What is proper training?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

We used 50% in the course, no decompression. Most of the course was about gas planning, doubles and carrying/managing a stage tank.
I see how somebody would want to do Basic Nitrox to use EAN in single-tank easy dives.
I don't see how you need to have basic nitrox to do advanced nitrox. Advanced nitrox covers ALL basic nitrox and more.

As you said, oxygen-rich mixes are dangerous for the novice diver. What makes the difference is awareness, experience and attitude. I am not sure how splitting the course in two levels would help.

Honestly, we could teach both classes in one course. It would be three times as long, and cost three times as much and it wouldn't be needed by 80% of the diving population. That's why it was split into sections.
 
Honestly, we could teach both classes in one course. It would be three times as long, and cost three times as much and it wouldn't be needed by 80% of the diving population. That's why it was split into sections.

Thank you. I am more and more convinced that my basic nitrox training has not been proper.
 
i would think that the majority of people that take basic nitrox are only needing the information that is offered, and do not at that time intend to progress further. maybe that changes and they can go to advance. whatever. this allows for classes that can fit the needs of everyone.
 
I also recently had the experience of having someone tell me they wouldn't dive stages with me in a cave, because I didn't have a stage cert.

A stage cert???
What agency offers this as a specialty? So I can avoid them :)
 
In what way? What is it exactly you feel was missing?

I'll try to explain, without turning this into a rant about my nitrox course.

After 18 years of diving, on and off, i decided to go back to an instructor to udate/upgrade my knowledge. I wanted to go tech eventually, but i had to progress step by step. I looked for a reputable instructor in Hong Kong (admittedly, HK is not the place to go diving, but that is where I live, so I went for it).
I explained to my instructor my tech ambitions and my willingness to take my diving to the next level, he said that the place to start was Advanced OW and Nitrox course. I agreed, pointing out that I had already done night dives, deep dives, multi-level (what the hell is a multi-level specialty anyways??) and maybe wanted to learn something new (I had roughly 100 dives on my log). The response was: "it doesn't matter if someone recklessly took you deeper than 18m without an AOW, you NEED AOW to go deeper than 18m, it's just not worth the risk". I kinda wanted to laugh in his face, but I thought that opening an argument with your instructor on day 1 was not the best strategy, I just nodded, shut up and let him say what he had to say.
He picked the specialties for me: I got deep dive, navigation, night, multi-level and peak-performance buoyancy. I tried to tell him i wanted to learn how do use a dry-suit, to no avail.
I asked about the Nitrox dive, he said Basic Nitrox is theory-only, and that if I wanted I could do one of my AOW dives with a nitrox tank for an extra charge of USD 30.
After this, he suggested I buy a computer and pushed hard for me to buy a ZOOP. Nice computer, cheap, but no gas switches, I have sold it already.

The all course was a complete waste of time.
The deep dive was conducted at 17m for a total bottom time of 2 minutes. In my log I already had multiple 30m+ dives and one 44m dive. He never mentioned deep stops.
Multi-level dive: I am not sure what that is or why I did it.
Navigation: very useful skill I had never focussed on, but I didn't need an instructor for that, I just had to buy a compass and try.
Night dive: it's always fun to be out in the dark, even when you do it in 7m of mud like we did here. Not sure what I learned though.
Peak Perf Buoyancy: Ideally a great topic. Work on trim, moving weights up and down, swim balanced, non-silting kicks, maybe try a BP/W. VERY important, BUT none of that has been covered. I was taken in the water together with other students that were doing other specialties and he asked me to show him I could float upside-down without moving. That was it. Bottom time 8 minutes.

He insisted on stamping an signing my log book. What the hell is that for? It's my log book, I can dive with whomever I want, and log whatever I want. I don't need your rubber stamp.

Basic Nitrox was a multiple-choice test. I passed it, I got certified. Not that I am suggesting that learning from the internet is a good idea, but all the material in the Basic Nitrox booklet is pretty much covered on Wikipedia and multiple diving books.
After reading my material I asked my instructor one question:
"It seems to me that your air consumption should not change with Nitrox, because your SAC is driven by your need to expel carbon dioxide, so the % of oxygen in the tanks does not matter for your air consumption. Is that right?"
the response was "Carbon Dioxide has nothing to do with Nitrox, Nitrox is about nitrogen and oxygen". ::WTH::

Great. What did I learn during the course:
1 HK water is pretty **** and sometimes viz is so bad you cannot see yout feet
2 PADI specialties are mostly a waste of time
3 Some instructors are assholes and don't know very well what they are teaching

My Advanced Nitrox course was the complete opposite. I took it with TDI and I have had the luck to have a very experienced and passionate instructor that taught me a lot of stuff, had an answer for any of my question and in our time together he shared his experience and carefully pushed my limits. I left a better diver. The theoretical part about enriched air was 100% the same as basic Nitrox, what made the difference was spending time in the water with someone capable, who's passion is to make me a better diver. When I first met him, he didn't ask for my certification cards, he saw my gear, talked to me for 5 minutes and did a quick warmup dive, and we were all set. No paperwork. The morning after we were on a wreck, diving with doubles.
THAT is what I was expecting, and I left very happy.

Now you can argue that I cannot compare two different people, from different agencies, teaching different levels. Yes and no. Whatever the level, the attitude should be the same. I am paying an instructor for his time and experience. Knowledge is available on books, I don't need an instructor to teach me oxygen toxicity, I know how to read. I am paying for a customized experience, for someone that can answer my questions, for someone that can safely take me beyond my comfort zone, someone that can help me trim my weights, even if it's a "night dive" specialty. That is what I want. And sometimes you get more of that by diving with veterans than by taking a course with someone who has spent the last 17 years 5m deep teaching people how to clear a mask.

As i said, i love education. BUT I hate it when agencies try to police diving, regulating what certifications you need for this and that and standardize everything.
It's my life, I don't need PADI's approval, I don't need PADI (or whomever else) to stamp my logbook or to tell me where to go. Agencies should be there to teach you, to warn you and to mentor you: they are NOT the police. They try to make it all black and white in prepackaged boxes, but the world is NOT black and white.

I feel courses should offer a lot more. I expect instructors to be mentors, to guide me where I want to go, even if that looses them business. I want to take their courses because they are great and teach me the stuff, NOT BECAUSE I need this or that card to do that dive. Enphasis should be on DIVING MORE and FINDING GOOD BUDDIES, rather than on selling cards.

And this all thread is not just about my nitrox course, it is a general statement. I have been discussing this with my parents. In the 70s, all these courses were not available. My dad has been in a cave hugging his tank, without a BCD. It's a no-mount dive, before it was called no-mount. I have given him so much crap for having been in a cave without training. Now that I am learning about caves, I ralized that HE KNOWS A LOT MORE ABOUT CAVING THAN ME. Sometimes I feel my parents should have received much more training than they did for the dives they have done, but now that I am going through a lot of that training myself, I am realizing that there isn't always that much value in it. Sometimes (not always), even after I took the courses, they still know much better than me.
 
If you're feeling like you didn't get your money's worth, then you didn't, and your instructor probably sucked. I tell people up front when taking an AoW cert. Guys, this is a mickey mouse cert and I'm embarrassed to be making money off of it. With that said, who's got cash for me?

But, that's why I don't teach recreational courses anymore, because I felt guilty teaching a lot of the goofy specialties. With technical courses, if you've picked a good instructor, you should feel accomplished upon receiving the card.
 
But, that's why I don't teach recreational courses anymore, because I felt guilty teaching a lot of the goofy specialties.

I go to dive club meetings once a month and at the beginning of the meeting the shop owner stands up and tells how many nitrox, AOW, and other certifications have been done since the last meeting. I really cringe when they tell how many "Boat Diver" certs were given out.
 
if you've picked a good instructor, you should feel accomplished upon receiving the card.

I took my OW in 1995 with Cristina Zenato. I was 14 and too young to realize who I had in front of me. I was very lucky to have someone like her teach me.
This year at Xmas, 18 years later, I will do my first caving course with her. I am sure it's going to be great. ::excited::
 
The main problem is there is a huge range of divers out there from the weekend warriors to the really serious ones. The really dangerous ones are the weekend warriors... The ones who wanna go as fast as deep and do as many things as possible in the shortest possible time. Those are the ones that usually get hurt.

Sure there are those who can are able to do everything well fast but a for the larger majority, a simple smb deployment is already a challenge, maintaining trim is almost beyond them. Having a guy with 50 dives only and can't maintain constant depth to do doubles with 80% O2 is a accident waiting to happen.

I did 100+ dives in about a year and even then debated if I was prepared to do more.

I got into tech stuff only after 150-180 dives. If I don't know how well a diver can take care of him/herself I won't even tell em to use nitrox. I've seen too many rec divers pushing the limit to 45m, singles tank and air... High EAN... forget it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom