HappyFunBoater
Guest
NWGratefulDiver:Well, first off, those aren't the only two available choices ... and even if it were, the answer would be "it depends on the circumstances".
Agreed. And unfortunately that's why these arguments degrade to both sides making true but contradictory statements based on their own unique situation.
NWGratefulDiver:The point of AOW shouldn't be to help you master the skills you learned in OW ... mastering skills (in diving or just about any other physically-related recreational activity) is as much about training your body to respond to muscle-memory as it is about actual knowledge. In this respect, you need to practice.
Indeed. Practicing is a great, and obvious, way to get better at something. And having more instruction is also a great way. And doing both at the same time is perhaps even better.
NWGratefulDiver:Let's make an analogy with another sport that draws on muscle-memory ... skiing. You go out and take a lesson. Your instructor shows you a few things to work on. Do you then go out and practice those skills, to the point where you're reasonably competent with them? Or do you immediately go in and sign up for another lesson on the assumption that you'll get more out of the practice if an instructor is with you? Well, the answer is that it depends on whether your intent is to learn new skills or reinforce ones you've already been taught.
If I could afford it I would have an instructor with me the entire time, critiquing and giving advice on how to get better.
NWGratefulDiver:Same goes with AOW. Some instructors market it as a class to learn new skills. Others market it as "five more dives under supervision". The problem with the latter is that those dives aren't going to teach you anything new if you're still struggling with the stuff you learned in OW ... that's why so many people post on this forum that they didn't learn anything in AOW.
As I said earlier, if that person is struggling with OW then it's a shame that their instructor passed them. But alas that's how the system works.
NWGratefulDiver:If your OW instructor did a decent job, you can learn plenty by practicing on your own ... you're training your body to do what your head already knows it's supposed to do. And you'll do a much better job of learning it in a familiar environment ... i.e. shallow, benign conditions ... than you will by doing a deep dive or a night dive, where you've got other things going on that you need to be paying attention to.
Actually, what I'm saying is that you'll get far more out of your AOW class if you wait till you're comfortable with your basic skills before taking it. There are any number of threads in this forum where that debate has already taken place. What I have gotten from reading them is that a significant number of people who said they got nothing out of their AOW felt that way because they took the class too soon ... and so their instructor had to spend his or her time working on remediating basic skills rather than teaching anything new.
Yep, some take it too soon and some too late. We can both win the argument by pointing out the extremes.
NWGratefulDiver:But as for deeper diving, let me ask you a question ... did your AOW instructor teach you anything about gas management? If so, what? Dive planning? What? Buddy skills? What? How, exactly, did you learn to prepare for a deep dive?
I learned that I could open a combination lock at 100ft faster than I could at the surface. Oh, and the tennis ball had a hole in it.
Seriously, my AOW didn't teach me enough. That's why I want to go to the next level of certification. But I still maintain that learning from someone else is better than not learning at all - not that you disagree. Who would? It really all depends on who your dive buddies are and whether in an environment where you can learn from others.
NWGratefulDiver:... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Can't we all just get along? I love you, man.