AOW Disappointment

[Thalassamania]

Honestly I have never conceived of the idea. As confined water session #4 (not including the skin diving skills portion) is the only one that doesn't include some form of surface skill, it would be the only one that I could see applying these restraints to, without going outside of PADI standards.

Of course you haven’t that’s the point. This is just one of many, many examples of things that you’ve never conceived of because you’ve let them put you in their box.

And allthough I can't so far envision any benefit to putting these restraints in place, I am not currently aware of any PADI standard that says I'm not allowed to if I choose. I have yet to see in print "the student must be allowed to touch the sides" etc.

There were experiments that I tried that worked. It started with staying off the side of the pool, “The ocean doesn’t have gutters, if you need to rest blow up your BC.” Then we realized that we needed to be working on buoyancy from the get go. And we’ve played with that. $0.25 fines for surfacing or touching bottom. Everyone starts with six lbs of fishing sinkers and has to give up 6 oz. for each transgression till they can’t stay down any more. Hey, when you dive you can’t talk, do it all with hand signals. These are all things that we do and that pay big dividends when these folks get to open water.

I see your point, and from your background and perspective this opinion makes some sense. I would submit though, that PADI's collective knowledge is more than mine, and more than most people's.

Sure I can play the I know more than they do game, and maybe I’d win, maybe not. But that’s not what I was getting at. I exist in a community of Diving Safety Officers, each of whom is a product of the needs of the institution, who was vetted through a national search and interview process. Sometimes I agreed and sometimes not, but each and every one of those folks is a damn competent SOB. And the old timers (yes, compared to some I’m but a pup) that I’ve had the honor to work with and learn from have each forgotten more that I expect the national leadership of all the agencies combined ever learned.

And since my experience thus far is that the overwhelming majority of PADI staff that I have had contact with were (seemed to me) knowlegable, reasonable, and appeared to have divers/students best interests in mind, when I combine all those things together it leaves me feeling pretty good about the possibilities that PADI offers to me and my students.

I’m sure that they all believe exactly what you’re saying. But that's belief not reality. The fact of the matter is that they really just don’t know any better. They’ve never taken a step back and asked what can truly be done. They’ve accepted limitations and imposed restrictions on themselves that are completely nonsensical to an outside observer. I posted a story a while back about a student buying a wet suit. To make it short: we require a very specific suit, attached hood, farmer johns, no zipper; an instructor in a shop called up and said that something must be wrong because no one could possibly be able to get in and out of such a suit. Now, we’ve been getting in and out of such a suit since the mid 1950s. This instructor had never seen such a suit, never worn such a suit, never tried to get in or out of such a suit, never been taught to use such a suit because this instructor’s instructor had never … and this instructor’s instructor’s instructor had never … well you get the idea. It’s self reinforcing clap-trap.

In my opinion there is more to being the best teacher than having the most knowledge.

You’re right, and that’s not a trivial insight. Two of the most knowledgeable divers I know are also two of the worst instructors I know. But those that I see as belonging in the deep end of the instructor pool are always very close behind. This seems to be my day to wax religious, “Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - St. Francis of Assisi. It was not really impossible when you started, you just didn’t know any better yet. Thanks.

 

[Otter]

It's already been done.

Sorta....there is a lot of "HOW" in there and while that is probably the MOST useful aspect of everything, the RSTC Standards specifically avoid the HOW.

It is a great thread and one that I will attempt to extract the WHAT from the HOW...

 

[Karibelle]

Of course you haven’t that’s the point. This is just one of many, many examples of things that you’ve never conceived of because you’ve let them put you in their box.
There were experiments that I tried that worked. It started with staying off the side of the pool, “The ocean doesn’t have gutters, if you need to rest blow up your BC.” Then we realized that we needed to be working on buoyancy from the get go. And we’ve played with that. $0.25 fines for surfacing or touching bottom. Everyone starts with six lbs of fishing sinkers and has to give up 6 oz. for each transgression till they can’t stay down any more. Hey, when you dive you can’t talk, do it all with hand signals. These are all things that we do and that pay big dividends when these folks get to open water.

But now we have conceived of it... through this discussion. And when you first had that idea, it was through watching students and trying to think of ways to improve your teaching methods? or was it prescribed by the standards of an agency?

I think there is a vast multitude of things that you, Thalassamania, have conceived of that I haven't even begun to consider - and I submit that many (most?) of those things come to you from experience, rather than agency. The experiments that you tried. Can you share some other experiments that you have tried, and that are improving the skills of students?

kari

 

[mjatkins]

Of course you haven’t that’s the point. This is just one of many, many examples of things that you’ve never conceived of because you’ve let them put you in their box.

Just because I've not conceived of an idea, doesn't mean that it's a direct result of PADI having put me in their box. I've also never considered using a Kazoo to fart out the theme to "the Rockford Files". Hardly PADI's fault. Actually, now I guess I have considered it. What do you know, I'm quite the free thinker! :moonerplace Kazoo here)

My point being that from class to class my teaching methods evolve. My teaching partner and I go out after every class and debrief. We discuss what is working, and what is not on both a general and student specific level. We have constantly experimented with different ways to get the best out of our divers, we just do it within the standards of our association. If we cannot figure out how to do what we want and stay within those standards, quite frankly we are not thinking hard enough.

I’m sure that they all believe exactly what you’re saying. But that's belief not reality. The fact of the matter is that they really just don’t know any better. They’ve never taken a step back and asked what can truly be done. They’ve accepted limitations and imposed restrictions on themselves that are completely nonsensical to an outside observer.

Now this is one of those statements that I think often fogs over the point behind it. I don't think (unless you know all these people personally and intimately) that you can make that assumption. Just because someone hasn't reached the same conclusions as you have, doesn't mean they've "never taken a step back and asked what can truly be done." That is a generalization that I'm sure applies to some, and I'm sure does not apply to others. The whole reason I became involved it this thread in the first place is because I feel that unfair generalizations are being thrown around as fact. And we both (I believe) know better.

I posted a story a while back about a student buying a wet suit. To make it short: we require a very specific suit, attached hood, farmer johns, no zipper; an instructor in a shop called up and said that something must be wrong because no one could possibly be able to get in and out of such a suit. Now, we’ve been getting in and out of such a suit since the mid 1950s. This instructor had never seen such a suit, never worn such a suit, never tried to get in or out of such a suit, never been taught to use such a suit because this instructor’s instructor had never … and this instructor’s instructor’s instructor had never … well you get the idea. It’s self reinforcing clap-trap.

I must admit I also am intrigued by how this suit would work. Could you send me a photo or a link, or better yet, a youtube link to a fat guy getting into it? I am confused by the idea, that because I haven't thought of every wild and whacky way to train a diver, I am stuck inside someone's box with my thinking somehow constrained. And at the same time there would be such a limiting requirement as not allowing a zipper in a wetsuit. Is there a compelling reason for the non zipper requirement?

Thanks

 

[Rick Murchison]

1) In PADIspeak, the "emergency" is that one has exceeded a NDL. So why isn't it just a deco stop?

Exceeding the NDL by one or two groups shouldn't be an emergency, on several levels:
1) It shouldn't happen unless it's planned or decided
2) A diver shouldn't have to depend on a "catch-all" emergency procedure, but should have the specific deco schedule for all reasonable contingencies in their back pocket; i.e. written on their slate and committed to memory.
3) A diver should have the skill to maintain a stop without difficulty. I believe one of the principle reasons PADI's "emergency" decompression profile is written the way it is is to cover the egregious buoyancy control skills the "average" diver has.

2) Can you elaborate on what the "decompression profile" should be for a dive that is only one or two pressure groups outside of a NDL? I'm not trying to be obtuse, I'm just not a deco diver...

We'd need to look at a specific dive and plan the reasonable contingencies for it to give you an accurate answer, but let's just say that a combination of "half" stops and a 10 minute stop at 10 FSW covers a multitude of sins. So the standard I would propose is the ability to maintain a 10 minute stop - and a stop is only a stop if it's +/-1 foot, with a swift, positive correction to exact depth whenever there is a deviation.

3) That's a skills issue, not an education issue, isn't it? Is there a difference between a "deco stop" and what I think of as a "safety stop"?

First of all, a deco stop in mandatory and a safety stop is optional. Blowing a safety stop is no big deal, while blowing a deco stop can have serious consequences. If you watch the typical group of OW divers attempting their safety stops in Cozumel (an excellent place for this observation as it's crystal clear and there are literally hundreds of subjects to watch on any given day) you'll see very few who make their safety stop within 15 +/-5 feet, much less +/-1. It's a good thing safety stops are optional, 'cause what most folks make ain't one! Additionally, my informal evaluation of OW diver ascents from the safety stop to the surface clocks in at an average 7 seconds... a bit over 120FPM (!) during the most critical part of the ascent from a deco standpoint. This nearly universal atrocious buoyancy control at both the safety stop and during the final part of the OW ascent tells me we have a whole lot more than a "skill" issue. People are doing it because that's the way they're trained.
Rick

 

[Tigerman]

Hello all i thought i would tell you about my AOW course i completed on the weekend.

To start the day off, we were told that since we had booked and paid a deposit the day we got OW certified, the course had changed from 3 boat dives to 2, there was no night dive, and that we would have to pay for the extra boat dive:shakehead

My brother and i politely told the instructor that we had paid a deposit on 3 boat dives and thought it a bit rough we should have to pay extra for the boat dive, in one ear and out the other, we didn't argue the point and let it go at that.

We started the classroom session with the plan to dive the afternoon fom the shore for some nav skills that we did, and also had a play with some scooters off the pier, and looked forward to the boat dives the next day for the deep dive and another boat dive for the search and recovery/naturalist part of the course.

The next day the deep dive was canned as there was not enough people for the boat, so we did a search and recover again from the shore and waited for the afternoon boat dive.

The boat dive was at a depth of 22m which wasn't what we had paid for and was disappointing not to get down to 30m as the course had outlined.

My brother and i felt ripped off and not happy at all with the dive shop and the standard of training we got for our AOW, seems we have just paid the money to get certified without any real benifit from learning new skills.

Am i asking too much of the advanced course, or have we been dudded?

You got seriously ripped off and have every right to feel that way!
We spent a couple of hours going through the theory (which dont have a test) before each specialty, we spent as much time as we possibly could in the water when we went there and for the navigation and search and recovery we spent an hour practicing compass use on shore before we even went into the water..
The dry-land compass training didnt give me much, since im quite familiar with that already, but there was others that really didnt have much experience using a compass other than finding north..
Coming into the water however, navigating my compass and strokes become a far different thing from navigating by compass and paces..

 

[Karibelle]

Exceeding the NDL by one or two groups shouldn't be an emergency, on several levels:
1) It shouldn't happen unless it's planned or decided
2) A diver shouldn't have to depend on a "catch-all" emergency procedure, but should have the specific deco schedule for all reasonable contingencies in their back pocket; i.e. written on their slate and committed to memory.

Okay - I was assuming that the NDL was exceeded by accident. My mistake. Given that it would be exceeded on purpose is a different thing. PADI divers are taught to plan specifically to never do that. Dive "well within" NDLs and that sort of thing. So for those divers, deco planning is simply not part of the scope of their training.

3) A diver should have the skill to maintain a stop without difficulty. I believe one of the principle reasons PADI's "emergency" decompression profile is written the way it is is to cover the egregious buoyancy control skills the "average" diver has.

I agree that a diver should have the ability to maintain a stop, but I don't get what you're saying about PADI's emergency procedures.

First of all, a deco stop in mandatory and a safety stop is optional. Blowing a safety stop is no big deal, while blowing a deco stop can have serious consequences.

I understand the difference in terminology, what I'm asking is "what is the difference between conducting a safety stop and conducting a deco stop?" From your explanation, it seems that there is none, right? I don't think there is, but wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

If you watch the typical group of OW divers attempting their safety stops in Cozumel (an excellent place for this observation as it's crystal clear and there are literally hundreds of subjects to watch on any given day) you'll see very few who make their safety stop within 15 +/-5 feet, much less +/-1. It's a good thing safety stops are optional, 'cause what most folks make ain't one! Additionally, my informal evaluation of OW diver ascents from the safety stop to the surface clocks in at an average 7 seconds... a bit over 120FPM (!) during the most critical part of the ascent from a deco standpoint. This nearly universal atrocious buoyancy control at both the safety stop and during the final part of the OW ascent tells me we have a whole lot more than a "skill" issue. People are doing it because that's the way they're trained.
Rick

Again, can you clarify a bit? They're trained to do poor stops, and swift ascents? I think that further dives past the four OW cert dives would allow a diver to perfect their buoyancy skills and their safety stop performance for sure. Are you suggesting that that is what is required? Is that how other agencies conduct OW training - more dives than four?

kari

 

[Rick Murchison]

Okay - I was assuming that the NDL was exceeded by accident. My mistake. Given that it would be exceeded on purpose is a different thing.

My point is that if the NDL is exceeded by accident then it won't be an emergency, because such an accident will be within the planned contingencies for the dive, and within the skill ability of the diver to handle.

Again, can you clarify a bit? They're trained to do poor stops, and swift ascents? I think that further dives past the four OW cert dives would allow a diver to perfect their buoyancy skills and their safety stop performance for sure. Are you suggesting that that is what is required? Is that how other agencies conduct OW training - more dives than four?
kari

From what I've seen of OW classes conducted in the same sites mine are, most aren't trained to do safety stops at all. They're told to do safety stops, not trained. Most also consider the dive over after the safety stop, and pay no attention whatsoever to their ascent rate after it.
We (we're an SSI shop) do one skin dive and five Scuba dives for OW qualification. I can't speak for all SSI instructors, but I have my own students do three minute (not 10) safety stops and 15fpm ascents to the surface from there with me - so I know they know how, at least. Whether they do it or not when I'm not around... I can only hope.
But back to the original proposal - the deco stuff would be beyond what's required of a "vacation diver" qual...
Rick

 

[Karibelle]

My point is that if the NDL is exceeded by accident then it won't be an emergency, because such an accident will be within the planned contingencies for the dive, and within the skill ability of the diver to handle.
...
But back to the original proposal - the deco stuff would be beyond what's required of a "vacation diver" qual...
Rick

Do you teach your OW students the deco info?

BTW, thanks for the links you provided earlier in this thread; interesting posts.

kari

 

[Rick Murchison]

Do you teach your OW students the deco info?

I "expose" them to it. Teaching deco to OW students not enrolled in a deco course could be considered "out of bounds" in today's "environment."
If we can get our new & improved agency off the ground then we'll include it.

Scuba Diver First Class (/1) - 50 logged dives, SLAM & basic deco.

Rick