First Dive w/o a DM

[friscuba]

I'm late to this thread..

Jen... Congratualtions on your diving. It's not unusual to be a little apprehensive on your first dives without an instructor/guide. Don't listen to anyone who might chide you for that. Everyone's skill progresses at different rates, and comfort levels progross at different rates too. It's not necessarily a bad idea to try to stay at least close to within your comfort levels and let the progression happen at it's normal pace.

For me, I had an odd route... took a quicky 3 day course in Hawaii in November, looked at local water and knew I needed more training, signed up for the YMCA OW course in December, did all the pool and classroom work but it was too rough to dive, went ot Oahu in early January and took the AOW course (already certified in November), went back and through all of the classroom work and pool sessions locally in January, February and March, finally was calm enough to dive the 4 OW dives at that time to pick up my YMCA OW card. Most of the next 10 dives or so were with my instructor or his DM buddies, one or two turned into SOSD dives when my buddy took off. After that I dove with my wife and other friends quite a bit.... but you know what, looking back, I kind of was a sucky diver no matter how many pool sessions, skill sessions, and the early diving. NOBODY is a finished product right out of Open Water class. I eventually made it to Instructor through my local instructor then moved out to Hawaii.

To Jim, I see that you've been an Instructor since sometime late in '07 or afterwards. You mentioned the phrase "my students" earlier, just curious, would it be fair to ask what your student count numbers as the signing Instructor are? I applaud the amount of time you put in with your students, I suspect if you are up in numbers you'd have to admit, student number 55 probably got a bit better training than your 5th student, and your 100th probably got a bit better training than your 55th... even Instructors progress.

Every instructor likes to believe that they've done a great job of preparing their students for the real diving world. How many opportunities have you had to dive with one of your students after OW certification where they haven't dove for a half year to a year since finishing the course? I suspect it's fair to say that most in that situation probably slid back a tad in skill levels over that time. Would you consider them ready to tackle an unfamiliar diving location with only a pool refresher?

My point is, even if you do a great job of training them and they're looking very good after the 4-6 open water dives you've worked them, that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna stick. We keep hearing stories of newish divers being uncomfortable, not necessarily because of how they were trained, but because that's the nature of many/most people when their facing new dive situations (unfamiliar location, no Instructor/DM safety net, been a while since actually diving) the first few times... it's natural.

Aloha,

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My student counts are not that high. I got my instructor cert in May of 08 with the YMCA. I do not do this for a living. I have a current count of 24 students. Of which 11 of those are/were OW. The rest are AOW or another specialty. I also have approx another 40 as part of a teaching team where duties were shared by 3 instructors. All teach the same way. My overall count as an AI/DM is near 150 from jr OW to Divemaster with 3 different agencies and 5 different instructors. Of the actual students I myself certified I am pleased to say that to my knowledge none have been out of the water more than 3 months.

Again I prefer not to certify those who intend to only dive once or twice a year on vacation. The course I teach seems to weed out those who want that. And I'm ok with that. When I get a call from someone who is going away in 3 weeks and wants to get certified quick I have to try and discourage this, send them to another agency that will allow this, or ask them if they are willing to spend two nights a week in classroom, two in the pool, and maybe a saturday, to get in the hours required. Even this is with the understanding that if they do not pick up the material to my satisfaction I will not give them the referral. Not having to rely on this to pay my bills allows me to take whatever time I need to get across the information required by standards. I make it a point to invite all my students any time I go diving locally. Sometimes that is tough with schedules and the fact that a few of my students traveled a few to several hundred miles( in the case of AOW students) to take a course from me.

I do agree that over time skills will get rusty if not used. To be honest I myself will go to the pool if I'm out of the water for more than 3 weeks just to work on skills. When my wife was sick I did not get in the water for a little over a month. When she died the first thing I did after the funeral was schedule a refresher and skill session for a future student not only for his benefit but mine as well. I had checkouts scheduled in Puerto Rico and having never been there wanted to be sharp. It all worked out well. I have another session next saturday for students who are going to St Martin the week after.

I have had them in the pool three times after certification at no charge just to keep them comfortable since they do not own drysuits. It is the students responsibility to stay sharp and keep their skills up even if it;s in the pool and I reiterate this every class. I also tell them if they do not do this it may be better in some cases to stay on shore when they go rather than get into a situation they cannot handle. I make it clear that they and they alone are responsible for their safety and not to trust DM's or Guides to do it.

 

[wvdives]

Jim--I have talked with you a couple of times at Mt storm and I know the shop you used to be affiliated with in washington. You seem to post here a lot. I am surprised you have certified only 11 ow divers. I apologize beforehand if this offends you, but maybe you should back away from the keyboard and work on your own skills.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

What skills are you referring to specifically since I have no idea who you are and therefore no idea what you are talking about. Why does the number of OW students I personally signed off on seem to indicate to you that I need to work on my skills. Which ones? The ones I work on on every dive like buoyancy control, and all basic ones. My frog kick, my back kick, my gas switching? Or maybe the valve drills when I'm in doubles and doing them while trying to stay horizontal and not change depth by more than a foot. Or the air sharing with my dive buddies and with students. I was at Mt Storm a total of 3 times last year for a total of 20 dives or so. And I prefer to teach advanced classes and focus more on getting those students or at least I have. Now with my wife's passing I am sorry to say I will be able to try and get more OW students. OW students took time that I felt I needed to spend with her so I did not try to get more. And the 40 I team taught the year before took a great deal of time away from her. I'm glad I did not do that this last year. And the fact that my OW classes are 6-8 weeks twice a week limits me as well.


The other 50 dives I got in last year I got in at Strawberry Quarry, B&B Diving, and the dam down the road from the shop whose pool I use. My first 4 this year would have been at Storm on Jan 2nd but unfortunately I was unknowingly spending that day watching my wife live out her last days. So my first 4 were in Puerto Rico a week after her death carrying out her wish that I finish her cousins certification.

Some of those were for checkouts but most were diving to work on skills. I consider skills dives fun. Your first post is to tell me I should back away from the keyboard and work on skills? That takes a lot of nerve. And yes I do post a lot. I've been on here a long time. I have many friends here and my only real outside interest is diving. And since my my wife died this board is doing a great deal in helping me to stay sane. If any one needs to back away from the keyboard it certainly is not me. It's easy to anonymously come on here tell some one they need to do something. It is a bit harder to ID yourself publicly and tell me specifically what you want me to work on since you seem to know so much.

 

[idocsteve]

It's easy to anonymously come on here tell some one they need to do something. It is a bit harder to ID yourself publicly and tell me specifically what you want me to work on since you seem to know so much.

It's obviously someone trying to troll you.

You did fairly well, by not letting them get under your skin, however you did revert to defensive mode to some degree so you're going to lose some points there.

My response would have been along the lines of

"Yeah, I know I'm a bit rusty with my skills. It always unnerves my OW students when I grab their octopus because I run out of gas in the deep end of the pool".

Or something of that nature...you take what they're trying to troll you with and turn it around on them.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That's a good one as well. But I think what I will do rather than ask them to tell me what skills I need to work on I'm going to invite them to come down to Mt Storm on Good Friday as unless the weather is real nasty I plan on being there. Then they can demonstrate what skills I need to work on themselves. I'll be in doubles with a dry suit and slinging a 40 cu ft stage. I expect them to be similarly configured. That way we can do skills on the 90 ft platform and not worry about running out of air. If we go into a bit of deco cool. We can do air shares on our stops and make it a nice training dive. I should also have my new scooter as well. Just ordered it last night, I'll be working on my skills with it as well.

 

[idocsteve]

That's a good one as well. But I think what I will do rather than ask them to tell me what skills I need to work on I'm going to invite them to come down to Mt Storm on Good Friday as unless the weather is real nasty I plan on being there. Then they can demonstrate what skills I need to work on themselves.

I highly doubt that the member wvdives has taken so much as 1 breath of compressed air from a cylinder in their entire life.

 

[Walter]

High student counts are not an indication of high ability. They may indicate the opposite. Longer, smaller classes always result in lower student counts than shorter, larger classes. When I take a class of any type, a smaller student to teacher ratio is something I appreciate. I also like having enough time to actually learn the material. I was never one to cram for the exam. I'd rather actually know the material and have it stored in my long term memory.

It looks to me that people have a few misconceptions.

First, the longer classes with more skills are not harder. They are actually easier than the faster ones. Scared of diving? A longer, more comprehensive approach is for you. You'll have skills broken down into smaller steps making it easier to learn them. You'll have more time to practice giving you more confidence in your ability.

The structure of the longer classes them inherently more nurturing.

If you are unsure of your abilities and feel you need a dive guide, you should make use of one. You are not to blame for your lack of confidence. You were short changed in your class. That can be fixed.

I do agree very strongly with Web Monkey when he says, "if the diver isn't qualified for the dive without a DM, they shouldn't do it with the DM." Trust me dives are not a good idea.

 

[wvdives]

Not a troll at all but I remember you from your Wash. scuba days. You may be at Storm "slinging a 40 cu ft stage" and a drysuit but how many dives have you done where you actually used that bottle. My guess is none. There's a big difference between walking around Mt Storm "slinging a 40 cu ft stage" and knowing what to do with it. A new scooter sounds cool. You going to use that at Mt Storm too. If you give out as much advice as you do, sooner or later you should do the dives.

 

[idocsteve]

Not a troll at all but I remember you from your Wash. scuba days. You may be at Storm "slinging a 40 cu ft stage" and a drysuit but how many dives have you done where you actually used that bottle. My guess is none. There's a big difference between walking around Mt Storm "slinging a 40 cu ft stage" and knowing what to do with it. A new scooter sounds cool. You going to use that at Mt Storm too. If you give out as much advice as you do, sooner or later you should do the dives.

^ Notice how wvdives doesn't deny the allegation that s/he has never taken as much as one breath of compressed air off of a scuba cylinder as they continue their monodirectional ineffective tirade against one of ScubaBoards most loved and respected posters.