History of Diver Training

[Thalassamania]

I wish people could learn to disagree without becoming disagreeable.

But that's much to "difficult" and no where near enough "fun."

 

[Diver0001]

No, I'm equating "easy" with "not sufficient".

I don't think I need to go back and requote what you said, but you're changing your tune.

You WERE equating "fun" to "not sufficient".

Do you wish to change your stand point then?

R..

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't think I need to go back and requote what you said, but you're changing your tune.

You WERE equating "fun" to "not sufficient".

Do you wish to change your stand point then?

R..

I don't think you understood where he was going. If the focus is solely on fun, sufficiency is unlikely ... if the focus is on sufficiency, well ... that can be made to be fun, most of the time.

 

[Diver0001]

Sometimes "easy" is "sufficient," sometimes it is not. Sometimes "easy" is fun, sometimes it just boring. Difficult is sometimes unnecessary, is usually rewarding, but rarely is "not-sufficient." On balance, it is more fun to go with difficult.

I think courses can be made artificially easy and set the bar far too low, which will drag students down to this level (with a nod to BoulderJohn)

But making courses artificially difficult is also selling the student short by wasting time that could have been spent fine-tuning useful skills on performing circus tricks for the instructor's entertainment and/or ego.

In my mind the best approach is to prepare students for reality. Turning diving into some kind of twisted game of Tetris where things pile up until the student breaks just makes everyone "lose" the game at some point. "Breaking" someone either mentally or physically for a course in recreational diving serves not useful purpose, in my opinion, besides making the instructor feel good about how tough they are.

And I'm not into playing ego games with my students.

I will agree with you part way, though, Thal. I hate it when courses are too easy. I like to be challenged, but there should be a goal behind that besides just making it difficult for the sake of it being difficult.

R..

 

[Thalassamania]

I'm not either, but I do believe that a good diver knows his or her limits; and you don't learn those limits by having someone say, "now ... don't dive except under conditions that are the same or better than those you were exposed to during your training; and stay above 60 feet."

 

[Diver0001]

I don't think you understood where he was going. If the focus is solely on fun, sufficiency is unlikely ... if the focus is on sufficiency, well ... that can be made to be fun, most of the time.

I doubt that I misunderstood him. I understood what he was saying but he and DCBC are both engaged in black and white thinking about it, which is something I see with more nuance. I'm amazed and dismayed that I hear people saying *either* you're learning *or* you're having fun but fire_diver and DCBC both said pretty much that, although fire_diver seems to want to backpedal now.

I would agree that *if* one solely focuses on any one aspect of a course (be it having fun or any other element) that other elements will suffer. Likewise completely neglecting an element (like fun) is selling the student short too. Having fun can significantly enhance learning if the timing is good enough. If the instructor has forgotten how to have fun then I see them cutting themselves off from a useful teaching technique and cutting their students off from the learning that could have been generated by it.

R..

 

[fire_diver]

In my mind the best approach is to prepare students for reality.
R..

Wow Ro, YOU AGREE WITH ME!

I just don't understand why you insist on equating training students for emergency situations to bullying.

 

[fire_diver]

I doubt that I misunderstood him. I understood what he was saying but he and DCBC are both engaged in black and white thinking about it, which is something I see with more nuance. I'm amazed and dismayed that I hear people saying *either* you're learning *or* you're having fun but fire_diver and DCBC both said pretty much that, although fire_diver seems to want to backpedal now.

I would agree that *if* one solely focuses on any one aspect of a course (be it having fun or any other element) that other elements will suffer. Likewise completely neglecting an element (like fun) is selling the student short too. Having fun can significantly enhance learning if the timing is good enough. If the instructor has forgotten how to have fun then I see them cutting themselves off from a useful teaching technique and cutting their students off from the learning that could have been generated by it.

R..

Damn, just when I thought you were thinking clearly....

Yes, you misunderstood me... You keep claiming I am being "black and white", yet you are the only one here refusing to see anything other than the dreamworld you created.

 

[Diver0001]

I'm not either, but I do believe that a good diver knows his or her limits; and you don't learn those limits by having someone say, "now ... don't dive except under conditions that are the same or better than those you were exposed to during your training; and stay above 60 feet."

I've been driving a car for nearly 30 years and I still don't know how fast I could drive it on the freeway without killing myself if there were no rules. I'm not Michael Schumacher, I never will be and I didn't need my dRiving instructor to take me out and make me drive 250km/h for me to understand that.

But I *do* know that if I stick to the speed limit that I can drive my car every day and fully expect to do that safely.

It's like that in diving too. I don't see anything wrong with telling newbies that they were trained to dive within the "speed limit" (certain limits) and that they are advised to stick to those limits while gaining experience.

People need to know what they were trained for. Not making it clear would be negligent. I don't think they need to know exactly how much faster than the "speed limit" they can go without killing themselves in order to understand what they "speed limit" is....

R..

 

[Thalassamania]

We do everything possible to make driving as predictable an activity as possible, even so we fail and the time I spent at a performance driving school as a teenager prevented, on at least several occasions, significant property damage and likely physical damage even though I was well within the rules of the road. The ocean, on the other hand, is not quite as predictable.