Continuing Ed. or just paying to dive..

[Twiddles]

I refer you to my first post in this thread as to my opinions about PADI and Instructors in general. The following posts were a result of the interaction between myself and instructors and others that chose to respond. My last post was the result of the responses recieved before it.

For the record I believe I recieved very good instruction. I think for what I was taught, I grasped as did my family the details and concepts of what was being taught. I am not sure why you all would believe otherwise except possibly for my anger at the direction the thread has gone. I have stated repeatedly that the instruction was incomplete. I guess as a new diver I am not allowed to believe that the instruction was incomplete because I have an instructor or agency telling me it was complete. Well actually I have several instructors saying it was complete, others saying if they had taught the class it would have been complete, and still others saying I should research the word complete until I have achieved some form of enlightenment and then I will be complete?

It should be obvious by my posts I dont deal in grey very well. I like black and white, truth or lie, full or empty. The glass is either full or not, its neither half full nor half empty. I have either been trained or I have not been trained. I believe I have not been trained and I know myself to know that I will not stop until I believe I am safe, if not for my sake myself then for the sake of my family.

If what I have said offends you as an instructor, I submit some of your assumptions offend me as a student. I dont need nor do I ask for charity, I ask for what I have paid for and what you have advertised. A complete education, complete to the point you claimed I would be trained. I dont offer my services in such a way as to decieve my customer and I dont defend anyone who does. If you say your gonna teach me NAV, DEEP, and Night I believe you. If you dont follow through or come back with semantics claiming well I never really said I would teach you to be safe in those environments, I just meant to show you them, myself and others like me are not going to be very happy about it.

If any member of this board, instructor, student, troll etc believes I have made an unwarranted attack on them personally. I offer you my apologies, as a black and white kind of person I also tend to be less than tolerant of grey (grey is cloudy and often used to confuse).

 

[Thalassamania]

If any member of this board, instructor, student, troll etc believes I have made an unwarranted attack on them personally. I offer you my apologies, as a black and white kind of person I also tend to be less than tolerant of grey (grey is cloudy and often used to confuse).

Not me, except for the fact that you seem to have pissed Bob off (and I like Bob) I stand amazed at what I think is your abilty to see to the heart of the matter. My hoods off to you.

 

[Nemrod]

MikeF says:
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"Oh right. Next you're going to say they should be using pony bottles too."
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Mike, I am not going to argue my opinion with you, you have your and that is mine. Apparently Thalasmania has a similar approach in mind. The BSAC has high standards, I am sorry that most US diver training programs are sorely lacking but actually, what I described pretty much describes my NAUI instruction in 1966 with some improvements. Again, that is my opinion, you have yours --we just don't agree on anything --maybe they should use doubles with isolating manifolds like you do? As to the pony, if you don't like them don't use them--who appointed you the pony expert for every pony thread? Others have valid opinions which as I freely admit mine are---you give yours as fact. Fortunately, they are not fact and I have been around enough to know that. N

 

[Thalassamania]

MikeF says:
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"Oh right. Next you're going to say they should be using pony bottles too."
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Mike, I am not going to argue my opinion with you, you have your and that is mine. Apparently Thalasmania has a similar approach in mind. The BSAC has high standards, I am sorry that most US diver training programs are sorely lacking but actually, what I described pretty much describes my NAUI instruction in 1966 with some improvements. Again, that is my opinion, you have yours --we just don't agree on anything --maybe they should use doubles with isolating manifolds like you do? As to the pony, if you don't like them don't use them--who appointed you the pony expert for every pony thread? Others have valid opinions which as I freely admit mine are---you give yours as fact. Fortunately, they are not fact. N

We do tend to dive in buddy pairs, but the slung pony thing has me intrigued, I've three unloved nitrox clean 30s from one of those old USD packs and I think I'm going to sling one for a while, get used to and then think about how that fits into the class. It'll give them a leg up on future tech techniques, if nothing else.

 

[Nemrod]

I don't know how that solo diver got under my avatar, I guess when I registered for the solo forum--I did NOT put it their myself. I have solo dived when it suited me since I was a child. I generally dive with a buddy so that I can share their company, not because I need them to save me. The point being since pony bottles were brought up by MikeF, I use a pony when it suits me, solo or buddy diving, sometimes, sometimes not. Well, gotta go, argue some more later.
N

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm just amazed that a dude who knows nothing about the industry and who has so many misconceptions about how things work can nail so many correct conclusions.

Such as ?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Most people want to get injured or killed? That explains a lot.

So how do the per-capita death and injury statistics look today, as compared to 40 years ago ... when a basic scuba course was pretty much as described by Nemrod ?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[colbar]

I dont know about the USA etc but here in OZ you cannot get your tanks filled unless you show a C card to the dive operator/shop. The general consensus here is that PADI is the acronym for "Put another dollar in", perhaps unfair but you do need to start somewhere and learn the basics and the safety issues. After that, I suspect the majority of divers perhaps get to advanced certification. Also you need to recognise that the diver education process is designed to let you progress and acheive a professional status - divemaster/instructor, allbeit at a cost. As a matter of interest, I am not a professional diver and have reached the dizzy heights of "advanced" after 39 years of diving. And finally a short poem for those among us who hire their gear:

In days of old, when divers were cold,
And drysuits weren't invented,
The best latrine,
Was Neoprene,
Especially if it was rented!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

For the record I believe I recieved very good instruction. I think for what I was taught, I grasped as did my family the details and concepts of what was being taught. I am not sure why you all would believe otherwise except possibly for my anger at the direction the thread has gone. I have stated repeatedly that the instruction was incomplete. I guess as a new diver I am not allowed to believe that the instruction was incomplete because I have an instructor or agency telling me it was complete.

If your instructor told you that after AOW your instruction was complete, well ... he lied to you. Most instructors make it quite clear that basic OW class is just a starting point ... even the ones who teach very good, very thorough classes.

Well actually I have several instructors saying it was complete, others saying if they had taught the class it would have been complete, and still others saying I should research the word complete until I have achieved some form of enlightenment and then I will be complete?

Actually, no one said that. It is this sort of rhetoric that obscures your point, and makes people overlook any legitimate message you may be trying to get across.

It should be obvious by my posts I dont deal in grey very well. I like black and white, truth or lie, full or empty. The glass is either full or not, its neither half full nor half empty. I have either been trained or I have not been trained. I believe I have not been trained and I know myself to know that I will not stop until I believe I am safe, if not for my sake myself then for the sake of my family.

Got news for ya Twiddles ... it never ends. No matter how good you get, there is always more to learn. And you won't learn most of it in a classroom ... you'll learn it underwater. Find a mentor ... get out and dive.

If what I have said offends you as an instructor, I submit some of your assumptions offend me as a student.

I'm not the least bit offended ... this has been a lively conversation. Isn't that what discussion boards are for? If I've offended you ... well, too bad. I'm as entitled to my views as you are.

I dont need nor do I ask for charity, I ask for what I have paid for and what you have advertised. A complete education, complete to the point you claimed I would be trained.

And what do you mean by "complete education"? Most serious divers never stop taking classes ... and what "you"? I don't know your instructor ... and all I have to go on in this conversation is your side of the story.

I dont offer my services in such a way as to decieve my customer and I dont defend anyone who does.

... and therein lies my difficulty with your conversation. You're quick to question someone's integrity, assign motives to people you've only ever had casual conversation with on the Internet, and make assumptions about what people do when you really have no data upon which to base your assumption.

If you say your gonna teach me NAV, DEEP, and Night I believe you.

If I make those claims (and I do), I deliver. Plenty of instructors out there who do.

Why don't you make this a productive conversation and tell us what you expected to learn that you didn't get? Then, perhaps, we will have something substantive to discuss.

If you dont follow through or come back with semantics claiming well I never really said I would teach you to be safe in those environments, I just meant to show you them, myself and others like me are not going to be very happy about it.

Sounds to me like a typical case of someone who got talked into taking these classes in rapid succession, without much actual diving in between. All that'll get you is a few guided dives.

If any member of this board, instructor, student, troll etc believes I have made an unwarranted attack on them personally. I offer you my apologies, as a black and white kind of person I also tend to be less than tolerant of grey (grey is cloudy and often used to confuse).

Didn't anybody ever tell you that colors fade underwater? All you ever get in scuba is gray? Diving's like that.

Many of my students comment that my favorite answer to most questions is "it depends" ... but then I go on to explain to them why that is. If you want to be a safe diver, don't look for pat answers. There is very little "black and white" in scuba diving ... too many variables.

And no apology necessary ... I would prefer to discuss the substance of your complaint rather than personal issues, but in any case makes for lively discussion.

Certainly no hard feelings on my part ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Thalassamania]

Such as ?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I will stipulate that you could edit as many completely off base paragraphs from his posts:

What I am infering is that the system of training is not designed as much to educate as it is to make money off your students. As you subscribe to this ideology by the text of your post I can now infer that you do take your students to the bank. You cannot expect somebody starting a new sport to know in what they need to be trained. You cannot research what classes you might need to take over what other classes are available if you have no idea what you might need at 60 to 80 feet depth much less at 130 feet most people who have never dived dont.

Please dont give me I give my students complete training, anybody who has dived 10 times can see the importance beyond the introductory brush given them of the above certifications. If you see fit to cover a subject because of its inherant risk to a diver then COVER the subject.

The fact that you are trying to make money at what you are doing is not what I find contemptable. It is the fact that you justify what you do as a service to your students. You hinder your students education with justifications of not enough time, or not enough pay. You claim you have tons of knowledge to impart but you just need some incentive to give it to your students. You create courses where there isnt room for one and then claim a dozens reasons why this course has merit. Finally, you use for your justification "buyer beware" if you dont want it you dont have to buy it or do your research and you decide what you want to continue with (good advice for a novice, you decide what you should do....).

I argue that you divide what you teach up into segments solely for the purpose of chargeing more for information (with the possibility of this division placing your students at risk). I also argue that some appear to be attempting to make a living teaching diving at a LDS and are trying to justify this crazy structure to further those goals not to better improve how they teach. I have no problem paying for OW or even AOW (although I must say the division of these two seems well Dangerous, regardless of your "athletic" ability or raw nerve).


If you CHOOSE to take additional classes for the fun/knowledge/progression/hell of it, that is of course your choice and an instructor has a right to make money off of those classes. If you choose to take a class that is supposed to educate and prepare you for diving in open water you are only choosing to take the class. You are EXPECTING to be trained in what you need to know to protect yourself in situations you will encounter in up to 60' of water for OW and in up to 130' of water for AOW. As either a OW or AOW you are likely to have HUGE gaps in your knowledge and are TRUSTING your instructor to fill in those gaps not give you a "taste".

The rest of this is just filler and frankly the arguement appears to be circular. A portion of the instructor community will continue to claim you do what you need to do to properly train your students. You will point to the Agencies for verification and validation of your methods. You will educate only what you must and you will always be willing to help that student along with another "specialty". If you can live with it so be it. I can live with it too.

Finally a lesson in commerce since most of you appear to be a bit short on the subject. The market determines your value and if you choose to ignore its price invariably you will go out of business. The market only determines your value because you the instructor have allowed the agencies to continually deplete the value of what you teach. You are not indispensible, elitist, or frankly even financialy viable. You are an accessory to an LDS, Resort, Dive Boat, etc. Your agencies can continue to divide your training to the point that 10 years from now OW will be 1 dive on one day of one weekend to make a basic diver. At that point all of you will still be saying you have done your job and the rest is available for a price. You are hurting the "sport" of diving, you are alienating more and more students (evident by padi bashing threads, and all the people who have been saying just dive and you will get trained).

Suba instruction is not a business, okay bubble busting time. As I have said before, there are far to many of you, not nearly enough of us and waaaay to many like you for this to be a business yet. Its an accessory to a business such as the LDS etc. If you have indeed found a way to make this work for you and you do nothing but teach diving then your what .5% of the diving instructors out there. Assuming this to be true that would make you and acception to the rule a very rare exception.