An interesting read, to be sure. A couple of things...
The instructor makes far more difference than the agency does. Always has. Always will.
Instruction has changed a lot, and a lot for the better at that. I bristle when I read "dummed" down because they are confusing efficiency with dumb. I remember the old classes and watching them do push ups in the August Florida sun in full gear: wetsuit, weights, scuba unit, fins and mask. It was brutal and I was happy it wasn't me. That kept me from getting certified for decades: who needs that crap to dive? I was already diving and it just wasn't that hard.
When I finally decided to get certified due to @Moose's insistence, I was amazed at all the new stuff I learned. The BCD is a really cool invention and we were now diving with SPGs instead of j-valves and depth gauges instead of a red ribbon. Boy, that made diving even easier and fun, fun, fun. This was around the first of the Century (I've been diving since 1969) and unfortunately my instructor was a real dufus. But, just reading the book was amazing and I still learned a lot. Tables were simple enough, but I bought a PDC right off the bat. I've made a couple of deco dives on tables, but I don't trust me to dive on a tight schedule. Nope, I would rather trust my PDC to remember how deep I've been for how long. PDCs don't ever get narced and they don't forget. Humans always do, whether they admit it or not. For most rec planning, I use the rule of 120/140.
However now, more than ever, neutral buoyancy has taken center stage as a primary dive skill. There are a lot of old divers who want to re-invent history, but I remember the 70s and diving. We did use less weight on our belt as most of us didn't have a BC/horse collar but the bottom was always in peril. In fact, the big selling point for my first pair of Jets was that I would be able to kick the crap out of the reef and not hurt the fin. Yah, rly. No one cared about the environment except that it might hurt YOU. Diving in the Keys was perilous because of all the spiny urchins. Lots of people hurt hitting the bottom back then... including me.
You can be sure that every class back then was taught on their knees and they have been until this century. Peak Performance Buoyancy, was a good albeit inadequate start to get us neutral, but the entire industry has taken a far, far closer look at the need to be neutral only recently. PADI has changed their standards to reflect this, and when NASE relaunched, they set the bar even more neutral by requiring students to stay neutral during the entirety of their OW dives and not just for a minute or two. I understand that RAID has done pretty much the same thing as NASE in that regard. Good for them.
Sure, there are a number of skills gone from the old class. No more buddy breathing and while it's still allowed as a learning tool, we're not allowed to change depth. NASE won't let me do a CESA in open water: YAY! In my opinion, that's even more important than requiring neutral buoyancy all the time. No, there's no more jumping in with gear in hand/air off in order to get dressed on the bottom of the pool but when was that ever really needed??? Most of skills that have been eliminated were mostly parlor tricks and not needed during the dive. The only thing I really miss is the final pool "hell dive", where I get to pull out regs, steal fins and so forth. Those were truly fun, but a few idiots spoiled all that for us.
Finally (yeah, this is a long assed post), not everyone feels that it's best trying to cram in all the skills into OW, or even AOW. NAUI has taught panicked diver on the surface and retrieving a dead body from the bottom for decades. I think it confuses the student, but it does train their instructors as they do this skill over and over and over and over. If I have be rescued, I hope that there's a NAUI instructor close by but not one of their DMs or OW students. They have those skills DOWN cold. Oh yeah! However, other than that unintentional side effect, training should take time and segmenting it is the best method out there. I like the compartmentalized approach. I would rather a student learn a few skills incredibly well than to check off dozens upon dozens of skills with no dive time in between to develop your skills.
FWIW, I believe that all skills should be able to be executed mid water... yeah, even Scuba unit doff and don. I also believe that students should be able to breathe themselves neutral when given weight at depth (4# for women and 6# for men), frog kick and inflate a sausage on the surface. AOW, should also be able to shoot a sausage from depth and be able to swim/hover 6-12 inches above the bottom for an entire dive without stirring it up.
The instructor makes far more difference than the agency does. Always has. Always will.
Instruction has changed a lot, and a lot for the better at that. I bristle when I read "dummed" down because they are confusing efficiency with dumb. I remember the old classes and watching them do push ups in the August Florida sun in full gear: wetsuit, weights, scuba unit, fins and mask. It was brutal and I was happy it wasn't me. That kept me from getting certified for decades: who needs that crap to dive? I was already diving and it just wasn't that hard.
When I finally decided to get certified due to @Moose's insistence, I was amazed at all the new stuff I learned. The BCD is a really cool invention and we were now diving with SPGs instead of j-valves and depth gauges instead of a red ribbon. Boy, that made diving even easier and fun, fun, fun. This was around the first of the Century (I've been diving since 1969) and unfortunately my instructor was a real dufus. But, just reading the book was amazing and I still learned a lot. Tables were simple enough, but I bought a PDC right off the bat. I've made a couple of deco dives on tables, but I don't trust me to dive on a tight schedule. Nope, I would rather trust my PDC to remember how deep I've been for how long. PDCs don't ever get narced and they don't forget. Humans always do, whether they admit it or not. For most rec planning, I use the rule of 120/140.
However now, more than ever, neutral buoyancy has taken center stage as a primary dive skill. There are a lot of old divers who want to re-invent history, but I remember the 70s and diving. We did use less weight on our belt as most of us didn't have a BC/horse collar but the bottom was always in peril. In fact, the big selling point for my first pair of Jets was that I would be able to kick the crap out of the reef and not hurt the fin. Yah, rly. No one cared about the environment except that it might hurt YOU. Diving in the Keys was perilous because of all the spiny urchins. Lots of people hurt hitting the bottom back then... including me.
You can be sure that every class back then was taught on their knees and they have been until this century. Peak Performance Buoyancy, was a good albeit inadequate start to get us neutral, but the entire industry has taken a far, far closer look at the need to be neutral only recently. PADI has changed their standards to reflect this, and when NASE relaunched, they set the bar even more neutral by requiring students to stay neutral during the entirety of their OW dives and not just for a minute or two. I understand that RAID has done pretty much the same thing as NASE in that regard. Good for them.
Sure, there are a number of skills gone from the old class. No more buddy breathing and while it's still allowed as a learning tool, we're not allowed to change depth. NASE won't let me do a CESA in open water: YAY! In my opinion, that's even more important than requiring neutral buoyancy all the time. No, there's no more jumping in with gear in hand/air off in order to get dressed on the bottom of the pool but when was that ever really needed??? Most of skills that have been eliminated were mostly parlor tricks and not needed during the dive. The only thing I really miss is the final pool "hell dive", where I get to pull out regs, steal fins and so forth. Those were truly fun, but a few idiots spoiled all that for us.
Finally (yeah, this is a long assed post), not everyone feels that it's best trying to cram in all the skills into OW, or even AOW. NAUI has taught panicked diver on the surface and retrieving a dead body from the bottom for decades. I think it confuses the student, but it does train their instructors as they do this skill over and over and over and over. If I have be rescued, I hope that there's a NAUI instructor close by but not one of their DMs or OW students.
They have those skills DOWN cold. Oh yeah! However, other than that unintentional side effect, training should take time and segmenting it is the best method out there. I like the compartmentalized approach. I would rather a student learn a few skills incredibly well than to check off dozens upon dozens of skills with no dive time in between to develop your skills.FWIW, I believe that all skills should be able to be executed mid water... yeah, even Scuba unit doff and don. I also believe that students should be able to breathe themselves neutral when given weight at depth (4# for women and 6# for men), frog kick and inflate a sausage on the surface. AOW, should also be able to shoot a sausage from depth and be able to swim/hover 6-12 inches above the bottom for an entire dive without stirring it up.
