go tec or stay rec
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scubadivingsteve
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I really feel from some of the users on hear that they are the only ones suited to be tec instructors[/QUOTE]
There is not a thread on here anywhere regarding tec that is not a flame fest. An uninitiated diver reading the "helpful comments" would assume that arrogance is a prerequisite to any tec course.
There is not a thread on here anywhere regarding tec that is not a flame fest. An uninitiated diver reading the "helpful comments" would assume that arrogance is a prerequisite to any tec course.
OP
There is not a thread on here anywhere regarding tec that is not a flame fest. An uninitiated diver reading the "helpful comments" would assume that arrogance is a prerequisite to any tec course.[/QUOTE]
hahaha!
flots am
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You're ready to perform technical dives as soon as you can safely plan and execute the type of dives you're considering, and are capable of handling any reasonably possible emergency, at any point in the dive, without surfacing.
Whether or not you should do technical dives depends on whether you're willing to die if your self-assessment is wrong or something happens that you didn't plan for and can't handle.
Teaching tech diving comes much later.
If I'm going to take a class for an activity that could easily kill me, I want a whole lot more than an instructor with a 4 month internship. I wouldn't even take OW from someone that new.
I'm really not trying to flame you, but beleive that you don't have a grasp of how many lives are at stake, including yours.
flots.
Learn to tech dive first. I am a msdt who has taken 40/45/50/trimix65 and trimix. The difference between tec and rec is big. There is no way at this point in my technical diving am i ready to teach tec, im just not prepared for that responsibility. Do a 300 foot dive when things don't go perfect. the responsibility of the instructor is huge. I will happily keep my soul happy tec diving with my buddies, and stay a rec instructor with a few more skills.
dbulmer
Contributor
I'm not a techie nor an instructor so I guess you'll take what I say with a pinch olf salt but as a diver what I would say is the following:
As a pro you'll be used to people looking up to you for advice and you'll have strategies for managing that. Those strategies will have been refined from the diving you do plus the judgement you'll have learned from your diving.
At the tech end skills are even more refined and with your prior skillset your transition is likely to be relatively quick - what will hold you back is your judgement in knowing what works or does not work in a riskier environment.
Your students will expect you to know what you're doing but (unlike OW students) are also far more likely to know when you are having a bad day.
Can you live with that ?
As a pro you'll be used to people looking up to you for advice and you'll have strategies for managing that. Those strategies will have been refined from the diving you do plus the judgement you'll have learned from your diving.
At the tech end skills are even more refined and with your prior skillset your transition is likely to be relatively quick - what will hold you back is your judgement in knowing what works or does not work in a riskier environment.
Your students will expect you to know what you're doing but (unlike OW students) are also far more likely to know when you are having a bad day.
Can you live with that ?
beester
Contributor
I think inherently tech/cave diving is more difficult because there are many more little factors that you need to keep track of... and they have a tendency to swamp you if you don't watch out. The same can be said when you start diving recreationaly but if you get overloaded and are stressed out, there is always the option to ascend to the surface. Not being able to do that, knowing that you need to solve everything underwater is a big psychological barrier.
It requires an acute sense of team, communication, planning, equipment and team awareness, what-if procedures understanding and mental stability, and even then you can get stressed out. To coach someone into this next level requires a person with very high didactical skills (which you probably have from your years as rec instructor), but also a very good eye for the smallest detail. Next to all the procedures and technical drills a tech course is very individual. Every person you teach can cope in a different way, everybody has different "pressure points", moments where he get's overstressed, reacts badly. It's your job as an instructor to see this during the course and make sure you'll hand that person the very specific tools to deal with that issue.
Knowing how to do this is something that can only be taught by experience. You can have the teaching procedures in place, the didactical skills, inter-person communication, but that finite skill-set only comes through experience I believe.
When I did my GUE fundies in 2010 (basically an intro into tech where the basic OW/AOW skills are refined on a tech level, together with team awareness and communication), I had a teammate who was a former French foreign legion parachutist who became PADI instructor afterwards. He had been diving all over the world, been teaching for 6 years, more than 3000 dives. He passed fundies with a rec-rating (meaning skill set not sufficient for technical training) and said it was the hardest course in scuba he ever did.
So my advice is chase your dream... take the courses... go tech diving, but refrain from teaching for a long while.
I state the above with all respect... not as an instructor... but as a diver who's taken a couple of technical courses from different agencies and instructors and have come into contact with both very good tech and bad tech instructors.
It requires an acute sense of team, communication, planning, equipment and team awareness, what-if procedures understanding and mental stability, and even then you can get stressed out. To coach someone into this next level requires a person with very high didactical skills (which you probably have from your years as rec instructor), but also a very good eye for the smallest detail. Next to all the procedures and technical drills a tech course is very individual. Every person you teach can cope in a different way, everybody has different "pressure points", moments where he get's overstressed, reacts badly. It's your job as an instructor to see this during the course and make sure you'll hand that person the very specific tools to deal with that issue.
Knowing how to do this is something that can only be taught by experience. You can have the teaching procedures in place, the didactical skills, inter-person communication, but that finite skill-set only comes through experience I believe.
When I did my GUE fundies in 2010 (basically an intro into tech where the basic OW/AOW skills are refined on a tech level, together with team awareness and communication), I had a teammate who was a former French foreign legion parachutist who became PADI instructor afterwards. He had been diving all over the world, been teaching for 6 years, more than 3000 dives. He passed fundies with a rec-rating (meaning skill set not sufficient for technical training) and said it was the hardest course in scuba he ever did.
So my advice is chase your dream... take the courses... go tech diving, but refrain from teaching for a long while.
I state the above with all respect... not as an instructor... but as a diver who's taken a couple of technical courses from different agencies and instructors and have come into contact with both very good tech and bad tech instructors.
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OP
Thanks Beester!
Thats probably the best response and nicest I have received yet, that is kind of the plan I had in mind. As to teach afterwards, I know I would need to invest in at minimum 2-3 full sets of tec gear. Investing in 1 is enough, 2 more that's a lot of money and I'm sure no trust fund baby!
Go, evolve as both and instructor and diver is the goal in this... I am just worried about 2 things primarily. First is catching the tec itch!!! When I started going in the caves, that was addictive enough and miss it with all my heart!
Second and most important is that, while there I would knock out my IDC-Staff instructor, I would hate to have my recreational teaching abilities hindered by taking this time out for tec... I would hate to be "over qualified" for a job that was ideal but for an OWSI.
But thanks for you Comment, Also to DevoDiver (andy davis) thanks for that article you posted that was really informative and helpful...
Has anybody here done any training with Team Blue Immersion in Dahab?
Thats probably the best response and nicest I have received yet, that is kind of the plan I had in mind. As to teach afterwards, I know I would need to invest in at minimum 2-3 full sets of tec gear. Investing in 1 is enough, 2 more that's a lot of money and I'm sure no trust fund baby!
Go, evolve as both and instructor and diver is the goal in this... I am just worried about 2 things primarily. First is catching the tec itch!!! When I started going in the caves, that was addictive enough and miss it with all my heart!
Second and most important is that, while there I would knock out my IDC-Staff instructor, I would hate to have my recreational teaching abilities hindered by taking this time out for tec... I would hate to be "over qualified" for a job that was ideal but for an OWSI.
But thanks for you Comment, Also to DevoDiver (andy davis) thanks for that article you posted that was really informative and helpful...
Has anybody here done any training with Team Blue Immersion in Dahab?
I agree. I had been tech diving for more than a decade before I became a tech instructor. Honestly, if I were 3 or 4 years into diving, looking for an instructor, and you had only been tech diving, let alone teaching the course I wanted for a few months or even a few years, I'd look elsewhere.
---------- Post added June 24th, 2013 at 07:20 PM ----------
Yah, by my estimation, that's = to almost no experience.
---------- Post added June 24th, 2013 at 07:26 PM ----------
You bastards! You know how I hate to agree with Flots. But you went and set up the scenario anyway. Gah! Here it goes....
I agree with what Flots said.
---------- Post added June 24th, 2013 at 07:34 PM ----------
Beester, you had a great post.
Also, OP, one thing you're missing is that diving at this level in the beginning can be very stressful. It's hard, there's a lot to follow. There's a lot to be mindful of. It's sometimes stressful. Right about the time it all falls into place, the stress starts to fall away. Things are really starting to click. You're really starting to enjoy yourself. Diving is becoming amazing, even beyond anything you could imagine.... Then you start teaching at this level and all the stress comes back. Why? Because all the fear and stress and worry you had for yourself, you now have for your students.
I do more Cave Diving for simple fun (not teaching dives) than any cave instructor I know. And believe me, there's a huge difference in being responsible for someone and just having fun. Don't cheat yourself out of that by teaching too soon.
As the average age of a new diver has increased over the years (since the standards have been dropped to accommodate fat out-of-shape older people with money) I think that these people have been exposed to several different Instructors.
Why would a new diver have been exposed to several different instructors, simply because they are older and have more money? I was certified at the age of 40, and have a few bucks in my pocket, but I walked into a shop, signed up for a class, and that was that. Shop had a great big "PADI" flag in the window - why would I think the instructor was anything other than "high quality."
Keep in mind, that for the vast, vast, majority of divers their first excursion into diving is simply "for something to do" and they don't put much more thought into selection of instructor than that. Hell, if they have more than one choice most people shop on price.
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