Cave Training and Etiquette Real or Imaginary?

[Aotus]

The skills required are listed in the standards; for example I am pasting the in-water skills from the NSS-CDS cavern diver course below:

2.1.7 Cavern Dives and Skills
Minimum total bottom time in the overhead required to complete this level of training is 85 minutes.

wow. my PSAI cavern class involved a lot more than that in the OH environment, whereas in my PADI cavern specialty class I took before it, I can't have spent more than 15 minutes total inside the cavern. A LOT of variation out there.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

What is a PSAI?

The 85 minutes is a minimum standard. Most cavern classes end up with a lot more in cavern time.
Show us the minimum standard for this PSAI class.

 

[boulderjohn]

wow. my PSAI cavern class involved a lot more than that in the OH environment, whereas in my PADI cavern specialty class I took before it, I can't have spent more than 15 minutes total inside the cavern. A LOT of variation out there.

Report that PADI instructor. If what you say is true, then your course was a gross violation of standards.

Here are the relevant standards for the course as a whole:

The Cavern Diver course is to include four training dives,
which are to be conducted over at least two days. The minimum
number of recommended hours is 24, with time being equally divided between
knowledge development and actual predive preparation and water-training
sessions.

The first dive is to be conducted in open water, practicing
the use of lines and reels and emergency procedures. The final three
dives are to be conducted in the cavern environment. Penetrationtraining
dives are limited to within the light zone and within 40
metres/130 feet from the surface, vertical and horizontal distance
included.

No specific times are mentioned for the dives, but it would be assumed that the standard rules for minimum times for all PADI training dives would apply. Those minimum times are irrelevant, though, because the skill requirements for each of the three dives done in the overhead requirement would take much more than that. The recommended time for the course in the paragraph above would indicate a minimum amount of time in the overhead as being well above the 85 minute NSS-CDS minimum. I suspect anyone teaching the NSS-CDS course will go well beyond that minimum as well.

 

[kafkaland]

This is the problem we have now. Not all Instructors require mastery learning, as is evidenced whenever we go cave diving these days. Another problem is divers being lazy after they have mastered the skill.

This is a very important distinction that we need to make, if we want to see better divers. In open water diving, it's quite obvious: when you see a diver bicycle kicking, or clearing his mask while kneeling on the bottom, he wasn't trained properly. I can't imagine any diver who knows how proper trim feels do this for convenience sake, as it simply isn't any more convenient. On the other hand, if a new diver doesn't do buddy checks any more after a few dives, it's his laziness, and only to a much lesser degree the instructor's fault - at most, the instructor hadn't emphasized enough how many accidents could have been prevented by using your backup brain. It usually is the diver getting lazy and complacent.

I haven't been cave diving long enough to ascertain whether a student hasn't been taught properly or whether it's laziness when you come across a piss-poor placement of a primary reel, for instance. With trim, buoyancy, and finning techniques I suspect it's a lack of proper training (why would anyone make life harder on himself by flailing around), but I can't tell for sure. I suspect, though, the answer to this question is important if we want to find a remedy.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

So we get the recreational agencies like TDI, PSAI, NAUI to have a few certified recreational/technical instructors in their ranks who also happen to be cave divers. They see $$ signs in their eyes, they write cave standards, get them passed by non cave divers and viola - we have new cave instructors who are barely cave divers.

Rather than applying to be an NACD or NSS-CDS instructor which takes a long time these guys decided to change the way cave diver training is done and they were successful with making the changes, but the end result is what we are seeing now. They missed the mentorship NACD & NSS-CDS provides instructor candidates.

That is the problem & it has been and is being perpetuated...

 

[victorzamora]

Rather than applying to be an NACD or NSS-CDS instructor which takes a long time these guys decided to change the way cave diver training is done and they were successful with making the changes, but the end result is what we are seeing now. They missed the mentorship NACD & NSS-CDS provides instructor candidates.

That is the problem & it has been and is being perpetuated...

.....but many of the poor instructors I've seen teach for either the NSS-CDS, NACD, or both. Attack other agencies all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that there are poor instructors in the two agencies you just defended.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

.....but many of the poor instructors I've seen teach for either the NSS-CDS, NACD, or both. Attack other agencies all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that there are poor instructors in the two agencies you just defended.

Your opinion is of course respected. I agree there are are couple of bad apples in the NACD & NSS-CDS instructor corps. Going through the list in my mind and on the respective instructor lists I only count about five.

I believe that overall there are more than I can count from the ranks of the others.

This is not meant to be an attack vic. It is an observation and an opinion I have formed over several years of watching the degradation of cave divers ability to cave dive the way we taught it from the mid 70's when I started teaching cave diving to the present day embarrassment....

 

[Aotus]

The 85 minutes is a minimum standard. Most cavern classes end up with a lot more in cavern time.
Show us the minimum standard for this PSAI class.

Right, I wasn't suggesting that CDS standards were more lax, just reflecting on the amount of bottom time, in OH, that we went through. As for the minimum, the PSAI manual states that, at the cavern level, "Due to the various sites, specific recommendations for bottom time are at the discretion of the instructor." At each subsequent level there is a minimum in the text (PSAI Cave manual).

Report that PADI instructor. If what you say is true, then your course was a gross violation of standards.

Here are the relevant standards for the course as a whole:



No specific times are mentioned for the dives, but it would be assumed that the standard rules for minimum times for all PADI training dives would apply. Those minimum times are irrelevant, though, because the skill requirements for each of the three dives done in the overhead requirement would take much more than that. The recommended time for the course in the paragraph above would indicate a minimum amount of time in the overhead as being well above the 85 minute NSS-CDS minimum. I suspect anyone teaching the NSS-CDS course will go well beyond that minimum as well.

Well, following the criterion in the PSAI manual, maybe it isn't strange that the PADI class spent so little time in the cavern. We were in Vortex springs, and there sure isn't far to go before cavern turns to cave. And, since there is no specific time requirement that I can find for bottom time in the PADI class I'm not sure there is technically an issue. Regarding drills, there is a rule in the standards that says no OOA drills can be conducted in the OH environment in PADI cavern. So, all we did was run a line in, look around, run it out, switch. Of greater concern, and a source of disappointment at the time (though mitigated somewhat by how lame the Vortex springs cavern is), I believe I had only 2 dives in the cavern. Another 3 dives in OW running line and practicing OOA drills w/without a blindfold. As there appears to be no rule about how many dives must happen IN the OH, I guess my 5 dive PADI class (4 dives min req) was above standards!

---------- Post added March 22nd, 2015 at 03:12 PM ----------

I agree there are are couple of bad apples in the NACD & NSS-CDS instructor corps. Going through the list in my mind and on the respective instructor lists I only count about five.

I believe that overall there are more than I can count from the ranks of the others.

where's a mind reader, point him at Jim Wyatt now!

On a more serious note, 5 bad apples training 10 students a year (conservatively) means 50 more poorly trained cave divers every year...

 

[GDI]

The old adage of its not the agency it's the instructor that matters I think is still valid. That being said a not so good instructor coming from a not so good system would only produce not so good students.

So why we have identified or stated rather that each agency has bad instructors (that have made it through the system somehow) What sort of things do you all feel is needed to be a good instructor and what sort of skills do you see as being required in learning to cavern through cave diving?

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

What sort of things do you all feel is needed to be a good instructor and what sort of skills do you see as being required in learning to cavern through cave diving?

We identified those things about forty years ago. Those things have been lost in the dollar and testosterone shuffle.