Not picking on the poster I am quoting below, just using his post as a cogent example for some points:
For dive courses, OW,AOW and then rescue/first aid, would be the minimum.
Equipment specialist if the workings of your gear and having the ability to do simple stuff yourself and save a dive. Science of diving if the theory really interests you.
There is nothing really taught in the Equipment Specialist course that one could not learn from a fellow diver with experience owning and maintaining their own gear. The course does not teach how to crack open 1st and 2nd stages to adjust them.
The course is designed for someone 10 years old or over and only requires 2 to 4 hours time commitment to be considered an "Equipment Specialist"....Think about that for a moment.
You can learn more by reading threads on Scuba Board than you will in the "Equipment Specialist" class....there is nothing about this certification that offers much value except except it puts one in a classroom with an instructor to mind-meld some basic gear info instead of having to go out and seek that information from others...what you get for your money, is some baic info from someone who is following a specific curriculum and may or may not know much beyond what is in that curriculum. Remember, the tech in the back of the shop who is doing the servicing is not necessarily the guy giving the class....just because one is an instructor does not mean they have any significant experience working on dive gear.
dive dive dive
Outside of diving, physical fitness, yoga breathing, seamanship, meteorology, oceanography, medical and first aid, etc will help.
I agree completely with the above. It is experience that makes a better diver, not training.
Also, training does not equal education....there are some fundamental differences between the two. One can be trained to perform an action but have no idea beyond what they are doing physically. For instance:
One can be trained to change a tire...the act of removing the tire and installing a new one. This procedural. Educating would involve information on tire wear, proper selection for types of driving conditions, how to judge types of tire wear and what causes them and how to correct them...it is having a more holistic understanding of the tire of a vehicle and how it relates to the overall piece of machinery the vehicle is and its performance. It is not necessary to be educated to know how to remove and replace a tire...but when one starts evaluating "when" and "why" along with the "what" and the "how", they are now starting down the road of being not just trained but educated.
Certified does not equal Educated.
DM is just about useless to make you a better diver. It needs you to be a good diver to start and teaches you to do those skills at a demonstration level, not a practical dive level. You would not take driver education teacher courses to become a better driver, so why take a dive teaching course to be a better diver? I looked long and hard at DM course and decided that my money would be better spent on just diving and doing other things, mentioned above, to make me a better diver.
The sentiment expressed in the quote above is a really god point. I find it sadly humorous when people talk about the basic skills they either learned or refined in their Divemaster training course....to me it is statement that the instructor who taught the course had no standards for entry....which should tell one a lot. There are a bunch of threads on SB where folks discuss how difficult or challenging basic things were during the course such as swimming, floating, and treading water.....for a "professional" level certification for an activity that is done in the water, one would think that the basic standards would require the candidate to be proficient with these personal skills before enrolling.
One other thing to think about is that you may face increased liability in case of an incident, even if you are recreational diving as a customer of a dive operation. As a dive professional the level of ordinary care might be deemed higher for you than it would be for a ordinary rescue diver.
The above is often stated but never cited, even with the higher prevalence of lawsuits in the US compared to the rest of the world.
Beyond that, dive, dive ,dive. Pay attention to your skills, practice buoyancy control, practice different fining and propulsion techniques, practice gas consumption management.
The above is good advice in my opinion.
I would like to see Master Diver rating go away from being a customer loyalty card and be one where you had t demonstrate above average skills and knowledge at all dive aspects. Seriously limit the ability to issue this rating, perhaps to the course director level or employee of the dive agency to keep it from being another bragging rights card that anyone can buy.
Not faulting
@Rickk for stating the above, but it brings up a point that folks tend to have a mono-perspective about training, for lack of a better term. Although Master Diver is a "recognition card" under PADI and SSI, it is an actual course of instruction and certification level under NAUI.
Watch others underwater for good skills to emulate and bad ones to avoid, get a buddy with a go pro to video you and see if your skills look as good as you think you do.
Another piece of excellent advice...and regarding using video: As a swim coach and ski instructor video is great tool to enhance feedback and discussions on movement analysis, but for diving where communication is difficult at best during the activity, video can be an especially effective force-multiplier for skill development.
-Z
