A picture is worth a 1000 words

[supergaijin]

I will have to disagree- I've found the first couple of dives to be more difficult as a whole but the final result (a neutrally buoyant OW diver) is well-worth the extra effort.

 

[boulderjohn]

It was seeing the PADI TecRec book, with pictures of valve drills on the knees, that solidified in my mind what agency I was NOT going to take any tech courses with. Its a buyers market. I don't think that anything will change while there are still more people who want to buy a card, than want to develop a skill. That's what needs to change. Unlike some other agencies which are non-profits, and want to do what's right, PADI is a business who wants to maximize profit. Which includes what they can earn from certifying large numbers of instructors as quickly and easily as possible. Can you imagine the disruption in the flow of profit if they all of a sudden required instructor candidates to do skills hovering?

Tell me the difference between a profit making agency (which is almost all of them) and a non-profit agency? Are you telling me that non-profits aren't trying to earn money to pay for overhead and people's salaries? I was once the Executive Director of a non-profit organization--pretty much all I did was raise money.

As said earlier, it is actually easier for students and instructors to perform skills in a neutral, horizontal position than on the knees, so your premise is simply wrong. It is not easier to prepare instructors to teach on the knees.

Finally, as said earlier, the rationale for teaching beginning instruction on the knees started with the very first teaching done at the Scripps Institute in California. That was the only way to do it. In theory, it makes sense. You start the student off doing the skills in the easiest possible way, and then make it more complicated as their skills develop. That is sound instructional theory. The problem with that is that in scuba, starting on the knees is not easier than starting off in a neutral, horizontal position. It is, in fact, harder. More importantly, it is different. If you look at the skills for OW #1, for example, you will see that each skill performed on the knees is different from the way it is performed in a real diving posture. So doing it on the knees is not only harder, it is wrong.

But people did not realize that. They had been starting students on the knees for so long they did not know any better. They thought they were doing the right thing. They were motivated by good but mistaken beliefs.

How do I know this? There was a reference earlier to an article on teaching students in a neutral, horizontal position published by PADI in their professional journal a few years ago. The article was put together by a group of instructors, many of them ScubaBoard members. I coordinated the project and submitted the draft. I then worked with a member of PADI headquarters over a long period of time to work out the details. I know what we said to each other about instructional theory. He was originally of the notion that starting on the knees was easier. He thought he was doing the right thing. I suspect that notion changed because he actually tried it as we were describing it during the period of our discussions.

The man with whom I was talking is in charge of their technical program. He is responsible for the pictures of tech training on the knees. We talked about that, and I told him it was wrong there, too. I gave the specific example of the valve drill. I agreed that it is best to introduce the skill without the added complication of being in a perfect horizontal hover without touching the floor, as many tech instructors do it, but I pointed out that the most important factor in being able to do a valve drill is to have the valves in the right place, and when you are on the knees, gravity takes the valves to the wrong place. Sure, it's OK for student to touch the floor of the pool the first time they do a valve drill, but they need to be horizontal to get the tanks and valves in the right place. I am pretty sure he got the idea. I suspect things will change there, too.

We are in the middle of a huge transition in basic dive training. I think it is pretty exciting. I would hope people would embrace and promote these positive changes rather than continue to beat the carcass of a long dead horse.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

b. When I started to teach the new TecReational Diver Distinctive Specialty last year, I made a carefully-worded announcement to be delivered via the shop's newsletter. The class has content similar to GUE Fundamentals, teaching stable horizontal trim, buoyancy, and advanced propulsion techniques (and more). When the newsletter was sent out, the person who put it all together decided it needed a picture. He spotted the word "buoyancy" and found just the shot--a diver doing the Buddha hover. Thus the course announcement went out to all prospective students with a prominent picture of someone doing exactly the opposite of what the class teaches. I imagine many of the people who might have taken the class saw the picture and did not bother reading the article.

You imagine correctly. I've been writing manuals since 1977 and can tell you from experience that people can ... and often do ... judge the content by what they see in the pictures.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added November 29th, 2013 at 06:01 AM ----------

The new PADI OW standards (i.e., "blue bold") say, in part, for confined water:
- With a buddy, descend in water too deep in which to stand using the five-point method and use buoyancy control to stop the descent without contacting the bottom.
- With a buddy, swim over a simulated environmentally sensitive bottom while maintaining buoyancy control.
- With a buddy, practice previously learned skills with emphasis on neutral buoyancy, hovering and swimming.
- Demonstrate awareness and make efforts to avoid contact with simulated sensitive bottom and fragile aquatic organisms.

In the guide to teaching (all just suggestions and recommendations, no "standards"), we also find (examples) for confined water:
- Also, as divers gain buoyancy control, begin to introduce and practice skills in mid-water or while divers gently rest on fins tips, instead of kneeling stationary on the bottom. This adds realism, builds confidence and creates good dive habits.
And for open water, we find (examples):
- descend slowly and be careful not to disturb or damage the bottom.
- Mask removal, replacement and clearing — For realistic application, have divers practice this skill while neutrally buoyant or with only fin tip in contact with an insensitive bottom.

Yes, many instructors will find this difficult. Suck it up.

The real problem is that many instructors can't do it ... and you can't teach what you can't do. One of the biggest problems I have ... not just with PADI but with all the major agencies ... is that their standards for admitting people into the ranks of dive professional are too low. I've witnessed way too many examples of instructors who don't know the first thing about neutral buoyancy ... people who can only keep themselves in the water column if they're actively finning!

If you want to raise the standards for students, you must begin by raising the standards for the people who will be training them.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added November 29th, 2013 at 06:04 AM ----------

After that session I asked one of the other instructors what he thought and he said, "that's impossible. It was a fluke!"
And it's exactly that kind of defeatist attitude I'm trying to address in this thread. It's not impossible, it can be the norm. But you first have to believe it.

If you believe something is impossible, it will be (for you). If you believe something is difficult or unnecessary you will not be able to do it ... even if it's completely within your capability.

We see examples of this being discussed right here in this forum almost daily ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added November 29th, 2013 at 06:10 AM ----------

Now I understand why during training the instructors wouldn't let anyone have a camera. That way no photos of us on our knees could be taken. From the pool to the ocean all of our training was done on our knees, other than the fin pivot, and swimming exercises.

I think it is a PADI information suppression by not allowing cameras from dive number one!

That's nonsense. I've been teaching now for almost a decade and (a) I do not allow my students to have a camera during class, and (b) I do not carry a camera during class, even though outside of class I almost never go diving without one. The reason has nothing to do with the content of the photographs, but rather the distraction a camera brings into the class. Unless the purpose of a class is to learn how to take pictures underwater, a camera is a distraction that takes the student's attention away from the class objectives.

I do see some value in having an assistant take videos of the class ... which can be used for post-dive skills evaluation ... but that is an entirely different thing than allowing students to have one. And, FWIW, I am not a PADI instructor, nor do I train students from the kneeling position..

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added November 29th, 2013 at 06:21 AM ----------

PadI no Padi, no class, no skill, should be taught ever, kneeling on the bottom. Teaching a skill kneeling on the bottom teaches kneeling on the bottom. Kneeling on the bottom has significant eco-consequences.

N

It has more than eco consequences ... it makes an indelible impression on a student's habits, and the longer those habits are ingrained the more difficult they become to change.

I often see this in my AOW classes and skills workshops, which are predominantly students who were initially trained elsewhere. A lot of these students habitually kneel on the bottom any time they have to read a compass or fix a leaky mask or give their buddy a hand signal. We work, from day 1, to break that habit ... and with some students that takes significant effort and repeated prompting.

Just last week-end I got an impressive display of this ... two students doing a mid-water dive, where we do the entire dive several feet off the bottom. One gets the compass, the other the depth gauge and bottom timer, and the objective is for them to work together to swim the course while maintaining a depth of 20 feet. At one point they had some miscommunication and needed to stop the dive and sort it out. They immediately went into a kneeling position, facing each other, while they worked it through. The thing is, they were "kneeling" 15 feet above the bottom! It was a pretty impressive display of buoyancy control, because they held their positions nicely while they got it sorted out, then resumed their exercise without much depth change at all. Funniest part is that they didn't even realize what they had done until we surfaced and I told them about it.

most students would know how to kneel before the class started and lets face it the pool is hardly full of coral.

skills while neutral is great-but not on day 1.

Law of primacy ... that which is first learned is most easily recalled. And in times of stress, people almost always fall back on the familiar. It's why training people the right way from the beginning is so important.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

I often see this in my AOW classes and skills workshops, which are predominantly students who were initially trained elsewhere. A lot of these students habitually kneel on the bottom any time they have to read a compass or fix a leaky mask or give their buddy a hand signal. We work, from day 1, to break that habit ... and with some students that takes significant effort and repeated prompting.

Just last week-end I got an impressive display of this ... two students doing a mid-water dive, where we do the entire dive several feet off the bottom. One gets the compass, the other the depth gauge and bottom timer, and the objective is for them to work together to swim the course while maintaining a depth of 20 feet. At one point they had some miscommunication and needed to stop the dive and sort it out. They immediately went into a kneeling position, facing each other, while they worked it through. The thing is, they were "kneeling" 15 feet above the bottom! It was a pretty impressive display of buoyancy control, because they held their positions nicely while they got it sorted out, then resumed their exercise without much depth change at all. Funniest part is that they didn't even realize what they had done until we surfaced and I told them about it.

It was observing that phenomenon that led me to look for a way to change my own instruction. These two incidents happened at nearly the same time:

1. I was diving near Kona, on the big island of Hawai'i, and our was assigned an intern DM because, as we were told, every member of our group had logged at least 500 dives. During that dive, I saw one of these expert divers kneel on the coral to clear his mask. The intern DM spotted an interesting critter near the bottom of a sea fan, and he knelt on the only sandy patch to point it out to us. I was the only one who was able to hover in trim to see it. All the others knelt on the coral.

2. A Master Instructor (the highest level below Course Director) with thousands of logged dives did a pool session her shop was offering as an introduction to doubles and technical diving. As part of the session, the tech instructor demonstrated clearing his mask while hovering in horizontal trim and then indicated she should do it. She immediately went upright and knelt on the bottom to do it. It took several indications to repeat the skill before she realized why he wasn't satisfied with it. She had never cleared her mask any other way. Even while swimming in the open water, she had to go up upright into a kneeling position to clear her mask.

In contrast, every student who has finished confined water sessions with me can clear the mask without going upright and without kneeling. They have never knelt to do these skills, so they have never experienced it.

 

[TSandM]

Did anybody see my thread a few days ago about the Discover Scuba? Or see Peter's photographs of taking our grandson on his very first dive?

It's not hard to get people horizontal and neutral, if they've never done anything else.

Peter has watched a fair bit of the new OW video, and almost all the images of people on their knees are gone. Same with the OW manual, although there ARE a few kneeling photographs left there.

I think PADI is trying. I also think they realize they have a HUGE instructor base around the world that learned things one way, and is going to be very difficult to sway. By not mandating the change, they won't face a mass revolt or exodus of instructors. Believe me, the shops in the tropics appear to be irritated enough with the changes as it is.

 

[DevonDiver]

I think PADI is trying. I also think they realize they have a HUGE instructor base around the world that learned things one way, and is going to be very difficult to sway. By not mandating the change, they won't face a mass revolt or exodus of instructors. Believe me, the shops in the tropics appear to be irritated enough with the changes as it is.

I was under the impression that the majority of 'irritation' stemmed from other changes, such as that need to drop weights (damage to pool tiles) etc?

PADI have undertaken many large changes over the years - many of which caused initial irritation, but I don't think any caused a 'mass revolt' or 'exodus'. I can't see that the neutral buoyancy changes, even if mandated, would have that effect. What I can see, however, is that overall instructor skill-levels may not (initially) provide the expertise for the trainers themselves to apply the changes. That'd be an understandable reason for a 'soft' transition - allowing instructors to develop their own skill-set to enable tuition in role-model neutral buoyancy.

Being able to demonstrate a hover and demonstrate a mask clearance is not the same as being able to demonstrate a mask clearance when hovering...

Add 'trim' to the mix and there'll be more than a few instructors with some serious practice to be done (a good thing, in the long run).

 

[Ayisha]

Perhaps all the current PADI instructors should have to re-certify as an instructor to ensure they can teach to the new standards? Some kind of initial instructor renewal skills demonstration?

Many of the instructors that I have seen are going to face major challenges in meeting the new o/w course requirements themselves. Achieving the skills to demonstration quality will take a lot of work and a complete change in mindset for those instructors. The minority of instructors that I know that will not have any issues are the ones who have already been teaching that way and producing proficient students for years. Those instructors went a different way, taking the GUE Fundamentals and far beyond, and brought the same skillsets and proficiency to their PADI students. The challenging part has been keeping those instructors teaching for PADI. Some left, and hopefully some will come back due to the sorely needed new standards being implemented.

 

[boulderjohn]

Perhaps all the current PADI instructors should have to re-certify as an instructor to ensure they can teach to the new standards? Some kind of initial instructor renewal skills demonstration?

Many of the instructors that I have seen are going to face major challenges in meeting the new o/w course requirements themselves. Achieving the skills to demonstration quality will take a lot of work and a complete change in mindset for those instructors. The minority of instructors that I know that will not have any issues are the ones who have already been teaching that way and producing proficient students for years. Those instructors went a different way, taking the GUE Fundamentals and far beyond, and brought the same skillsets and proficiency to their PADI students. The challenging part has been keeping those instructors teaching for PADI. Some left, and hopefully some will come back due to the sorely needed new standards being implemented.

Since we expect students to be able to do this from the beginning, I don't expect instructors to have much trouble.

I first started experimenting with this in a shop with which I am no longer associated. As I was working things out and talking to other instructors, they started trying it. Nobody had any trouble. For the last two years, the Course Director who runs that shop has required all instruction to be done that way. Again, no problems.

We are not talking about a technical diving level of horizontal trim and buoyancy control. That is not in the requirements.

 

[DevonDiver]

Perhaps all the current PADI instructors should have to re-certify as an instructor to ensure they can teach to the new standards? Some kind of initial instructor renewal skills demonstration?

Theoretically, this could happen every time a PADI instructor attended con-ed training, with an in-water element, to progress their qualifications (specialties, IDCS etc..). It'd be as easy as asking CDs to place a 10 minute section into their program. The real benefit would be, if anticipated, that it would motivate instructors to practice their core skills in advance of any subsequent Pro development courses. There would have to be a system of remedial training for those who didn't perform well enough though. I can imagine the reaction..

There's quite a lot of PADI instructors around the globe, many in remote locations, I don't think it'd be practicable to expect them, or PADI, to institute mandatory, regular, in-water renewal assessments/update training etc..

I do agree in principle, however, that the PADI QA system should be more 'proactive' and 'eyes-on', rather than relying purely upon reactive reporting. All agencies should be like that.

Are any?

 

[Ayisha]

We are not talking about a technical diving level of horizontal trim and buoyancy control. That is not in the requirements.

What? The instructors wouldn't need to look better than the new students? So what level of horizontal trim would the instructors be allowed? 30 degrees out of trim... more? What amount of error on their buoyancy control? Plus or minus 2 feet, 5 feet... more?