confused about advanced open water (PADI)

[Quero]

While you can do AOW right after OW, I think most people benefit more from it when they already have an idea of what they are doing in the water and refining it. When you first start diving, you are *thinking* about so much of what you are doing, it steadily become second nature (like riding a bike) and the additional knowledge has a bigger impact since you are comfortable with the basics.

It does work this way for some people, especially those divers who are "naturals" at it and can just pick technique up without much effort, but for others what happens is that they develop bad habits that become difficult to correct later on. In fact, I would say that the majority of divers who delay their AOW for more than 15 dives or so, this is what happens. It's so much easier to instill good habits in divers who are still in a formative stage than it is to break bad habits of more experienced divers.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

I can see that both ways, from my particular experience, but -- whether right after OW, or with a half dozen dives in between -- I still think it's valuable *soon* after OW (if one is going to take it).

In my case my buddy and I started it right after the OW, but the shop had scheduling problems and so we were only able to do the night dive. After that we "just" dived on our own the rest of the week (four dives). And it WAS great to not be in student mode, and to have time to plan our own dives, do our buddy checks, and just go down and "be" underwater. We also practiced some nav skills on a low-vis day (boldly going out 75' from the anchor and back again numerous times), and just enjoyed diving. But that was only about four dives.

The very next dives were on our next dive trip (six months later but we had not dived in the meantime), and we signed up for AOW the first week, doing a few days of diving before it commenced. We took PPB, Nav, Deep, Search & Rescue, and then counted the Night from the previous year (with a different shop, but we were still able to count it). We also left time for a good number of dives after the class so we could have some of our "own" diving too. That was a nice combo.

So, I can see waiting a bit; but on the other hand I would not have wanted to wait for very many dives. We *needed* PPB! Of course depending on one's OW class that might not be the same for everyone

 

[parzdiver]

It does work this way for some people, especially those divers who are "naturals" at it and can just pick technique up without much effort, but for others what happens is that they develop bad habits that become difficult to correct later on. In fact, I would say that the majority of divers who delay their AOW for more than 15 dives or so, this is what happens. It's so much easier to instill good habits in divers who are still in a formative stage than it is to break bad habits of more experienced divers.

I think it also depends on the initial Open Water instruction. My wife is lucky enough to have good instructors.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

It should not be necessary to instill good habits in someone after their OW class. That is what the OW class is for. If they don't have good habits coming out of that they should still be in class or with a new instructor!

 

[windapp]

My understanding is that Padi recommends the following limits, and most dive operators go by them in order to control liability:

18 M OW.
30 M AOW

You really need to be suspicious of operators who are willing to allow you to dive substantially beyond your previous limits without really good supervision.

Even on a 28% mix of nitrox using a computer, a 40 m dive is only something like 9 minutes of bottom time anyway. Subtract 3 minutes for a safety factor, and that is only 6 minutes. In reality, there has to be something really cool to see, and you need to know exactly where it is before a dive much deaper than 30 M makes any sense.

 

[DevonDiver]

if Open Water essentially equals "Beginner," then to my mind Advanced Open Water equals "Advanced Beginner."

Personally, I still see AOW as very much a 'beginner' stage, especially when you consider the nature of the skills and theory presented on those dives. There is very little 'new' information presented on this course - but rather, it is a chance to gain a safe introduction to fun diving, under the supervision of an instructor. Kind of like an 'artificial injection' of experience, rather than a structured development course covering higher level materials.

As such, I don't think that being able to take it soon after "Beginner" should make it meaningless. On the contrary, then it seems appropriate to me.

I did my OW and AOW back-to-back. I felt that was essential, given that (at the time) I was winter-diving, in fresh water quarries in the UK. OW taught me the core scuba skills, then AOW allowed me to apply those skills under safe supervision. If taken together at an early stage, then the OW-AOW relationship can be seen as simply am extension of OW training.

However, if a diver has gone away and gained independant experience directly after OW training (whether that is 10 or 100 dives), then the flexibility of the OW course (coupled with a good instructor) can mean that the AOW becomes an opportunity to either:

1) Investigate specialist diving activities (and trial the related training courses).

and/or

2) Conduct remedial and/or developmental training in core scuba skills. This is useful if the diver concerned has let their initial training lapse or still has weak areas that they wish to improve.

and/or

3) Develop a more advanced breadth of ability underwater, by adding new skills and/or extending their personal limits when under safe supervision.

I do agree that it could have been named better.

Yes, I agree 100%. It seems to be a natural human inclination to focus on the word 'Advanced', whilst neglecting to see that the word is related to 'Open Water' level diving.

Personally, I'd like to see PADI get rid of the (pointless) Adventure Diver level...and just rename AOW as Adventure Diver. Or, as you suggest, just call it OW+, or OWII, or 'Experience Diver' or something else that was equally less suggestive of 'advanced' diving.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

It's true that you can take it right after OW, but as I touched on above, if Open Water essentially equals "Beginner," then to my mind Advanced Open Water equals "Advanced Beginner."

Personally, I still see AOW as very much a 'beginner' stage, especially when you consider the nature of the skills and theory presented on those dives.

I think we're on the same page here, but just to clarify what I meant: I was saying that I think of AOW as "Advanced Beginner" as opposed to "Advanced Diver." So yeah, not really advanced, but I was trying to make the "advanced" part of the name relevant somehow, since they have it stuck in there.

 

[Frosty]

I liked the concept of being (re) taught the basics then going awy to dive enough "normal" dives to get a feel for my weaknesses and strenths. During the AAW you can get get help with the weaknesses.

 

[The Chairman]

It should not be necessary to instill good habits in someone after their OW class.

I instill good habits in every class I teach. Why do I do that? Learning to dive is a progression. It takes more than one class to develop your style and get comfortable with it. Not everyone dives like me and they don't need to. What's good for me is anathema to someone else. I accept diversity and yet I don't mind showing the student how I dive and tell them why. It's up to them to accept that and imitate me or figure out what works for them.

I was helping with an IDC a few years ago. The course director was a "my way or the highway" kind of guy, and I usually do OK with that mindset. He had a thing about resting on the side of the pool. During a pool session when I am talking to my students, I always ask that they grab the side and rest. I don't want them fatigued and this lets them concentrate on what I am teaching them. Old School CD obviously didn't like that. "There's no side to rest on in the ocean!" (Well, duh?) That was so ingrained in me to do in the pool and he hated it! Subsequently, he would whack me if I touched the side of the pool: IN FRONT OF THE CANDIDATES. Needless to say, I won't work with him any longer. Abuse, physical or verbal, is never a good training methodology for me.

 

[Quero]

It should not be necessary to instill good habits in someone after their OW class. That is what the OW class is for. If they don't have good habits coming out of that they should still be in class or with a new instructor!

If it only depended solely on the instructor and the work done in the class that would be wonderful. But there is nearly always backsliding (regardless of the pursuit, whether it's scuba, a foreign language class, or learning how to write html); former students sometimes just forget what we worked hard to instill, or they get lazy about implementing certain techniques. From that point, solidifying bad habits is a short step.