Continuing Education... Your thoughts?

[HowardE]

Personally I believe that people who think they learn nothing from the AOW course have not had good instructors or are not open to learning. Thats my personal opinion. Sorry if it offends anyone.

Just a quick reply from someone who felt AOW was a tour.

I said in my previous post on this thread as well as others... I had a good instructor. I plan on taking my rescue diver from this instructor. I have also seen other people not pass basic OW with this instructor, and I know my instructor has thousands of dives.

I said that IN MY CASE, I had already expereinced all of the "optional dives" for PADI AOW before I took my AOW card. If I had already done 40 drift dives before my AOW, what would drift teach me? I had also done 50 boat dives before my AOW. 45 "deep" dives (deeper than 60'). - Am I "not open to learning" - That is a poor generalization. I plan on taking Rescue from my PADI instructor, and I also plan on learning CPR from someone with 30 years experience in this. I LOVE LEARNING NEW THINGS. Why be closed minded?

I think for ME, it's safe to say that I LEARNED MORE in my NITROX cert, than AOW. But that's just in MY CASE. I don't think I am like everyone.

I think you get the picture here. Personally, I waited to get my AOW until my 50th dive. Do I think EVERYONE should wait until 50 dives?? No. I do think people should wait at LEAST 10-15 (post OW cert dives) to acquire some EXPERIENCE FIRST?? YES.

Also - I clearly have said that I KNOW that not everyone dives as often as I do, and that some people only dive 5 - 10 dives per year, not 5-10 dives per month.

For MANY people... AOW is a learning experience. GREAT (for them)!! LEARN MORE!

So - Continuing Education - YES... Do it. LEARN as much as you can... Gain experience, acquire knowledge. Learn something EVERY DAY in your life... not just in SCUBA, but in life itself.

If you truly feel like you're NOT READY for AOW... Wait. It's that simple... PLEASE don't rush to collect plastic (unless you're like rick, and you're collecting Starbucks cards)

(ok... I'll climb off of my soapbox for now)

 

[allistoy]

It's only a name call any course any name you like, "BUT" any time you can take a course or do a dive and come out knowing more than you knew before the experience it's worth it to me. I find it very hard to have to always equate value with quantity or cost factors.
The more you know and the more you practice generally go hand in hand with the better you will become in any area of life but especially when it comes to diving skills and confidence. Before signing up for courses ask the instructor for a description of what they plan on covering during the course so that you can determine if there will be sufficient content value to suit your needs.
Some of the best techniques I have learned over the years was not from courses or instructors but from observing fellow divers who had perfected a skill I wanted to learn so I would ask them for their knowledge or just mearly watch them performing the skill without bothering to disturb them. You would be amazed at what you can learn by just observing other good and bad skills so you can emulate the skills you wish to perfect.

 

[Santa]

I was mostly confident because I always liked being under water and because "Fact: divers have more fun" but that mostly goes to show what I didn't know at the time. Considering the potential challenges of diving under varying circumstances I'm for gathering as much experience, practise and training as possible. That or keeping the dives on the simple side.

After all it's The Sea out there.

 

[SadiesMom]

"So you're fresh out of your back to back OW/AOW course in warm water where a light isn't even always necessary for a night dive if the moon's full and you've only ever done shore dives with no current? That still doesn't mean you need a DM or guide beyond a random freshly certified buddy for us to toss you off the boat for a nice cold 100' wreck dive in current when you don't know anything about the area, even if you're not carrying a light or safety sausage and the visibility's nothing like anything you've ever dived in before, hey, you signed the waiver! Oh, to do a giant stride, you just hold your mask and reg on and walk off the boat, see ya!"

So much for operators giving a damn about things like "conditions similar to those you were certified in", the wallet retrieval skill is really all that some care about. The "Intro to local diving" thing should be mandatory for people who've never logged dives in conditions anywhere close to what they're diving in, whether it's "don't touch the zebra mussels" or "don't touch the fire coral". Tours aren't all bad, in the right places.

Asaara, I agree with you completely. I think that any diver who tosses themselves into a dive environment completely foreign to them (whether that be current when you're not used to it, cold when you're used to warm, warm when you're used to cold, low vis when you're used to high, kelp when you're used to none - whatever) without a local guide (DM or very experienced local diver) is nuts. That *can* be accomplished through a formal "Intro to Local Diving" with a local DM, but I've also done it through local divers (friends) who aren't DMs, but are very experienced in diving particular sites. They were capable of providing me site maps in advance (and did), and giving me a good briefing as well as giving a tour on our first dive. We were diving in Eastport, ME at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy - a good 25' tidal swing. It's only diveable right at slack tide. Without my friend's briefing and knowledge of those conditions, we would've been on a quick ride out to George's Banks on a 3-4 knot current, probably never to be heard from again. So tours in and of themselves are not bad things.

But AOW is something different - it should not simply be a series of tours - each of those dives should be a learning experience - the diver should take away something of value from each of those dives. If s/he doesn't then there definitely *is* a problem, in my mind and I see why some people are so jaded about "collecting a card" for it. But for me, AOW was very valuable - I learned something from every dive and came out of it not thinking I was an "advanced" diver, but feeling more confident in my skills and ready to dive in my area under the conditions I face regularly (i.e. low vis, cold water, lots of surge, shore dives).

 

[drew52]

Perhaps the not open to learning was incorrect or should have been stated differently

What I said was my own personal opinion, again not aimed at anyone in particular but an opinion of how I feel. Personally if a person had done a lot of drift dives the drift dive would not be one of the many options available from the AOW course that I would choose for one of my students dives.

With PADI there are many different options (deep and navigation are compulsary, the final 3 dives are chosen from a pretty extensive list) and perhaps choosing ones where a person has had limited experience can help. If you've done many drift or boat dives try search & recovery, Underwater Video or something else that will add to the skills you know already

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Remember that AOW won't TEACH you much. IMO - It's more of an opportunity to prove your skills to an instructor.

That depends entirely on who you take it with. If you take my AOW, you'll learn how to do certain things they told you to do in OW ... but neglected to tell you how. For example, how to ...

- Plan your dive and dive your plan
- End the dive with 500 psi (or whatever reserve you choose to end your dive with)
- Be a good dive buddy
- Control your buoyancy
- Navigate, using both compass and natural navigation techniques
- Descend without hitting the bottom and ascend without missing your safety stop
- Shoot a surface marker buoy and ascend on an upline ... how, why, and when you'd want to do it
- Conduct search patterns
- Bring an object to the surface using a lift bag

Once you learn those skills ... THEN you get an opportunity to prove your skills to your instructor ... :browsmile

AOW can take an "experience" approach or a "skills" approach ... depending on the instructor. I know a handful of instructors who will use it to teach you some real skills ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[HowardE]

Bob... I wish I could have taken your AOW... Most of the items you've mentioned are not a problem (for ME)... but I would have liked to have done the lift bag, and the search and recovery.

Which cert agency do you teach for? I am guessing it's not PADI. I know that other agencies have more requirements... which I think is GREAT. I would have prefereed a challenge.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

I just got back from speaking to my instructor about gaining specialties. After the 1st of the year, I'm going to be doing a Nitrox class, and definitely a Rescue class. From there, who knows? I definitely want to be a dive master and either Level III or IV diver.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob... I wish I could have taken your AOW... Most of the items you've mentioned are not a problem (for ME)... but I would have liked to have done the lift bag, and the search and recovery.

Which cert agency do you teach for? I am guessing it's not PADI. I know that other agencies have more requirements... which I think is GREAT. I would have prefereed a challenge.

I'm a NAUI instructor. I chose NAUI because of their "freedom to teach" philosophy. Although NAUI's standards are not that much different from PADI's standards, they do make it clear to the instructor that the standards represent the minimum level you have to teach to ... and that within certain guidelines you are free to teach to a higher standard if you choose.

Actually, I know PADI instructors who do the same thing ... one of them was a mentor of mine, and showed me how to "raise the bar" while working within the published standards. In fact, there's a PADI instructor participating in this thread that I had the pleasure of diving with in Bonaire. Based on what I saw from sharing a boat and dive sites with him for a week, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to anyone as a source of excellent training.

It's ALL about the instructor ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[drew52]

Search & Recovery with lift bags is an option for the PADI AOW course. Like I said the choices are huge, just choose dives that challenge you.

I'm a PADI instructor and teach in a similar way to Bob.