Diver Training, Has It Really Been Watered Down???

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Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I really enjoyed this video.
Great to watch, and overall, I agree. There's the theory of interference that @boulderjohn has brought up in another thread, and it has changed the way I look at teaching. Teach students what they need to know, and nothing more. Don't overwhelm them with too much. Hence specialty classes.

I wonder if the criticism of modern training (and hoping not to reopen this debate) is founded on a difference in confidence once certified.
 
I wonder if the criticism of modern training (and hoping not to reopen this debate) is founded on a difference in confidence once certified.

It certainly is from my perspective, and is built upon by my certification in the late 80's, wife's in the mid-90's, and daughter's in the last 5 years, coupled with observations and involvement with divers locally on shop trips..
 
Is it confidence or bravado? I newly certified and conservative by nature. In no way to I feel confident and I think it is better that way. I recently paid for a dive boat trip, after paying, I learned the dive would likely be beyond my experience level. I verified my feelings with one of the instructors at the dive shop and put the money toward a tank instead.

A person has to know their limitations.
 
Is it confidence or bravado? I newly certified and conservative by nature. In no way to I feel confident and I think it is better that way. I recently paid for a dive boat trip, after paying, I learned the dive would likely be beyond my experience level. I verified my feelings with one of the instructors at the dive shop and put the money toward a tank instead.

A person has to know their limitations.
In my part of the country, water is cold, dark, and in some places fast. Most new divers don't meet WRSTC requirements in that they need to be babysat with a pro or experienced diver. Most don't know how to plan a dive really. All agency materials are pretty poor in that respect IMHO.
 
Bravado? Let's try "capable of planning and conducting a dive in conditions equal to your training". I am a Great Lakes and Finger lakes diver. That is where I dive. It was 10 years of diving before I knew what a DM was for.

I now see people who can't assemble their own gear. Can't monitor their own air. Can't figure out a simple o-ring issue on a tank valve.

It is not global, but it isn't unusual.

And even an instructor who didn't understand her gear. Great teacher of things, but to me the standards are lacking. Sorry Alex, my Scuba Diver equaled OW/AOW/ Rescue/ and even taught deco...

One of 15 didn't make it....he couldn't put his face in the Lake...


It wasn't military, and you learned....

YMMV
 
There is a wide gulf between lack of confidence and not being able to assemble your own gear. One is plainly incompetence.
 
Hmmm... Memories are often a rosy place, especially distant ones.

I was Certified in 1987. The training wasn’t very good. The manuals were virtually nonexistent. There were few external sources of information.

Compared to then, there’s a wealth of information, manuals and books available now. There are also a lot more class options too. Back then, OW was it. No one needed anything else, or so they thought. Attitudes were different then too.

I’ve seen divers that can’t put their gear together too, but it’s largely because all the training has opened diving to a more diverse group of people. It’s more than just gear heads now.

One thing is for sure, there was certainly less hysteria associated with diving back then. Divers weren’t telling each other how their gear selection was going to kill them. All the gear was marginal by today’s standards, and we just dealt with it.

I wouldn’t go back to the way things were...
 
I now see people who can't assemble their own gear. Can't monitor their own air. Can't figure out a simple o-ring issue on a tank valve.
I saw that in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

We have a tendency to romanticize the past, aka "The Good ol' Days". I can't tell you how often I heard how much better buoyancy was back then and it just doesn't match my experience. I'm tired or rolling my eyes in response.
 
I had fun taking the coarse in 1980. We had a long cold winter and I got into the pool once a week. The gear and expectations were different then. I understand the dive tables, even today and I knew how to plan a square deco dive. The equipment today is much better. BCDs and dive computers are ubiquitous. The way you learned was by diving. Lacking the Internet, most of it was trial and error or reading. I remember the last lesson we had oral inflate Horse collar BCs and were shown how to inflate them on the surface.
 

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