Have training standards "slipped"?

[The Chairman]

the only reason they don't know how to do it is that it isn't usually taught.

They don't teach buddy breathing because it's DANGEROUS. Just like going to 200 fsw on air. Teaching something DANGEROUS is STUPID.

 

[TheRedHead]

Mike, I think it is something everyone should know, but I don't trust a causal buddy to not screw it up. But I wouldn't make a deco dive with a casual buddy either. I think the long hose and mod s-drill are a lot more important for the new open water diver.

 

[MikeFerrara]

They don't teach buddy breathing because it's DANGEROUS.

Being OOA is dangerous and trying to breath water is stupid but buddy breathing can save your life.

Note please that PADI has buddy breathing as an optional skill at the OW level and a required skill at the DM level. On what are you basing your opinion that it's dabgerous and stupid?

Just like going to 200 fsw on air. Teaching something DANGEROUS is STUPID.

ok, 200 ft on air is stupid but what do you think of going to 165 on air? Yep, you guessed it...PADI. Heck, we could spend all night pulling dangerous and stupid things right out of the training standards of the biggest and most successful agencies. You want to start on page one?

 

[Thalassamania]

...

Enough analysis, I'm taking my soggy butt to the gym this afternoon. If nothing else, this has convinced me to lose that 20 pounds I've been kidding about for the past 5 years. SoCal diving is NOT the Kona diving I did last week, and that's just the way it is and I need to be in beter shape unless I want to be a statistic.

Yes.

As far as I can tell, it's almost completely irrelevant if your course was PADI or NAUI or SSI or TDI or GUE, or if the course was 2 days or 2 weeks. Once you get past the first year, it's much more about whether or not you're in reasonable shape to go diving, as long as you don't dive WELL beyond your training.

It's getting past your first year that's the issue. As endpoints I think we can see that you've got a probability of survivial that is <1 with no training, that rises some amount at 20 hours and reaches a value of 1 at 100 hours of training. The question is, what is your life and that of your loved ones worth? In terms of time and money invested in training? I submit that there is only one training scheme that has, over the course of more than a half century, proven itself to have a one year survivial probablity of 1. Can things be lopped off that scheme without reducing the survivial probability? Likely ... but I don't know what and would not want to risk it.

So, don't be chubby, and don't go cave or wreck diving unless you're trained for it, and you'll be fine?

Once training is completed ... you've got it.

 

[Doubles]

How about incorporating the modified S-drill on descent? That way you know your alternate is working. What about better coverage of gas planning? Most OOA situations happen because of bad gas planning, not a catastrophic failure of the 1st stage o-ring. That's another one: check the o-ring while gearing up (which is usually taught in OW, at least it was in mine).

Well I only know one instructor that doesn't teach gas planning, the rest of the instructors I associate with do. We all teach dry breathing both regs on the surface and wet breathing both regs once in the water. So at least in my little circle of the world, I think we have that one covered.

O-rings are part of the standard pre-dive equipment check list

-s

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike, I think it is something everyone should know, but I don't trust a causal buddy to not screw it up. But I wouldn't make a deco dive with a casual buddy either. I think the long hose and mod s-drill are a lot more important for the new open water diver.

I agree. I don't trust an unknown buddy for anything. the first order of business with a new buddy is to get to know them...in a diving sense.

I don't at all think that buddy breathing is the most critical skill and it should rarely ever be needed on a real dive. Fortunately we don't have to choose one or the other. We can teach both.

Truth be told, I didn't used to include buddy breathing in my entry level classes but if I ever went back to teaching I would. In the process of training DM candidates and entry level technical students I taught quite a few people to buddy breath and I really don't see the training as dangerous.

 

[TheRedHead]

Here's something I would like to see changed in training: the regulator sweep. Why not go for the alternate FIRST. I've seen several people almost panic sweeping for their reg and not even thinking about their alternate. I had to pull one out of a gumball holder and stick it in a guy's face because he didn't remember he had it. Thankfully it worked. How many alternates are full of muck and don't work? And breathing it on the surface doesn't guarantee it will work when you need it. Everyone should breathe their alternate early on every dive or you may end up buddy breathing, even though the diver may not be prepared for that either.

 

[TheRedHead]

Well I only know one instructor that doesn't teach gas planning, the rest of the instructors I associate with do. We all teach dry breathing both regs on the surface and wet breathing both regs once in the water. So at least in my little circle of the world, I think we have that one covered.

O-rings are part of the standard pre-dive equipment check list

-s

I wasn't really taught gas planning in OW. Don't dive below 60 feet and back on the boat with 500 psi, check your spg, that was about it. Breathing your alternate on every dive wasn't really stressed either.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Well I only know one instructor that doesn't teach gas planning, the rest of the instructors I associate with do.

Another thing that standards don't require and the text doesn't even touch on.

We all teach dry breathing both regs on the surface and wet breathing both regs once in the water. So at least in my little circle of the world, I think we have that one covered.

That doesn't pass for an S-drill or a modified S-drill. Just breathing the regs makes certain that they are working. The S-drill makes certain that the reg can actually be handed off and implemented. It checks the whole system and the ability of the divers...but it's not in the book.

O-rings are part of the standard pre-dive equipment check list

-s

IMO, the best way to final check o-rings is a in-water bubble check. Of course, this isn't in the book either.

 

[Thalassamania]

They don't teach buddy breathing because it's DANGEROUS. Just like going to 200 fsw on air. Teaching something DANGEROUS is STUPID.

Buddy breathing has been taught, and continues to be taught, as part of a comprehensive program of training for more than fifty years. There has never been a single accident or injury either during such training or when people trained this way used buddy breathing in the field as one of many techniques that they had available in their bag of tricks. Loud rumbles that proclaim something as DANGEROUS!!!! are meaninglesss, all that matters is data, and the data says that effective instructors with adequate time can teach buddy breathing with zero risk to the student. When there is some contradictory data, then perhaps there could be a meaningful conversation, until then ... DANGEROUS!!! is just so much empty noise.