Best practices of GUE versus other dive programs ?

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Students taught according to the new PADI standards and while neutrally buoyant and in trim do not need the Peak Performance Buoyancy class. Students who are not taught that way need it very much. I am sadly sure that many PADI instructors are still blindly following old standards and practices, and their students will need that class when they are done.

How are the Instructor Candidates demonstrating the skills during their IDC now? Still on their knees or...?
 
Parts of the GUE Rec 1 - Nitrox syllabi (to balance some mentions of Fundie, aka not OW, standards):
5 days, 14 dives, 40 hours of instruction (class, land drills, water work)
Academics:
- Gas management, decompression
Land:
- analyze cylinders, S drill, propulsion, SBM, straight compass nav.
Water:
- 4:1 student instructor ratio
- Donate and ascend
- two propulsion techniques for silt; backward kick components
- max 30 degrees off horizontal while within 5 feet of a target depth.
- long hose deployment
- basic 5 rescue techniques
 
How are the Instructor Candidates demonstrating the skills during their IDC now? Still on their knees or...?

It really varies, but I believe generally on the knees. Given the lack of objective standards for skills mastery (i.e., depth changes, maintenance of trim, etc.), you cannot expect the average IDC candidate to have GUE fundies rec pass skills. You simply are not going to generate the number of instructors required by the industry each year.

Let's not forget, the vast majority of people interested in diving don't give a F about buoyancy, trim, proper finning. They just want to go underwater and look at some pretty fish. They really don't care if they kick the coral a few times.

My PADI IE was in December 2015, almost 3 years ago. My IDC was on the knees. My IE was on the knees. I really don't think that one can consider a skill mastered when it is performed on the knees. I've heard of a few IE's being performed neutrally buoyant, but those are the exception (but awesome nonetheless). I've heard of some IE's where candidates were forced on the knees. In December, I can hang out and see in the open water how PADI conducts their IEs (they conduct 2 per year).

And it isn't just PADI, but virtually every mainstream agency. SSI has a stronger emphasis on neutral buoyancy, but they still don't require all skills to be performed off the bottom and trim. They would like it. AFAIK, of the mainstream agencies, it is only RAID, whom as I've said before, I hope grows by leaps and bounds for the sole reason that they have objective standards (mentioned previously) and they have a rigorous crossover process.

Honestly, I don't expect any of the larger mainstream agencies to require that all instructors teach OW neutrally buoyant, because many of their instructors cannot do it themselves. The number of instructors and DMs generated each year would decrease. The last OW course I taught, there was an instructor working with an DMC, all on their knees, in sharp contrast to my students all neutrally buoyant. My DMs and my students alike thought it was an open water student.

How messed up is that?

Let's be serious for a minute. Are all CD's/IT's capable of performing skills neutrally buoyant, trim, and just as fluid, comfortable, and repeatable as they would on the knees? We all know this isn't the case. Do we expect the mainstream agencies to tell their instructors, CD's/IT's, DM's, to ship up or ship out? That's a lot of money in terms of membership dues, and let's not forget that this is a business first. Same with the IEs. Lower pass rates, lower membership dues being paid.

At least with RAID, GUE, UTD, and ISE you can be guaranteed that their open water courses are going to be performed properly and their instructor can teach that way. For those agencies, the credence that "it is the instructor, not the agency" doesn't apply as much as it does for everyone else.
 
Parts of the GUE Rec 1 - Nitrox syllabi (to balance some mentions of Fundie, aka not OW, standards):
5 days, 14 dives, 40 hours of instruction (class, land drills, water work)
Academics:
- Gas management, decompression
Land:
- analyze cylinders, S drill, propulsion, SBM, straight compass nav.
Water:
- 4:1 student instructor ratio
- Donate and ascend
- two propulsion techniques for silt; backward kick components
- max 30 degrees off horizontal while within 5 feet of a target depth.
- long hose deployment
- basic 5 rescue techniques
Do those 14 dives include the pool lessons, or is that 14 actual open water dives? I guess with only 5 days it must include the pool lessons.

Sorry, got all excited to hear of someone doing it properly.
 
Do those 14 dives include the pool lessons, or is that 14 actual open water dives? I guess with only 5 days it must include the pool lessons.

Sorry, got all excited to hear of someone doing it properly.
There are a series of confined water dives before the open water dives.
"The Recreational Diver Level 1 course is normally conducted over five days. It requires a minimum of ten confined water sessions, six open water dives, and at least forty hours of instruction, encompassing classroom lectures, land drills, and in-water work."
 
As in politics and crime, follow the money.

Where is the money is scuba diving? It is with time poor people who want to do something exciting and adventurous on holiday. There are plenty of these people, enough to keep lots of resort schools going. Compare that with the (supposedly) serious people who populate SB and dive other than in warm water holiday destinations. They can hardly keep a local dive shop run by a retired bloke on a pension able to pay the electricity bill.

What do time poor people who are happy to fly round the world want? They want in the water asap so they can see the pretty fish and tell their friends what an adventurous holiday they had. Next year K2 (by helicopter).

So, they turn up at a resort and find two shops of the unheard of agencies, PIHSIE (pile it high, sell it expensive) and DIPTYT (do it properly, take your time (tm)). Which to choose? 3 days at PIHSIE (it should take 4 but I see you are a genius sir and we can squeeze it into 3 for only an extra 100) or a week at DIPTYT (with an option for advanced abucus in the following week).

Now the boys and girls at PIHSIE have a problem, they have boxes to tick or they might be accused of being a bit shoddy on trip-adviser (especially by those pesky DIPTYT lot) so they develop a system to tick boxes and fast. At the end the time poor ‘diver’ has done all the things they have to, at least once (except mask clearing, it’s too hard in contacts and well, the surface is just there). Planning? No need for that, Bob here, your guide, will tell you when to come up.

This is how it will always be. The time and money pressure in the resorts will always head for easier, shorter courses with no chance of failure. The people on the ground are severely incentivised to push the punters through as fast and a cheaply as they can. How else will they pay for their beer before going back to real life, college etc?

And you know what? It doesn’t matter. In fact it might be better this way. More people seeing the beaten up reefs might make them wonder why they don’t look like the ones Cousteau showed, or even the ones in Blue Planet. And there there is at least a faint chance that they might do things to make sure there are some reefs in 50 years time. Mind you, looking at the typical opinions of SB posters I am probably wrong about that.
 
PDIC had 6 - 8 class and pool sessions, 5 open water dives, and 40 hours of instruction when I did my OW course in 1981.
 
As in politics and crime, follow the money.

SNIP

And you know what? It doesn’t matter. In fact it might be better this way. More people seeing the beaten up reefs might make them wonder why they don’t look like the ones Cousteau showed, or even the ones in Blue Planet. And there there is at least a faint chance that they might do things to make sure there are some reefs in 50 years time. Mind you, looking at the typical opinions of SB posters I am probably wrong about that.

I liked your post because I agree that you are correct in your appraisal of the status quo, not because I am anything but saddened by the state of affairs.

Scuba training seems to be like military/government projects. "Never enough time/money to do it right, but always enough to do it over."
 
PDIC had 6 - 8 class and pool sessions, 5 open water dives, and 40 hours of instruction when I did my OW course in 1981.
Lightweights.

When I were a lad we had tests. A (swimming with weights, treading water with hands above head etc) through to G (something evil in open water, probably involving towing an instructor twice your size 100 yards - I am on holiday and don’t have the stuff with me oddly enough). A large requirement for experience dives (different to the tests) at least 10, but maybe more) and at the end you were a 3rd class diver, just in case you were unsure about your place in the pecking order (just above a Snorkeler, which you were before they let you do that stuff).
 
You simply are not going to generate the number of instructors required by the industry each year.

That explains a number of things. Quality of training is dependant on the need rather than a set of superior standards.

If the industry needs that many instructors so badly, why is it so hard for them to make a living wage.

There are a series of confined water dives before the open water dives.
"The Recreational Diver Level 1 course is normally conducted over five days. It requires a minimum of ten confined water sessions, six open water dives, and at least forty hours of instruction, encompassing classroom lectures, land drills, and in-water work."

Sounds like the OW class I took, only it took 6 weeks. Granted it was more spread out over time, but would take more than 5 days jammed togather, not counting homework. 1980 NAUI/PADI certs.


Bob
 

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