Dear Loughman:
First and foremost, there are many great tracks for becoming a DM. Do not let the more opinionated of us discourage you or dampen your enthusiasm... Figure out what works for you and go for it without apology or explanation!
Simply do not listen to anyone who believes there is only one way. I did all of my training with local dive shops (including slave labor internships
) and it was great! It was a perfect fit for me and my lifestyle. However, I know many graduates of dedicated IDCs that are highly successful at what they do. Whether it was the PADI College of the “good old days” or today’s Halls (Naui), ProDive (Padi), or Scuba Emporium (Padi) there are a lot of great divers and dive educators who owe their starts to intensive, focused short term programs. Both dedicated CDCs and local dive shops produce a mix of excellent and mediocre graduates... The question is not which way is better... It is which is a better fit for you? That is all that matters.
There is one thing everyone can agree on… more experience is better than less. Regardless of how you choose to become a DM, you will need to dive your brains out! You cannot supervise others properly until you are so comfortable in the water (and with your equipment and yourself) that you can take care of yourself almost automatically. To do so requires experience and everyone reaches that comfort level on a different schedule. Just because Padi requires 60 dives to be a DM does not mean you will be confident/comfortable enough at that point. You may need 80 dives or 100. On the other hand, you be perfectly comfortable with your equipment and surroundings after 40 dives. The key is to honestly assess your own skill and comfort levels. Just because you have the cert card does not make you ready. Think of the cert card as the equivalent of your graduation diploma from flight or med school. Then think of the number of dives you have as the equivalent of your flight hours or years of medical internship/residency. Academic Credentials + Experience = Success. More is better and it really is that simple. However, the fact that you did 60 dives in a month at a CDC does not make you any less qualified than someone who dives 60 times over 2 years with their local dive shop. In fact, the body of educational theory would strongly suggest that the closer together the dives are the better the learning experience… Where the local dive shop usually wins out is in providing opportunities to gradually gain experience supervising open water novice divers… If you decide to go the CDC route you need to insist on logging as many extra hours assisting instructors/DMs and boat crews as possible.
Second, do not give any weight to strictly anecdotal accounts. If it starts with "I knew a girl once who did her training at..." Give it that input zero weight. Any of us that have been diving for 30 years can give you a list of DMs and Instructors who have killed, injured or scared themselves despite having served long internships with dive shops as part of their multi year training programs. Any of us can also do the same for CDC grads. So, what good are anecdotal references? The answer is none... They serve no purpose other than to provide vague support for opinions that are most definitely not based on fact.
Call any of the long established IDCs/CDCs and they can provide you with a long list of distinguished graduates. It may well be that ProDive years ago graduated a un-named woman who had trouble with her weight belt and subsequently decided she wasn’t cut out for being a dive instructor. I bet your neighborhood dive shop has turned out a few clunkers as well. However, did you know that ProDive graduated Dr. Ray Rogers -- the DM that invented the Recreational Dive Planner (RDP), Rob Stewart -- the producer/director/star of Sharkwater, JD Mosely -- the first African American woman to become a Padi course director, Paul Shepherd – the owner of Rising Sun in Zanzibar, numerous mega-yacht captains, Dave Lawler who became the youngest course director in Padi history and a host of other leaders of the dive industry including the owners of successful dive operations on three continents. How many neighborhood dive shops can make even a fraction of that claim?
The point is not that CDCs are better or worse than local dive shops. This is a ridiculously bitter debate that quite frankly tarnishes too many dive related forums/bulletin boards. Find what fits for you and do it. Then commit to diving enough that your experience and comfort levels are always commensurate with your level of certification. Don’t lead or teach anything you are uncomfortable with. Just because you have a cert card that allows you to do something does not mean you have to… Take responsibility for your own competence, confidence and continuing education. If you do that, you will have the potential to become a leader of the dive industry regardless of where you obtained your cert cards!
P
