I would think any shop or instructor would provide this if you asked for it. I sometimes see it offered but it isn't popular so it isn't marketed often.
Diver Training, Has It Really Been Watered Down???
- Thread starter Lake Hickory Scuba
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I would think any shop or instructor would provide this if you asked for it. I sometimes see it offered but it isn't popular so it isn't marketed often.
I agree. It is just a matter of scheduling them.
I'm going to give you an instructor's opinion about this.
How I learned
computers
I took my initial training in 1984. I have a pretty good memory of the things the instructor talked about. We were well drilled in tables because we didn't have computers back then (there were some but they were mysterious, expensive and not terribly reliable and only technical divers had them as far as I knew). In terms of gas planning we were taught NOTHING beyond the general rule to surface with a 25% buffer.
risks
What I can remember about my OW course is that the instructor went into a lot of detail -- a LOT of detail -- about the potential risks and injuries related to diving. Once certified we were under no illusions about what COULD happen. Anno 2018 and the general tone of the course is to de-emphasize the risks and to emphasize the fun. This could be seen as watering down the course to some degree because I believe it is in the student's best interest to fully understand the risks.
deco theory
Pertaining to decompression theory. We were drilled to be fully capable of planning any dive within the NDL's on the tables and indeed I did my first 600 or so dives using tables. At some point I did what a lot of divers did, which is to use the 120 "rule", which I found "close enough" for the dives I was doing at the time. As for understanding deco theory in general, we got ZERO information in our OW course about how the deco models work. We also got ZERO information about mitigating factors, like safety stops, or risk factors like cold, dehydration, working hard on the bottom, the effect of ascent rates with respect to risk and so forth. We were told to follow the small bubbles but even that was not given a lot of emphasis.
trim and buoyancy control
Aspects of trim and buoyancy control were given ZERO attention in our OW course beyond the ability to hover for 1 min (at that time the standard was to hover for 1 min) and to keep buoyancy control within a couple of meters of the agreed upon depth during the check out dives. Buoyancy control was given slightly more emphasis at the AOW level (which is another post) but the entire concept of trim was never even introduced.
The rest of the standard was very similar to the way it was before the recent improvements.
How I teach
computers
These days, of course, the computer is ubiquitous. I no longer teach the tables except as an historical footnote. I do tell students that if they want to know how the tables work that I am more than happy to show them but I strongly advise them to buy a computer and to dive with it. Simply put, computers are better than tables for measuring nitrogen loading in every measurable way. Moreover, and I'm sure every instructor will tell you this, the ONE THING that people coming in to a "scuba review" have forgotten how to do is to plan a dive.
What I do with all of the time I save not having to drill tables with students is to spend that time on safe diving practices. Best practices. I don't cut back on the amount of time I spend with students but the time spent is MUCH more productive than it was -- in my experience -- in 1984. My students are also coming out of the course able to plan any dive they want using a computer.
With respect to gas planning, EU norms supersede all agency standards so all instructors in Europe are required by EU rules to teach gas planning. This notwithstanding, the quality of information available, and being taught, is generally very good in this part of the world. This is a VAST improvement over what was taught in the past.
risks
As I alluded to above, I think that modern training glosses over the risks too much. Personally I give the risk factors what I believe to be appropriate attention in the OW course but I find that to be a balancing act. I am fully in favour of emphasizing the fun aspects of diving but I think that delaying a detailed awareness of risks to the Rescue course is ... well ... thoroughly idiotic, to be blunt. So I go into a certain amount of detail during the OW course, particularly with respect to causes and dangers of barotraumas and DCS. I don't know why PADI (or is the shops I've been working for) think that if you talk about risks that you will scare students, but I don't believe it. I think someone well armed with knowledge is a better diver. I try not to make it heavy but I don't skirt around the issue either. This is one area where I believe training has been watered down. I believe PADI has a financial motive for this and the shop DEFINITELY has a financial motive to get people diving (and buying gear) asap but that's not my focus. My focus is making sure that my students know bloody well what they are getting themselves into and that includes discussing the jagged edges where things could go wrong. In my opinion the Rescue course should be about handling an emergency, not learning about the risks.
deco theory
without going in to a lot of detail, the way deco theory is taught today (at least by instructors who I know who really understand it) is VASTLY SUPERIOR to how it was in the past. This may not be universal so I should qualify that by saying that almost all of the instructors at the shop where I work have had technical training and several are active technical divers. Dropping tables was the best thing to ever happen to students' understanding of deco theory. We now have to actually teach them what is going on instead of just following a "cook book" to get an NDL. In my OW course I do not go into detail about what to do if they get outside the NDL, but I do explain that it requires procedures that they will not learn at this level and that they should not experiment with it. However, I do not teach them to FEAR the NDL, which is what my instructor did in 1984. Interestingly, my own instructor was a commercial diver who taught PADI courses on the side so he understood this stuff but felt that it was better to instill fear in his students. In addition, the way we teach it, the risk factors are fully laid out and the connection between DCS and these risk factors, in particular, ascent rates, is given sufficient attention. In terms of avoiding a potential DCS, I believe my students have an exceptionally good understanding of the theory that is light years beyond anything that was taught in the 1980's.
trim and buoyancy control
Obviously attention for trim and buoyancy control are an integral part of the modern standard. Some instructors are still struggling to learn how to teach this so we are currently in a transition. However, the fact that there is ANY attention being given to trim and buoyancy control is an improvement over the past. If there is ONE thing I could point to and say that I sincerely believe has improved the quality of diving generally, it's this. I know a lot of people share stories about terrible divers and there are a multitude of videos showing bad trim and buoyancy control. Some of those are obviously snapshots of divers who are not having their best moments and some are genuinely distressing. However, if we had had the same amount of video being made of divers in the 1980's then your toes would curl. I don't know if any of you have the Jacques Cousteau film series on DVD but I do and when you watch it the quality of their diving is utterly abysmal by modern standards! I'm serious. This is another area where we have made great improvements over the last 30-odd years.
As for e-learning
A final word about e-learning. As an instructor I am a HUGE fan of e-learning. Having spent countless unproductive hours basically reading the book to students who couldn't be bothered to do their homework I now have e-learning. In my case, if you don't do your homework, you don't dive. So that's the motivation right there. I haven't changed the amount of time I spend (much) on theory, but I can now spend that time on relevant topics, like deco theory, trim and buoyancy control, dive planning (including gas planning) and bridging the gap between theory and practice, in particular with respect to local diving, which in our area is not trivial because of conditions (mostly visibility and cold temperatures). As a result my OW students are coming out of class a LOT better prepared in terms of theory than they did before we had e-learning.
My Conclusion (tldr
Having learned in 1984 and only having "gone pro" in 2002, I believe I can compare the system that I was taught to the system I teach and on several fronts I have a strong conviction that things have significantly improved over time. With respect to delaying knowledge transfer of the medical risks of diving I believe that the accent should not be put on the Rescue course, which many divers never take, but on the OW course, when that knowledge is perhaps most relevant to their development as divers. In my opinion the Rescue course should be about handling an emergency, not learning about the risks. That last point could be considered "watering down". As for e-learning. E-learning is best thing to happen to diver training since the invention of the dive computer.
R..
BDSC
Contributor
Thanks for taking the time to write all of that. Excellent viewpoint from someone who knows.
As for "watering down", Bryan (@Lake Hickory Scuba), do you want to talk about AOW? ... because AOW has been hollowed out in the last 30 years to the point where you can hear an echo if you open the book and make a sound into the pointless pages.
It's fine that the general pattern is to address the possibilities, the complications, the risks, procedures and the amount of fun you can have doing those things but when I compare that to how AOW was when I took it in 1985 then the differences are shocking, and not in a good way. Where PADI has made tremendous progress in the OW course, the AOW course needs a similar make over.
As a result, as PADI instructor I will only give the AOW course at the request of ex-students and I will only do it if they agree to do the navigation specialty and the deep specialty as part of the deal. Because I work at a shop I do regularly give one or two dives of the AOW course because of the way they approach it (ie. "get your AOW by just diving", which is really good marketing, btw). However, I honestly do not believe in the format.
That said, I like that PADI has a cafeteria model of "experience dives" and that they have a dive for everyone who is interested in trying just about anything their heart desires. An AOW course (which includes the word "advanced") however, is something very different in my mind.
In 1985 I did my AOW. It was +/- 20 dives, IIRC. 5 topics. Deep, navigation and night (which the instructor called "limited visibility" at the time, IIRC, probably because if you go deep enough it's dark anyway....) were required. One of the limited viz dives was dive to 60ft/18m that required us to navigate a route in zero visiblity because of a storm. We were taught touch signs and sent diving with 1.5m waves on the surface and the bottom so chopped up that I couldn't see any further than my elbow. I received specialty cards for Deep, Night and Navigation. This was probably my instructor's choice, as opposed to the agency. I don't know what the agency standard was at that time. The optional topics I took were "search and recovery" (2 dives that I recall) and "wreck" (2 dives that I recall). As an aside, Navigation is still my favorite specialty to teach. My friends laugh about that because in the car I can get lost in my own neighbourhood without the navigation turned on but put me under water and I can dive for an hour or more and surface at the same stone where the dive started. In the mountains I'm like that too. I can walk around for 3 weeks in the mountains and never get lost but I can't walk around in a city for 30 minutes without asking for directions.
I digress. I came out of that experience confident and prepared to dive without any hand-holding. If I look at AOW students these days, many still don't have that feeling and some couldn't be trusted in a swimming pool without supervision.
So if we're talking about "watering down" training, then I personally see AOW as the focal point for where the "watering down" has happened. Of course, things are different now than they were 30 years ago. Modern OW students may be better trained but the AOW course that many instructors agree to teach is ... well ... to put it mildly, a pale facsimile of what an AOW should (and could) be.
R..
It's fine that the general pattern is to address the possibilities, the complications, the risks, procedures and the amount of fun you can have doing those things but when I compare that to how AOW was when I took it in 1985 then the differences are shocking, and not in a good way. Where PADI has made tremendous progress in the OW course, the AOW course needs a similar make over.
As a result, as PADI instructor I will only give the AOW course at the request of ex-students and I will only do it if they agree to do the navigation specialty and the deep specialty as part of the deal. Because I work at a shop I do regularly give one or two dives of the AOW course because of the way they approach it (ie. "get your AOW by just diving", which is really good marketing, btw). However, I honestly do not believe in the format.
That said, I like that PADI has a cafeteria model of "experience dives" and that they have a dive for everyone who is interested in trying just about anything their heart desires. An AOW course (which includes the word "advanced") however, is something very different in my mind.
In 1985 I did my AOW. It was +/- 20 dives, IIRC. 5 topics. Deep, navigation and night (which the instructor called "limited visibility" at the time, IIRC, probably because if you go deep enough it's dark anyway....) were required. One of the limited viz dives was dive to 60ft/18m that required us to navigate a route in zero visiblity because of a storm. We were taught touch signs and sent diving with 1.5m waves on the surface and the bottom so chopped up that I couldn't see any further than my elbow. I received specialty cards for Deep, Night and Navigation. This was probably my instructor's choice, as opposed to the agency. I don't know what the agency standard was at that time. The optional topics I took were "search and recovery" (2 dives that I recall) and "wreck" (2 dives that I recall). As an aside, Navigation is still my favorite specialty to teach. My friends laugh about that because in the car I can get lost in my own neighbourhood without the navigation turned on but put me under water and I can dive for an hour or more and surface at the same stone where the dive started. In the mountains I'm like that too. I can walk around for 3 weeks in the mountains and never get lost but I can't walk around in a city for 30 minutes without asking for directions.
I digress. I came out of that experience confident and prepared to dive without any hand-holding. If I look at AOW students these days, many still don't have that feeling and some couldn't be trusted in a swimming pool without supervision.
So if we're talking about "watering down" training, then I personally see AOW as the focal point for where the "watering down" has happened. Of course, things are different now than they were 30 years ago. Modern OW students may be better trained but the AOW course that many instructors agree to teach is ... well ... to put it mildly, a pale facsimile of what an AOW should (and could) be.
R..
OP
Thank You very much @Diver0001 as this is the response I was hoping I would get. Like you, I started in the 80's and have seen the transition from old school training, to new age training. I have always had the stand point that I am an old school diver but a new aged instructor. And as someone who is in the scuba industry, not just as an instructor but also as a store owner, I believe your statement here explains a lot.
This is one of the hardest things to do, to have a successful business and offer quality training at the same time. Offering a reasonably priced product (Scuba Certification) without jeopardizing the quality of training, yet at the same time competing, not with other instructors and stores, but other recreational activities. Probably the hardest thing to do is to sell a scuba course. Selling gear is easy, you have to have the gear to dive. But trying to sell a course to a customer is very difficult. The biggest thing the customer wants to know is, "Why do I have to go scuba diving?" If you can't give them a reason, and keep the training entertaining enough for them to enjoy, then well you no longer have a customer. Without customers, then no business. Thank You again for your insight.
This is one of the hardest things to do, to have a successful business and offer quality training at the same time. Offering a reasonably priced product (Scuba Certification) without jeopardizing the quality of training, yet at the same time competing, not with other instructors and stores, but other recreational activities. Probably the hardest thing to do is to sell a scuba course. Selling gear is easy, you have to have the gear to dive. But trying to sell a course to a customer is very difficult. The biggest thing the customer wants to know is, "Why do I have to go scuba diving?" If you can't give them a reason, and keep the training entertaining enough for them to enjoy, then well you no longer have a customer. Without customers, then no business. Thank You again for your insight.
OP
This is one of the biggest reasons I teach through multiple agencies. If the student specifically ask for PADI, then that is what I teach them, I would be a fool to not give them the product they are asking for (the training, not the certification), but I always encourage them to take a look at the other agencies that we train through and the standards for which they must meet for certification. To me 5 additional dives does not make some one advanced. Yes, occasionally we will get that NATURAL that walks through the door, or someone who has been trained for 5 or more years, with several hundred dives under their belt. Then, in this case the 5 adventure dive Advanced Course would hold more credit with me. I've often wondered if training agencies that offer the 5 dive Advanced Course would be more accurate to call it the EXPLORATORY DIVER CERTIFICATION. Agencies could marketed it as a certification that allows divers to explore their options to see what course they may want to take next. 4 out of the 5 agencies I teach for requires at a minimum of 24 dives for a full Advanced Diver Certification, and most require multiple specialty certifications as well. PADI is the only exception to this rule. Now I am not going to discredit PADI, simply because I am a proud PADI Instructor, but like you, I feel this course has been neglected over the years and continues to be abused.
CAPTAIN SINBAD
Contributor
Total agreement here. My PADI AOW was the single worst investment I made into my training. I ended up with a card that was certifying me to dive to 100 feet when I was still taking my "baby steps" into the world of diving. I was quite surprised that after a few guided dives you become "Advanced."
Bob DBF
Contributor
Best leave well enough alone, you will have divers walking away knowing they are qualified explorers, best let them think they are advanced, it's safer.
Bob
I think the PADI AOW should be treated and labelled as an "Introduction to Advanced Diving" instead of making people feel that they are "Advanced" Open Water divers. Master diver should potentially be renamed as Advanced as that shows that a level of training has been undertaken. If there was to be a Master diver certificate, that should be one that signifies a level of skill/knowledge that would be deserving of the title.
One of the issues with it in its current guise is that boats/trips often call for "AOW" as a basic bar however someone can get it with a total of 9 dives and still barely able to maintain control (I can vouch for this as I almost ended .
If it was done in a similar way to the other 4 agencies you mention, there would be a good chance that after doing 24 total dives most of the poor divers would have had sufficient time in the water (with an instructor) to have developed decent skills.
I got lucky in my OW course in that I was one to one with a young instructor (who owned the shop as it happens) who was interested in turning out good active divers instead of people who wanted to dive - he tended to work on the basis of "would I want you as my buddy?". Because of that a good time was spent sorting trim/buoyancy control in the pool before we made it out to OW check out dives.
One of the issues with it in its current guise is that boats/trips often call for "AOW" as a basic bar however someone can get it with a total of 9 dives and still barely able to maintain control (I can vouch for this as I almost ended .
If it was done in a similar way to the other 4 agencies you mention, there would be a good chance that after doing 24 total dives most of the poor divers would have had sufficient time in the water (with an instructor) to have developed decent skills.
I got lucky in my OW course in that I was one to one with a young instructor (who owned the shop as it happens) who was interested in turning out good active divers instead of people who wanted to dive - he tended to work on the basis of "would I want you as my buddy?". Because of that a good time was spent sorting trim/buoyancy control in the pool before we made it out to OW check out dives.
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