Cave Training and Etiquette Real or Imaginary?

[karstdvr]

I'd like to remind you that some of the agencies being discussed here don't publish their standards to take nor pass the class. Those are secret. Dave Schott posted the CDS standards once on CDF and nearly gave people a heart attack.

GUE is the only agency where I knew exactly what I had to do in order to pass the class, and how accurately.

Having the standards published and knowing what is required as far as objectives of a class are mutually exclusive. I successfully passed my PADI OW course, even though I didn't get to look at the standards until I became an instructor. This discussion point is like the "Walking Dead" and won't die-basically if the attorney that represents the insurance company tells the organization to not publish their standards, do you think it is wise to do the opposite if you want to be insured???

 

[ucfdiver]

Having the standards published and knowing what is required as far as objectives of a class are mutually exclusive. I successfully passed my PADI OW course, even though I didn't get to look at the standards until I became an instructor. This discussion point is like the "Walking Dead" and won't die-basically if the attorney that represents the insurance company tells the organization to not publish their standards, do you think it is wise to do the opposite if you want to be insured???

Kelly,

I'm not stating that I don't understand the CDS logic behind it. I was stating a fact, that students participating in a NSS-CDS course do not know what the standards actually are.

Perhaps GUE is going against their legal counsel in publishing standards. All I was stating is that I couldn't accurately document a standards violation any better than I could hand you a "thing-e-ma-bob" while we were working on some regulators for the same reason-- because I don't know what it is until you define it.

 

[karstdvr]

Kelly,

I'm not stating that I don't understand the CDS logic behind it. I was stating a fact, that students participating in a NSS-CDS course do not know what the standards actually are.

Perhaps GUE is going against their legal counsel in publishing standards. All I was stating is that I couldn't accurately document a standards violation any better than I could hand you a "thing-e-ma-bob" while we were working on some regulators for the same reason-- because I don't know what it is until you define it.

I understand what you are saying. I don't know how GUE does it,but they are successful at it. Do students need to know the standards or are objectives with performance requirements okay? Would a student knowing the standards reduce the incidence of poor quality instruction? Thanks for the comment.

 

[ucfdiver]

I understand what you are saying. I don't know how GUE does it,but they are successful at it. Do students need to know the standards or are objectives with performance requirements okay? Would a student knowing the standards reduce the incidence of poor quality instruction? Thanks for the comment.

I recall a backup light missing thread on CDF once by a guy who didn't hang around for long. After talking to him at Bill's annual party, he told me that he took NAUI cave 1 and was using the rubber bands to secure his backup light to his harness, but didn't know about the bolt snap. For some reason, his instructor didn't catch that during class and he lost his backup light.

Can that error be made with GUE? I suppose, but when the instructor combs over this list during day 1 of class it's darn hard to miss.
https://www.globalunderwaterexplorers.org/equipment/config

Did I know during my intro class that there was a duration requirement on cave dives? No, I didn't, I was later informed when pissing and moaning about my experience.

During my open water class I did what the instructor told me and hoped it was acceptable. My wife, taking open water through GUE, knew that she would have to master a certain number of the kicks taught to her, and be able to complete the basic 5 (reg replace/remove, mask off, donate gas, share gas, I forget the order) within +/- 5ft buoyancy window and I believe 30 degrees of trim. That also makes it easy on the instructor too, they don't have to be the bad guy, you watch video and it's a true/false if you pass for the most part. It also sets the goal for a student to strive towards.

 

[boulderjohn]

I can tell from first hand knowledge that it can be very hard to tell exactly what happened when it comes to cave diving incidents. I currently have a role in writing reports on such incidents, and that means I have to investigate them before I do my part. I will tell you right now that it can be very tough because....

1. There are people in cave country who flat out don't like other people in cave country and will lie about them. I alluded to it earlier. I am astounded at the degree to which this is going on. I am working on an incident right now that shows this perfectly. I have two distinctly different stories about what happened, and the stories come from two warring camps in cave country. The differences in the story are all based on how one of the individuals in the camps look during the incident. In other words, some of what I am hearing may well be a flat out lie designed either to make someone look good or to keep someone from getting deserved credit.

2. People who don't have first hand knowledge of an incident will immediately spread whatever they think, thus creating an early story that may have no basis in truth. A while ago there was a cave incident and there was an immediate publication of a report about what happened. The person who wrote the report was not there. It was not accurate. How do I know? I was there, and I know neither I nor the others with me were contacted. I have no idea who the author of the report talked to to get his misinformation. That report was cited by many people later on.

3. Because of the polarities in cave country, people who are in one camp or the other are quick to pick sides and campaign on social media for a cause that may have little to no basis in reality. You end up with pitched battles, both here and on CDF waged by people who are just repeating what they heard from someone else, which may or may not be true. Thus one piece of misinformation, either an intentional lie or a misunderstanding, is picked up by people who are prone by personal feelings to believe it, and the story takes off like wildfire.

 

[kr2y5]

From my perspective as a prospective future student, I do not really care if the instructor follows a particular agency's standards... only whether what they do is safe and effective. Could you not take whatever standards have been published, say GUE standards, and evaluate instructors of other agencies on that basis. Not a perfect measure, but a good starting point.

If you find that instructor X, or all instructors of agency X, routinely graduate students who violate rule Y, a productive discussion could then begin whether violating rule/standard Y is considered by most to be an unsafe practice, or whether it's a subjective point that could be swept aside while comparing instructors between agencies. Or perhaps it could be weakened or rephrased, to make it less contentious? That could be a useful first step in establishing objective criteria for evaluation...

Here's a random strawman proposal: "(1) Almost all students of instructor/agency X are no more than Y degrees out of trim (1 = completely disagree, 10 = fully agree)", "(2) Students of X never touch the bottom", and "(3) Students of X look fabulous in the water". Could you evaluate someone you know based on these criteria? If not, can you propose better ones? I know that I would for sure be interested in knowing the results, even if one might consider such results subjective. With a big enough sample, one could learn something useful. In the absence of such data, one can rely only on a word of mouth, which is probably highly skewed, anyway.

 

[Daedalus]

There are 3 restaurants in a town.

Restaurant A only serves steak, they only serve it medium rare, and it's expensive. But the steak is always good.

Restaurant B also serves only steak, but is cheaper than A and the service is faster. If you order the steak you can get it any way you want, and it can be almost as good as Restaurant A, but depending on who is working the grill they may or may not screw it up.

Restaurant C sells steak, seafood, and a vegetarian option and is even cheaper and faster. Again, depending on who is working the grill you can get food almost as good as restaurant A, or you might get norovirus.

Restaurants B and C won't tell you who is working on what night. Online review sites are forbidden from posting who is working at restaurant B and C on what night. You're visiting town on vacation and don't know any locals to ask, but you want a really good steak tonight. Price isn't a factor and you aren't in a hurry. Where do you go?

 

[mdax]

In the spirit of transparency; I have to mention that some of the waiters for restaurant A are snotty and think more of themselves than kanyne west. Most are geniunely cool people, but there are a few who take the escalated standards and abstract that into an almost religious self appreciation. The steak will always be good though.

 

[Daedalus]

In the spirit of transparency; I have to mention that some of the waiters for restaurant A are snotty and think more of themselves than kayne west. Most are geniunely cool people, but there are a few who take the escalated standards and abstract that into an almost religious self appreciation. The steak will always be good though.

And the same goes for B and C, but at least with A you can be certain they know to wash their hands after they use the restroom.

 

[kr2y5]

There are 3 restaurants in a town.

Restaurant A only serves steak, they only serve it medium rare, and it's expensive. But the steak is always good.

Restaurant B also serves only steak, but is cheaper than A and the service is faster. If you order the steak you can get it any way you want, and it can be almost as good as Restaurant A, but depending on who is working the grill they may or may not screw it up.

Restaurant C sells steak, seafood, and a vegetarian option and is even cheaper and faster. Again, depending on who is working the grill you can get food almost as good as restaurant A, or you might get norovirus.

Restaurants B and C won't tell you who is working on what night. Online review sites are forbidden from posting who is working at restaurant B and C on what night. You're visiting town on vacation and don't know any locals to ask, but you want a really good steak tonight. Price isn't a factor and you aren't in a hurry. Where do you go?

That seems rather straightforward, no? What's on the menu, or how much it costs, you can usually check yourself. What you don't know, but can evaluate with simple questions: (a) are steaks delicious?, (b) can they cook it the way you want?, (c) do screw-ups happen?, (d) is food being served reasonably fast? Having aggregate scores across 20 random people, you should know what to expect. If restaurant, hotel, etc. reviews were as useless as you seem to suggest, surely people would not rely on Yelp and similar apps. And yet, somehow most of us do pay a lot of attention to reviews... How do you resolve this apparent contradiction?