Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[tursiops]

That may have been how it started, I trust your historical knowledge, but in practical terms that is not how it has been executed. If it were we would not have commonly such divers with Advanced cards who routinely cannot assemble their gear without help.

This is another myth. The AOW has never been about producing Advanced divers. Its purpose is to advance people beyond OW.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I got my AOW certification in circa 1972-1973.

 

[Nemrod]

You really need to read up on the history of how AOW started and what it really means.

Frankly, I am not interested in "what it really means" whatever "it" is and more interested in how to get divers out diving who are safe by themselves outside of a swimming pool. You folks can argue over history and what was or was not. If there were not deficient in the concept of "advanced" then there would not be hundreds of similar threads on this forum. So again, I am not interested in the history of anything, more interested in what is the result of more recent practice with the acknowledgement that there does seem to be a noticeable improvement in basic diver skills over the last few years.

Edit (3/20) to add, I will stay with what I have said.

 

[Nemrod]

This is another myth. The AOW has never been about producing Advanced divers. Its purpose is to advance people beyond OW.

I think this has become obtuse for argument of the meaning of advanced. I question the entire concept and could care less about the history of it.

How many threads are there like this?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

In that same history, you will that even in the 1960s, NAUI had a problem with instructional quality. Instructors wanted to hand out C-cards after class, so NAUI shipped the cards when the students enrolled. They knew that many students got cards without actually completing the program or, in some cases, even beginning it. They didn't know what to do about it.

One reason classes were longer in the past is that students learned the academic material through lecture, which takes much more time and is much less effective than modern methods.

People who write about the past golden age of instruction act as if all classes were the same then. NAUI allowed a wide range of practices then, so classes could be very different from one instructor to another. The reality is that then, as now, your class quality very much depended upon the instructor.

Back in the “olden days”’of diving yes, instruction was all over the place. I had several instructors that taught me or that I helped over the years who were there, they WERE the original instructors, or they were certified back then. I’ve heard all the stories good and bad.
One thing different then as opposed to now is the mindset that was in scuba instruction at that time.
California was the hotbed of recreational scuba diving then, not a quarry in Texas or a clear warm coral reef in Cozumel. Their aim was to try to prepare divers for harsher and colder ocean conditions that is Southern California. That meant producing divers that could handle panic, be in shape and be able to swim not only to be in shape but because there were no BC’s and you had to swim around not hover like a big UW zeppelin. They had to be trained to basically do a dive on their own without supervision. Yes, some of the divers got through without much of any training (I personally know a few), then there were some who had to endure weeks of endless swimming and then UW harassment, doing push ups in full gear, swimming with a steel 72 on, or swimming holding a towel in each hand. I’ve heard all the horror stories. A lot of instructors were former military so that probably had a lot to do with it. All this stuff was up to the individual instructor to employ as he saw fit. The idea was he wasn’t going to be there to bail them out so they needed to be ready. Sea lions do slam people from behind trying to take their game. Hunting was a big focus back then. They were really shooting in the dark in many ways trying to figure it out and how to prepare these people the best way they knew how. There weren’t any DM’s for hire back then to hold your hand.
PADI developed a much more standardized and uniform approach but also a more abbreviated one, especially as gear got better. We wouldn’t have near the amount of dive resorts world wide if it wasn’t for PADI’s sales model. They certified more people than all the other agencies combined.
They eliminated the 400 yd swims before every class would start, they eliminated harassment if there was any, and any other superfluous material they saw as unnecessary just to get someone in the water blowing bubbles in warm tropical waters. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just a fact.
But I feel that when you have a for profit model a lot of the focus does begin to hover over profits while trying to somehow keep quality up to par. What does up to par mean? Well, as we see, to make a bubble blower that doesn’t kill themselves and or someone else. They can bicycle kick the crap out of coral and slam into the bottom because they are overweighted and don’t understand buoyancy control, and they can drag consoles all over, and some of them can’t set up their own gear as @Nemrod mentioned, none of that seems to matter. As long as they don’t embolize and they have their wits together enough not to completely freak out over a drop if water in their mask and claw someone to death underwater seems to be good enough.
The question used to be, how much can you fit into a four day class? Now it’s a three days class, and I’ve heard rumors it can be as short as a two day class.
As opposed to the old three weeks of endless class and pool skills, harassment, and swimming, some if which included ocean dives or perhaps not? Depended on the instructor for any and all of it. Somehow I think when students came out if some of those old hell classes they could probably handle a situation or two a little better than a typical resort trained diver today.
But, that old style of class would never work today, so you really can’t compare the two.

 

[Nemrod]

Oh boy, you’re going to open a whole can of worms with crazy talk about hand swimming!
I know it’s a natural human or mammalian instinct to hand swim. Whales do it, pinnipeds guide their way with front flippers, porpoises guide their way with pectoral fins which would be the same thing as our arms. People use hands to make slight corrections in trim and positioning all the time, and not just newbies. But be warned, around here any mention of hand use at all will get you flogged by the hand use nazis.
Just a friendly warning ️

I quit hand swimming decades ago. I carry a camera, my hands hold it, I maneuver 100% with my fins. Well, on my very last dive a few days ago, an unexpected down current caused me to be eaten by giant carnivorous sea fan and I think I may have done some hand swimming to escape my doom! Okay, okay, 99%.

 

[johndiver999]

you had to swim around not hover like a big UW zeppelin.

That strikes a little too close to home, if you know what I mean.

 

[pauldw]

This is another myth. The AOW has never been about producing Advanced divers. Its purpose is to advance people beyond OW.

We keep hearing that, and it's hard to believe because if it's true then it's so incredibly deceptive. It's hard to believe that anyone reading "Advanced Open Water Diver" would think the "advanced" is a verb instead of an adjective. Especially with the "d."

 

[boulderjohn]

We keep hearing that, and it's hard to believe because if it's true then it's so incredibly deceptive. It's hard to believe that anyone reading "Advanced Open Water Diver" would think the "advanced" is a verb instead of an adjective. Especially with the "d."

You have to remember that when the AOW class was created, the only classes were the original certification class and the instructor class. AOW was indeed the most advanced class you could get. There were no technical diving classes. Specialties had not even started. The problem is that the name has stuck, even though we are in a different world today

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

You have to remember that when the AOW class was created, the only classes were the original certification class and the instructor class. AOW was indeed the most advanced class you could get. There were no technical diving classes. Specialties had not even started. The problem is that the name has stuck, even though we are in a different world today

Ok, if AOW was the most advanced class you could get then what was taught instead of five sample platter dives as it is today?