Diver Training: How much is enough?

[MSDT476614]

Excessive?

Hell yeah! Should start DM right after OW and Instructor right after Advanced! Too long to make the money man! ;D

---------- Post added December 18th, 2012 at 11:14 PM ----------

Day 1:

Something like this can be accomplished in about 8 days. As divers become more proficient, more complex skills may be interjected such as no mask OOG ascent. The faster the students are able to solidify basic skills the more room opens up for fun and experience dives. The above progression is assuming that the students need constant improvement of basic skills.

If we assume that divers are able to complete an open water course that involves 2 days of freediving training + 4 days of trim, buoyancy, propulsion, Basic 5, S-Drills and Valve Drills + DSMB deployment then an open water class would be 6 days and an advanced class could be completed in another 6 (If divers did 2 morning boat dives & 1 or 2 afternoon boat dives at a resort + night dives) to 8 days.

Total number of days needed for OW and AOW training to create diver proficiency = 12 to 14 days. Two weeks!

Cost? Generously cheap like so many shops keep education? $850.00? You can bill $70.83 per month. Sort of like karate lessons? With people's schedules being what they are today, training may take a few weeks, a season or a year, but that would bring students back to local dive shops again! Or, you could crunch the dives into a week at a resort. Yep, sort of like the old days when the brick and mortar stores could survive and even thrive.

What? No pool session?!?!?! jk. Excellent program outline! I lurve the installment plans!

 

[fjpatrum]

As a newb, I would say "whatever gets you to the level you want/need to be". Nothing more, nothing less.

I think I'm fairly competent, given my experience level. I am not where I would like to be (and I recognize I might be overestimating my skills since I haven't had any real feedback since my first post OW dive). I will keep getting some form of training, mostly mentors, to gain the competence I want. I will take a couple more courses, when the time comes, but for now I have no formal training planned.

I have never hired a DM and most of my dives since OW have been planned and executed by me. Arguably I had a couple of trust me dives in HI immediately post OW doing the manta night dive but everything else I've done myself with just me and my buddy. I am comfortable with that and don't feel like I was inadequately prepared to do that. I don't think that's true of everyone coming out of OW, though.

All that said, the folks in my OW class were a broad range of competency coming out of the class. We had several people who had a lot of trouble understanding the physics and got minimums on the academics with help from the instructors, and some who just couldn't seem to handle the in water skills. There was overlap in those groups but not unity. As far as I know, all got c-cards. If it were up to me, many would not have, as I wouldn't have wanted to be insta-buddied with them after class. (Generally, all my buddies are insta-buddies.)

 

[DCBC]

...As far as I know, all got c-cards. If it were up to me, many would not have, as I wouldn't have wanted to be insta-buddied with them after class. (Generally, all my buddies are insta-buddies.)

I guess that's why the question was asked. This apparently doesn't bother the industry and many of its Instructors. Any perceived problem of new diver incompetency is only an imagined one in the minds of a few of us... Thanks for your comments.

 

[rhwestfall]

So, its seems the root issue at hand is: "demosntrate" vs. "master" the minimum required skills and/or knowledge, and which level is to be met to become certified...

 

[drbill]

I have long contended that the current "OW" certification is simply not enough to produce a safe diver. Even coupled with "AOW" it barely meets the criteria I'd set. Adding Rescue does improve the situation. Back in the 60s when I was certified "OW" by Los Angeles County, the course lasted three weeks and covered much of what is in the current progression up through Rescue. It involve stress testing as well... instructors turning off one's air, pulling the reg free, yanking the mask off.

Of course a course like that today would probably cost in excess of $1,000 and probably substantially limit the number of certified divers each year. That may not be a bad thing.

Given those issues, I think statistics show that diving safety has improved over all. Perhaps there are many more close calls where divers are saved by the added safety gear we didn't have way back then.

 

[They call me Tater]

Traces 8 day plan sounds good but in reality it is very close to what I have done in the PADI model. Basic, Refresher (30 years Later), OW, AOW, S&R, PBB, EFR, Rescue. Only I was able to dive in between. I believe if that were done in a compressed time, there would still be many that argue I should have more experience before I do all that. Should one have to spend $1000 if they are not even sure what Scuba is? Even a payment plan is a commitment. I take classes when I can afford to and dive whenever I can in between, Many in the discussion are professionals that dive every day/week....Some seem to forget that some of us don't have that option. If I could do 50 in a year I'd do cartwheels!!

I would also not actually agree that agencies don't care. Accidents are bad for the industry and attracting more of the money to it. They know that...talk to the general public and there are still many who think it crazy dangerous.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here becuase it has worked for me. Don't get me wrong I get that we newbs don't know squat.....but I hear the same arguments about engineering and nursing and education...''Why these kids with college degrees don't know squat. Back in the day we had to'. I am middle aged but some of the opinions here sound like my elder colleagues and my father before that. Even if valid, we are not likely to go back.

 

[TMHeimer]

I guess that's why the question was asked. This apparently doesn't bother the industry and many of its Instructors. Any perceived problem of new diver incompetency is only an imagined one in the minds of a few of us... Thanks for your comments.

I guess you're right in that it doesn't seem to be a concern. I've read that finding buddies from the class who just graduated with you is one way to get started. If I went back in time 7 years I would not do this again. My buddy was fine, but both our knowledge was too basic. I advise a student who asks to try to buddy up with someone with at least some experience.

 

[Scott]

As I mentioned previously, NAUI has currently lowered its standards in an effort to better compete with PADI. Considering many of the other agencies were around before PADI began, it always has surprised me that more people haven't tried to better understand how PADI become so successful. Enticing shops to come on-board, increase income and increase sales of diving equipment wasn't difficult to do. To do this, it simply lowered the certification standards. Instant success; the race to "certify" in less time, in the easiest way possible began.

Care to share what NAUI has done to their standards to 'better' compete?

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Of course a course like that today would probably cost in excess of $1,000 and probably substantially limit the number of certified divers each year. That may not be a bad thing.

They say the $1000 is the new $100. HSA and Dive Heart are charities, I'm not!

Thirty years ago, my PDIC open water course cost $140.00 and we had 10 days of training. I was getting paid $7.50 per hour to lifeguard a couple years later and a Coca-Cola was 50 cents when I grabbed one from the vending machine. Today, the lifeguards are getting paid $7.50 per hour, the open water class conducted at their pool costs $199.00 with 3 days of training and a Coca-Cola from their vending machine is $2.00!

A lifeguard could by 15 sodas with an hour's pay and would need to work 19 hours to take a scuba class. Today, they can by 3 sodas with an hour's pay and work 27 hours to take a scuba class. Our shop paid instructors at $140 for the class. I got paid when I worked for them. The shop that now teaches there doesn't pay instructors.

Aquatics = 0
The Coca-Cola Corporation = 1

 

[TSandM]

The GUE OW class was originally about a week long and involved, IIRC, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 dives, and was estimated to be priced at the $1500 level. Be really honest -- would you have taken that class, when you decided to learn to dive? I wouldn't have. I didn't even know if I was going to LIKE diving, and I certainly never thought I would do much of it.

And for those of you who adamantly maintain that standards for passing OW should be higher . . . when I finished OW, the only way I knew to descend in Puget Sound was on my back. I fell until I hit the bottom, rolled over, and went "diving". My buoyancy control was marginal at best, and I didn't hold a safety stop for a long time, even in warm water. The only two things I had going for me were that I wasn't nervous, and I decided I really wanted to learn to do this.

Would diving, dive buddies, or I have been better served if I had failed the class? If I had, I probably would have said to Peter, "Sorry, I tried," and gone about my life, having put a check in the "scuba diving" box and moved on.

We have seen students whose buoyancy, trim and propulsion weren't impressive at the end of OW, who have gone on to dive regularly and actually WORK on their skills, and have become good divers and good buddies. Some took more classes, and some fell in with good mentors. I've also seen students who have gone on to take more classes, who still struggle. How do you know which is which, when OW class ends?

As much as anyone, I would like to see all divers stable and solid in the water, doing no damage to anything, and responsibly managing their gas and their team. I do not think you can guarantee that all your students will meet that standard, unless you teach something like Thal's 100 hour class AND you have draconian standards for passing. I think you CAN guarantee that you will have spent significant time on what you see as important -- stressing that buoyancy control is the heart of diving; reiterating ad nauseum that checking your air supply is checking your life expectancy; enforcing and modeling buddy behavior from the get-go, and trying as hard as you can to encourage a horizontal posture and an effective kick. I think you can also make it clear that nobody learns to dive well in four open water dives, and that diving is a physical skill, just as skiing is, and that it's more fun if you are better at it, and there are ways to get better at it.

Some of this works . . . we have had a pretty good percentage of ConEd students -- in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we have seen virtually all of our students who have decided to be local divers, back for additional class time. And yes, we don't know what happens to the ones who got certified to do one trip, or who do a few warm water dives every couple of years, if they happen to be somewhere where there is diving. But I submit that such people will never be the divers I envision, simply because the combination of rusty skills and rental equipment makes that very difficult.