First PADI Recreational Backmount Doubles Certification Issued

[tursiops]

BTW I cannot find the Twinset/Doubles speciality course on the PADI website.

That us because it is not offered by PADI; ir is only offered by the instructor who wrote the distinctive specialty. As in, distinct from a PADI specialty.

 

[Wibble]

oops, sorry, not paying attention when I added the links. I just fixed the Poole Diving one. I just took the top 3 from Google, it's available in way more places. I think it's not a PADI authored speciality, but a distinctive like OP's course, but one that has spread across the UK at least.

As ever it’s always about your chosen instructor. You must choose one that is an active technical dimer not someone who is just a recreational diver and does twinset and so on occasionally. This isn’t like another PADI specialty course; information learned on this course will last for the rest of your diving career.

Your relationship with your instructor will be a long-term one. Should you choose to continue further into your diving career, for example ANDP (Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures), solo diving and maybe on to Normoxic Trimix, you’ll want an instructor whom you know, you trust and whom you get on with.

Therefore don’t just select one based upon a website stop. Choose one based upon recommendations from other people who have been taught by that instructor.

 

[boulderjohn]

You can't just give a course a name and have it approved. It will be reviewed first, and that review may end up with many changes to course standards. One standard is instructor qualifications. For example, I have a distinctive specialty that requires the instructor to have a certain level of technical diving certification.

As an example of the process, I created a course at the recreational level called Understanding Overhead Environments. You can bet it took a lot of work just to get the course concept approved, and the PADI employee who worked with me on the approval process was a certified cave diver. The course ended up being almost 100% academic, which was fine with me, explaining how different kinds of overhead environments provide different levels of risk and require different levels of achievement. It explains why a new open water diver can swim through an arch but a cave requires cave certification. I was not allowed to add any diving to the course except for teaching non-silting kicks in a pool environment.

A specialty course can have a wider impact. When I got my Advanced Dive Planning course approved, it was a very long process, and they went through every part of the course in minute detail. I had a big debate about whether it was appropriate to teach the rule of thirds as a part of a recreational diving class, and I explained the circumstances under which it would be appropriate for recreational divers. About 2 years later, PADI published a newly revised OW course, and the rule of thirds was included and even made part of the final exam.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

I'm still curious as to what the different between this class and PADI Twinset Diver that is offered pretty extensively in the UK.
PADI Twinset Diver Course - Book Today. 1 Day Course
PADI Twinset Diver
PADI Twinset Speciality

Seems odd that PADI would approve a course that sounds very similar just with a different name.
I looked at these type of courses as I definitely see the market and am part of the market for it, but I'm off to test the water with GUE with a doubles primer.

edit to fix link

Just checked my ratings and PADI has it listed as TWIN SET DIVER rather than TWINSET DIVER, which might make it more difficult to track down. Also, it's definitely a distinctive.