This post is way to long, kind of like most of the DM internships I've seen. Most who start never finish from what I've seen. I couldn't have kissed patootie that long. My only DMC, at that first shop, gave up after a year and became an non-DM famous surf artist.
It is hard for anybody to be compared to another as apples to apples. The Senior Instructor thing is just the way the bushel tumbles. A Master Instructor is probably on a path to train instructors and would surely be better at that than I, but that shop did not train instructors, and very few DM's, so a guy who specializes in nervous beginners was perhaps better than an MI, for that shops Senior Instructor position.
My dad and nearly all his buddies and co-workers were college professors with teaching degrees, as well as backcountry adventurers. When I was 16 my head of the Math and Science Department dad married the head of the Humanities Department; same college where I eventually got my only degree. I was raised to teach, teaching my friends how to do adventurous stuff before I knew the definition of teacher.
My Advanced Open Water Class was 5 students, all planning to be at least OWSI in 4-6 weeks. 2 joined us at Rescue and 2 joined us at DM, although we lost one of the original 5 (failed DM), 5 took MSDT Prep and 2 of us made it all the way through Resort Pro. All through all these courses, run back to back to back with no days off, we were not just taking the AOW, or Rescue, or DM courses; we were also analyzing the hows and whys of the training we were receiving.
The Instructors for AOW were Staff Instructors, Rescue and DM were taught by a Master Instructor (and master frog kicker), IDC, MSDT Prep and Resort Pro by Course Directors and various other agency Instructor Trainers, including IANTD Blender, and then Draeger Dolphin Diver from that same IANTD IT, and then an invitation to do IANTD Instructor crossover from his boss, the neighboring IANTD Founder; one of my happy hour drinking buddies over the second month. 2 months of 6 AM to 10 PM, learning to teach diving, from instructor trainers who train instructors every day of the year.
Kind of interesting that the hippie campus brat ended up being PADI hoodwinked into slightly less but significantly more than he was promised. Compared to IDC's I've seen and heard of here in the Islands, I went to a superior teachers college, and took more courses at the neighboring technical teachers college.
All but one in my section had pretty darn good water skills and experience. The barrel shaped guy from Middle Tennessee was in BP/W. He kind of struggled and had to learn how to do a lot of the stuff his own way. The soft Ivy Leaguer who go his OW 6 months earlier, quit after a failed choppy current rescue at Deep Molasses, and kind of had to be rescued by the CD. He tried again with the next section, and I think again with the next next section. The boat had to untie and go get 'em; the CD quit using his new original ScubaPro splits and went back to his old blades.
One boat trip during the IDC, conditions put us on a site with mostly lame coral reef and not much in the way of sand. We obviously had to let the Miami OW Instructor have the tiny sand so we set up
on the reef. Most of my classmates and I were mortified at all the bottom contact by the CD; all but two of us did all skill teaching demonstrations with both mock instructor and mock student "off the bottom" (occasional finger poke), although in a more vertical body position than what's been "published" recently. Back on the boat the CD said nothing about it, so we only muttered under our breath to each other.
And all the while there is also a constant stream of typical tourist divers sharing the same boat and dive sites, as well as real students taking OW / AOW for us to audit and to observe. My day as "DM" during Resort Pro, there was an uncontrolled ascent from the deck of the Duane, with a breach that nearly got "her" all the way out of the water.
That was also the next sections DMC audit of the CD conducting the AOW Deep dive. The CD attempted to arrest the ascent of the stranger, then came to the surface to help with the rescue, abandoning the DMC's and the AOW student still down at 108 fsw.
He probably did that because the only "acting" DM was the paying for training student; not an employee. Pretty sure there is an "employee" DM now when the Resort Pro student is "acting" DM.
3 pairs of divers came to the surface sharing air; a pair of now both LOA DMC's, a certified customer with a LOA DMC and another certified customer with the LOA AOW student.
"She" was in the bar drinking wine at happy hour, after her morning ambulance ride to a short chamber run; never really figured that one out.
Anyway, my point is that if you approach instructor factory pro training like a sponge, some sponges can retain a lot of koolaid from that short but significant immersion.
