Design your own OW class!

[Scuba]

One thing about classes is certain: no matter how good the quality of instruction, no one is going to become profficient in a short class.

I for one, regardless of type of class, would appreciate the opportunity to have some follow up on my progress. Having the opportunity to get together every couple weeks at a dive site with your peers as well as an instructor that will critique and provide tips for improvement, for maybe 2 or three months after the class, would encourage learning, camaraderie, loyalty to a shop and istructor, as well as encourage people to keep on diving on a regular basis.

Peter

 

[Walter]

I've never dived in Puget Sound, but "cold water" training does not equate to being ready for diving anywhere.

Ask the folks from Wreckmania who are comfortable in cold water if they were ready for Florida's currents. It doesn't matter where you've been trained or under what conditions, you are ready for conditions similar to those in which you were trained. Cold water divers are not necessarily ready for all warm water conditions (although they are ready for many situations). Warm water divers are sometimes ready for some conditions in cold water (although certainly not all).

 

[Jonathan]

Please can someone who is BSAC trained comment on some of the suggestions? From the little I know of BSAC seems to answer a lot of the requirements here - rescue drills, buoyancy control, free or cheap training, etc, etc.

Unfortunately a lot of the proposals put forward would put a lot of people out of business so laudable that they are in the wonderful capitalist society we live in today they won't run.

Again though I think it comes down to the instructor - I personally would not change anything from the course I did except maybe have the confined water and classroom sessions over another day, but that's only because I like my sleep!! We did Tue, Wed, Thu 1900 - 0030 then Sat & Sun o/w - they now do the first bit over the weekend.....

Jonathan

 

[ckharlan66]

I agree, I would like to see more time spent emphasising the need to work on trim and bouyancy control. I agree that no one going to come out of OW with these skills nailed but so many come out thinking that they have this diving thing down and they don't have any more work to do.

I would also like to have more time spent on the different kinds of kicks and how to manuver without using your hands. This is something that I had to do alot of work on after OW but I see this in alot of the new divers I meet at the quarries.

Chad

 

[MikeS]

sheck33 once bubbled...
Also, wannabe divers should get say 10 dives or so in BEFORE being assessed on skill levels, these dives should be no deeper than 30 ft under guidance of DM level divers.

Although I might phrase it differently, I agree. After four dives it was a full time job for me not to become a yoyo anytime I changed depth and/or stopped moving.

sheck33 once bubbled...

REQUIRE 25 or so dives before admission to an AOW class and REQUIRE 40 or so dives before ever doing rescue, not to mention the fact it should be possible to fail a class

Judging experience or skill based on the number of dives is bogus. I could camp out at the quarry and do twenty dives over a three day weekend. I don’t know of a better way but this isn’t the way.

jbd once bubbled...
I would like to see more work on bouyancy and trim. More work on skills done in horizontal positions. More time to teach different kicks. I would like to see more OW time with some task loading some what similar to but not as intense as what is done in the DIRF.

After only four OW dives I was not ready to think about different kicks let alone task loading, how many people were? There needs to be some basic level of training, followed by practical experience, followed by this type of training.

otter-cat once bubbled...


I think that such a certification as you describe exists. However, it includes even less training than an OW course.

In this case less is not better.

Scuba once bubbled...
One thing about classes is certain: no matter how good the quality of instruction, no one is going to become profficient in a short class.

I for one, regardless of type of class, would appreciate the opportunity to have some follow up on my progress. Having the opportunity to get together every couple weeks at a dive site with your peers as well as an instructor that will critique and provide tips for improvement, for maybe 2 or three months after the class, would encourage learning, camaraderie, loyalty to a shop and istructor, as well as encourage people to keep on diving on a regular basis.

Peter

I could not agree more! I think that the lack of continuing education if you will, is a bigger problem than the quality of instruction.

Perhaps there is a place for commercialization of guided diving tours at shallow depth, in warm water, with good visibility. People that are interested in this are not going to be interested in learning about trim and task loading. If the training recognized this fact things would be better for everyone. Those that are only interested in “vacation diving” would not have to sit through skill training they will never use and those of use that think of diving as a sport will not be dragged down by the lowest common denominator.

Mike

 

[jbd]

is that with a longer and more comprehensive course you could get more of the experience then is available now. Of course you feel you couldn't handle any task loading with the typical training. What we are doing in this thread is designing our ideal course based upon what we know now.

I would like to see at the very least 8 sessions and maybe more ideally 12 sessions. After that I would like to see 9 OW dives before getting the C-card. If the person didn't do well enough then add a few more OW dives with focus on the areas of weakness.

 

[TCDiver1]

Walter once bubbled...
I've never dived in Puget Sound, but "cold water" training does not equate to being ready for diving anywhere.

Ak the folks from Wreckmania who are comfortable in cold water if they were ready for Florida's currents. It doesn't matter where you've been trained or under what conditions, you are ready for conditions similar to those in which you were trained. Cold water divers are not necessarily ready for all warm water conditions (although they are ready for many situations). Warm water divers are sometimes ready for some conditions in cold water (although certainly not all).

Did not intend to infer that divers certified in cold water are ready for any condition if i did. Did mean to say, everything else remaining equal (current, etc), cold water diving presents some challenges that don't exist in warmer water.

I would never think of diving in Florida currents, i'm not familiar with, without first seeking the counsel of experienced divers in that area, preferably doing a dive or two with these local experts to decide if i feel qualified to dive the conditions without local divers. Further training is dictated for any condition one is not comfortable with. We strongly advise our students to follow the same tack for any condition they have not dove in. Most follow the advise, some, like anything else, don't.

sheck33, you know me, i was jabbin a little too. Like i said i'm still on the fence on where DIR fits into OW training. I'm actively learning more about it so i can more intelligently make that decision. Again, i'm not one who thinks current standards are broken if properly followed. We put out pretty good basic OW divers but it sounds like we spend more time with them than your used to seeing. We emphasize the BASIC part to our students and for the most part it takes. The mental training is just as important if not more than the physical training IMO.

By the way what did you decide on your IDC

 

[TCDiver1]

jbd once bubbled...
is that with a longer and more comprehensive course you could get more of the experience then is available now. Of course you feel you couldn't handle any task loading with the typical training. What we are doing in this thread is designing our ideal course based upon what we know now.

I would like to see at the very least 8 sessions and maybe more ideally 12 sessions. After that I would like to see 9 OW dives before getting the C-card. If the person didn't do well enough then add a few more OW dives with focus on the areas of weakness.

How are you defining a session and what would your sessions consist of. Am interested in hearing what you think needs to be added, deleted, emphasized or de-emphasized as far as skills are concerned.

 

[redacted]

How about the minimum required training (by a recognized agency) to obtain a C-card which provides retailers of SCUBA gear, air, travel and other services the normal protection from liability associated with the industry. Anything beyond that should be optional add-ons at the discression of the customer as influenced by the retailers with whom he does business and his own perceptions about the value of added training.

It seems to me that few retailers require any more than that BOW C-card. I've never had anyone in this business other than someone who sells training try to tell me I can't go deeper than 60' with my BOW training.

 

[WreckWriter]

The one thing I would like is for o/w to be "failable". The instructor should have the right to not certify any student he/she feels is not up to it. This would, of course, have to be backed up by the shops.

Don't bother saying this is already the case because for 99% of instructors, it's not. The shop owner will tell you to certify if the minimum standards are met and your butt will get fired if you refuse.

Minimum standards are too loose too.

Tom