Check this vintage ad out...

[happy-diver]

Can’t believe how many entertainers were divers back in the day. 1977 from women in vintage wetsuits.

 

[Erich S]

The popularity of Cousteau was a big draw to the sport back in the day. It was for me!

 

[boulderjohn]

For example, I've always assumed that in the old days SoCal instructors, or PNW instructors, or Great Lakes instructors, or NE instructors, or FL instructors, etc., trained their open water students to dive local conditions, using different approaches than the approach used by one particular mid-MO professor teaching a university scuba course.

To a certain extent this has to be true, back in the old days or today. An OW class using drysuits in Puget Sound will have many differences compared to a class in the tropics. OW classes where tides matter will be different from a class where they don't.

NAUI instructors on ScubaBoard have frequently proudly proclaimed that they are able to add any additional requirements they want, but there has always been a base set of standards that must be met. In the NAUI history of diving written in part by key founder Al Tillman (NAUI Instructor #1), they reference their surprise at the 1960 foundational meeting of instructors in Houston to seeing instructors harassing students (pulling off masks, etc.) They had never seen that before, and they thought it was done more for the pleasure of the instructor than the benefit of the student. So the NAUI standards never included such harassment of students, but they did not forbid it, so some instructors certainly did that. It would be wrong, though, for a veteran diver to say that all instruction back then included such harassment when it was just his or her instructor who did it.

 

[jadairiii]

To a certain extent this has to be true, back in the old days or today. An OW class using drysuits in Puget Sound will have many differences compared to a class in the tropics. OW classes where tides matter will be different from a class where they don't.

NAUI instructors on ScubaBoard have frequently proudly proclaimed that they are able to add any additional requirements they want, but there has always been a base set of standards that must be met. In the NAUI history of diving written in part by key founder Al Tillman (NAUI Instructor #1), they reference their surprise at the 1960 foundational meeting of instructors in Houston to seeing instructors harassing students (pulling off masks, etc.) They had never seen that before, and they thought it was done more for the pleasure of the instructor than the benefit of the student. So the NAUI standards never included such harassment of students, but they did not forbid it, so some instructors certainly did that. It would be wrong, though, for a veteran diver to say that all instruction back then included such harassment when it was just his or her instructor who did it.

My NAUI basic scuba class, in 1975, we had a "harassment" pool session. For me, at 14, it was a great learning tool. I went through the NAUI Sport Diver course with the same instructor in 1976, and I am sure it was not done to any NAUI standards, but again, a fantastic class. We did a lot of navigation, mapped out a reef, did a high surf entry/exit on a pretty sloppy day off Ft Lauderdale along with rescues on the same day. Did a deep dive with a stage bottle hanging from the dive boat and .... went to Miami for a chamber ride to 165!

 

[rx7diver]

My NAUI basic scuba class, in 1975, we had a "harassment" pool session. For me, at 14, it was a great learning tool. I went through the NAUI Sport Diver course with the same instructor in 1976, and I am sure it was not done to any NAUI standards, but again, a fantastic class. We did a lot of navigation, mapped out a reef, did a high surf entry/exit on a pretty sloppy day off Ft Lauderdale along with rescues on the same day. Did a deep dive with a stage bottle hanging from the dive boat and .... went to Miami for a chamber ride to 165!

Yep: black-out masks, surface- and underwater bailouts, harassment/stress sessions, etc., etc., etc.--all part of my YMCA/NAUI course, too, in 1986, ten years after yours. And part of my daughter's course, too, two years ago. Old-school scuba instruction, indeed!

Unfortunately, my local university's scuba course didn't survive COVID. Enrollments dropped during, and the course was shuttered a couple semesters ago, after a very, very long run! (My daughter's class might have been the last, or second-to-last class. So very happy that she was able to receive this level of training. I wish her younger twin sisters could have.)

Maybe there were other reasons besides COVID. University budgets are so challenged these days due to the continuing precipitous decreases in state appropriations for public higher education. This university shuttered its Crafts Studio (darkroom photography, pot throwing, etc.), too, a couple of years earlier.

rx7diver

 

[Waterwulf]

I took the NAUI course in the early 70's and it involved a lot of stress training and emergency drills. A lot of it was repetitive, like mask clearing or checking the J Valve rod every five minutes. (Go ten and you failed the excersise because you're "dead") That was drilled into us so hard that we all walked around for six months waving our hands behind our butts looking for the J rod but looking like were all waving away stinkers.

The last day of classroom/pool work was the Hell Jump. We had to carry our gear to the top of the high dive and jump off, then get rigged up without surfacing. On the bottom of the pool, I laid my weight belt across my thighs, got my air going and proceeded to get dressed. That was when i discovered the first of many problems. My mask was blacked out. Then the Instructors started taking my gear, just yanking it off. turning off my air, flipping my J Valve rod to On, flipping me upside down, etc.

I survived that so I got to move on to the open water dives. The first one was a free ascent with my regulator in my hand from sixty feet depth, then three dives to 100 foot plus, each one escorted. All of the assorted drills and stressors were designed to teach skills and boost self confidence. There were a few times during the course when I wanted to quit but there a couple of girls in it so i had to finish it. Besides, my girlfriend had completed it already. I was alternatively terrified of the Instructors or hated them. They were all military (earning spending money) except for one guy who I'm not even sure was human! I don't know what he was. He never took his boots off in the water or out of it!

The course was hard but we all passed and none of us died diving that I knew of.