Dumbing down of scuba certification courses (PADI) - what have we missed?

[Hoomi]

IMO, there is no substitute for diving. More individual reading or classroom sessions may produce sharper theoretical divers (or e-divers if we're talking about online reading), but you can't learn to dive without getting in the water, and the more you are in the water the better you will learn to dive.

Just making the same dive, in the same puddle, over and over again does very little to stretch your skills, you need dives that expand your scope.

No argument there at all, with either point you guys make. I could write up the basic instructions for juggling, and anyone with functional comprehension could learn the theoretical steps in just a few minutes.

Knowing the theoretical steps is easy. Keeping three tennis balls moving smoothly and continuously between two hands is another matter altogether. Training the muscles to make consistent tosses left to right and right to left, over and over, can only be accomplished by repetitive practice.

There were some very basic skills I was practicing even before class, and which I plan to keep practicing. We plan to spend a lot more time in the pool at the Y, swimming laps to strengthen the muscles and build more endurance, including spending lap-swimming time practicing staying next to my buddy. I want to learn and develop those skills that are going to keep my wife and I off that statistics list.

I do have to wonder, though, how many new student divers don't share that same kind of involvement in their own training and development? How many go in to scuba training with the same kind of mentality they might go into a training session at work? - "All I need to do is get enough to pass the test, and then I can get back to what I was doing."

No matter how excellent the training program and instructor might be, the unpredictable weak link in the chain is the student. There's always someone who just doesn't pay attention, or doesn't think it applies to them, or whatever, and no matter how much you try to train them, they're not going to apply it. Based on what I've read here, some of you instructors have no problem failing someone like that, and not advancing them to actual open water dives.

I have no doubts that some of those divers in the quoted statistics were ones that should have been told by their instructors, "I'm sorry, but you are simply not ready yet."

When I learned to ride a motorcycle almost 30 years ago, there were no readily available motorcycle rider safety courses in my area. I listened to advice from experienced riders, and then just had to learn how to apply it on my own. One thing a "veteran rider" told me was that if I managed to get through my first year of riding safely, the odds were good that I'd have good instincts and skills to be safe thereafter.

I find it interesting to read a similar concept mentioned here on scuba.

 

[Hoomi]

Originally Posted by nereas
String-Bean, those are internal PADI stats. They feel to encourage their OWSIs to impress upon their students quickly to enroll in the AOW-Adventures course to get over this 10-dive window of theirs.

It must be pretty internal, because I have never heard of it. How close to the management level do you have to be to get access to that information, and how did you get there?

Your second sentence must contain a typo, since it makes no sense to me at all. Are you saying that PADI instructors are told to tell students that they have a good chance of dying in their first ten dives so that they will take the next course right away? If that is what you meant, you are far from reality. PADI instructors are indeed taught to impress upon students the value of further training, but scare tactics like that are not to be used for this purpose.

I believe what he was getting at is that PADI encourages students to get involved in further training, requiring more instructor supervised dives, so that the new OW diver will get more experience without being "on their own" and at a greater risk. By making it "further training", they don't make it sound like, "You're still a rank novice and are statistically a high risk to hurt yourself, so somebody better keep an eye on you." It's far more flattering to make it sound like, "Now that you're a certified OW diver, why not get more training in these specialties?"

The net result is, hypothetically, novice divers becoming better divers by spending more time in the water with experienced instructors, rather than heading off to explore the reef by themselves.

 

[Thalassamania]

I am hugely jealous. My college car was a 72' 240 Z that had a little work done on the engine also. Used to love that thing but it wasn't even in the same league as a Cobra. 427?

Not a 427, a 289. I still have a 1977 280Z.

 

[Bismark]

Hi jack alert due to extreme passion...........

Not a 427, a 289. I still have a 1977 280Z.

I had 3 different 77 280's. Loved em all. Now have a 1982 zx-turbo in the garage with 90k original miles that I am playing around with. Pretty funny to hear the first of the "talking" cars. Loved the 280's though and the 77 five speed was my favorite. Arctic blue..............sigh.........

 

[Blackwood]

I do have to wonder, though, how many new student divers don't share that same kind of involvement in their own training and development?

How many go in to scuba training with the same kind of mentality they might go into a training session at work? - "All I need to do is get enough to pass the test, and then I can get back to what I was doing."

In my experience (which geographically is fairly limited, so I'm not going to speak for other regions) the answer to both questions is "most".


Sadly, few divers (at least in the initial stages) share your enthusiasm. Most want to get in, get a card, and get out. The card is the end goal rather than the learning.

 

[Hoomi]

Not a 427, a 289. I still have a 1977 280Z.

We had a '64 Fairlane 500 with the 289. I loved that engine; that Fairlane was a heavy car (back when Detroit still believed most car parts should be steel), and with a 289 in good condition, that car would flat-out haul.

It had a trunk big enough to house a refugee family, too.

I still have a 260Z with the 280Z engine in it. I keep vacillating on whether to restore it, but not having an actual garage, I'm hesitant to dive into that kind of work. Crawling in the dirt carport to get under a car doesn't have the appeal it did when I was younger (and too broke to have any option but to crawl under cars and fix them). The Z was a kick to drive, and I'd wanted one since I was a teen back in the 70s.

Back on topic, it boggles my mind that more people aren't interested in making the effort for their own training and advancement. It's MY health and survival that is at risk if I embrace ignorance and/or complacency in a sport like diving, and possibly the health and survival of my dive buddy. Knowledge is power, but having volumes of good information on the bookshelf doesn't do squat if I don't have it when I need it. Fifty feet below the surface is not a good place to realize I should have paid more attention to that chapter.

 

[Thalassamania]

Lets take car talk to the pub.

 

[Blackwood]

Lets take car talk to the pub.

you do not have permission to access this page

 

[Thalassamania]

You likely need to join the pub.

 

[Blackwood]

ah. thanks.