cave, "as much" a cave diver as the diver who has only dove in a Florida cave? How about the reverse?

Lets throw a crazy idea out there and discuss it. Lets say that we double the training length, and require half of the dives to be done in a cave with a minimum flow output, and also a minimum silt requirement, so a minimum number of dives must be done in a system with enough silt to show true technique. Additionally, lets put a requirement in place that divers must show a minimum number of dives in a year or else their certification is revoked. This requirement would be, lets say, 15 dives in a minimum of 4 systems, and somehow require divers to visit more than just the same 4 caves every year until they die or quit the sport.

Do you think this might increase the quality of cave divers, and decrease fatalities? Or do you think there is no problem with the current training?

On a related note, why do we see some divers with many years of cave training and a high number of dives who only visit the "tourist caves" and other divers who are relatively new to the sport who are actively diving new caves, in some cases finding, exploring and surveying these caves? Is there a difference in diver quality? In an argument, should we discount the opinion of either diver, the one because he only dives tourist caves, and the other because he has fewer total dives? What happens when the diver who has never been outside of their area (either Florida or Mexico, and I'm generalizing here because I do know there are caves in other areas, just trying to keep it simple) joins the discussion? Or is it just a matter of logic, and one person will be more logically correct than the other?

w00t, now there's a post from the month of December in T2T...what's the point of T2T if we aren't going to have fun discussions here? Flame away, folks!

 

[LiteHedded]

there is an agency that goes a long way towards this.
on average, would you say they produce better cave divers?

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Funny thing is, I don't see many GUE divers out there pushing any limits. I see them fairly often doing routine, easy dives at Ginnie and Peacock. They look ok in their teams. Good trim, decently well run lines. Don't run into their cookies, arrows or line in any challenging, out of the way tunnels or caves.

 

[TSandM]

I'm not sure that which caves you dive is a measure of how good a cave diver you are. For example, I travel from Seattle to cave dive. I rent a car. I don't own a boat. I don't do well carrying tanks long distances on land, or over rough terrain. Therefore, I tend to stick to caves I can get in and out of easily, and since I don't get to do many dives a year, I don't at all mind that I see the same cave repeatedly, since I really don't ever get to learn a cave really WELL.

I think, honestly, that people who recognize that their low dive count per year means they're better off staying where they have some familiarity may, in fact, be showing good judgment.

I do think training should be rigorous enough that anyone with a cave card of any sort should be able to negotiate an uneventful cave dive in favorable conditions without hitting the ceiling or the floor, without silting out friendly passage, and should be able to keep a team together and manage good communication. They should be able to run a line that would be safe to follow, in a way that is considerate to other divers. They should have protocols in place for marking intersections. They should be able to do valve shutdowns (if relevant) and air-sharing without losing buoyancy, trim, or line or team awareness. They should have good technique with kicks, not swim with their hands, and have good light discipline.

MOST of the above was required of me before I was permitted to begin cave training at all. (Line running wasn't, of course!)

 

[Cave Diver]

On a related note, why do we see some divers with many years of cave training and a high number of dives who only visit the "tourist caves" and other divers who are relatively new to the sport who are actively diving new caves, in some cases finding, exploring and surveying these caves?

I think it's a difference in access and motivation. A lot of my dives are done at JB, because on a 3-day diving trip it's easy and familiar. Seeking out and exploring new caves requires a time commitment to research leads, survey the area and figure out logistics. While I'd love to do some of that, I rarely have that kind of time. So instead, a lot of my diving is done puttering around stuff on the millpond.

If I lived closer and had the chance to dive there every weekend, I'd be very interested in doing more stuff off the beaten path like Kevin, Mat and a few others do.

 

[Blackwood]

*salt warning: not a cave diver*

How hard should cave training be?

"Hard" is non-quantifiable due to varying levels of talent (not to be confused with skill).

It's appropriate to set minimum standards. To some those may be hard, while to others those may be easy.

This requirement would be, lets say, 15 dives in a minimum of 4 systems, and somehow require divers to visit more than just the same 4 caves every year until they die or quit the sport.

If a diver repeatedly dives the same 4 caves to the exclusion of others, isn't it a reasonable conclusion that said diver only wants to dive those 4 caves (for any number potential reasons)?

I don't see forcing someone to make dives s/he doesn't want to make as a good policy. If someone told me I had to go dive the oil rigs in order to maintain some certification level, I'd tell them to pound sand.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

The number of cave sites was brought up partly due to the recent fatality at Peacock, where a team dove the same site repeatedly for years.

I do less exploration now than I did this last summer, but even after moving to Miami I've managed to replace several hundred feet of line in an off the beaten path system, and worked on a no mount tunnel in a popular system.

 

[The Chairman]

Interesting conversation.

I love it when an instructor requires MORE than the minimum. Does that mean that I feel that the minimums aren't sufficient? Not really. The minimums should cover safety to the diver and to the cave and to stay within their limits.

As for diving different systems. I think this as a requirement would cause more accidents. I never want to feel compelled to dive somewhere new. Let me do it on my own terms.

 

[rongoodman]

I don't see the connection between the recent Peacock fatality and longer, more rigorous training. They ignored the training that they had received.

 

[The Chairman]

I don't see the connection between the recent Peacock fatality and longer, more rigorous training. They ignored the training that they had received.

Interesting insight. I think that instruction (including agencies and instructors) are often needlessly vilified when their former students depart from their training.