Horrible Experience In Confined Water Training

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with an instructor.
Congrats on passing your open water cert!!
At some point you need to let go of the bad experience and only think of the sport you like/love.
Go to another dive shop - don’t discuss your bad experience - but ask for an hour in their pool with an instructor. I would suggest you ask for help with weighting. Here is some wisdom on weighting…


When your aluminum 80 cf tank is full it weighs something and when your done you dive it weighs less. About 5-6 lbs less. Why? Because air weighs something.
Now that you know this - you weigh less at the end of your dive and you need to be properly weighted to hold a safety stop at 20 feet or 6 meters. The best way to understand how much weight you need is to be with an instructor. It should begin with a tank that has slightly more air in it than the amount yiu would get out of the water with. As an example…
I want to be back at the surface with 500 lbs remaining. So get in the pool with a tank of 800 lbs. Go to 20 feet would be ideal - and dump all of the air out of your BCD. Do you still sink? Do you stay at 20
Feet? Or do you float up to the surface? If you are perfectly weighted then you should be neutral at 20 feet with no air in your BCD. Then I would suggest - for a new diver - to add 2 lbs.
Remember this is for the instructor to do with you.

Relax - Listen - Learn - Enjoy.

 

[Wheeler925]

She is a lousy instructor if that's how she's known. And the shop is crap as well if you are only getting two days of pool training. Means you are getting rushed, the sessions are long, and you are likely getting tired, cold, frustrated, and mentally and physically overwhelmed.

These kinds of classes are why so many people do not take further training, dive after their first set of checkouts or maybe one trip. But they are fast and that allows immoral, unethical, and greedy operations to get a lot of people through quickly.

And for this they are going to get some silver, gold, platinum, or cubic zirconia instructor badge from an agency whose training model is based on profit rather than skills and education.

This is the kind of training approach that resulted in this:

Post in thread 'Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park'

Mar 20, 2025

One takeaway from the Linnea Mills incident, which is applicable to all divers and diving professionals, is to have a realistic emergency response plan in place.

I just received some of the 911 calls a few hours ago (4.5 years after the incident!), The first caller had to drive 11 miles on a winding lakeside road through the wilderness, at night, to get to a cell phone signal so she could call 911. They were driving so fast that it's amazing they did not crash. If they had, that would have been two emergency situations for the understaffed NPS to deal with, at night, in the wilderness, in...

• Subfiend

• 

Before I retired, my OW class was a minimum of 6 two-hour sessions in the pool spread over 6 weeks so the student had time to absorb the info, did not get physically overwhelmed, and had time to practice skills in a logical progression. Not just tick them off on a slate.

And often the classes went longer because I had a reputation for being patient and able to help those who needed a little extra time and effort. I would use whatever resources we needed to give someone the education they needed. I had one student with anxiety issues. Not with diving. They expected too much from themselves and would get upset and overly critical of themselves. So I asked a former student to come in and talk to them.

That person had 25 years of experience as a mental health counselor. They just talked to them. And gave them a few tips to deal with being so self-critical.

Next pool session- they did great, and instead of focusing on the things they were having a hard time with, they focused on their successes and used that for confidence to work through the harder skills for them. Every student is different, and I tried to tailor my classes to the student. Not force the student to conform to my class. Some skills are easier if you switch the order around a build confidence. The agency I taught for allowed that. Some don't or discourage it and if the instructor doesn't have some creativity or understanding of different learning styles, they can't do it.

You did not fail. You weren't the deficient one. The instructor was. She was a failure for not adjusting the teaching style. Probably doesn't know how. The increasing amounts of weight are a dead giveaway that she's incompetent, no matter what the shop owner's opinion is.

That instructor needs to be reported, and you need to file a complaint with the agency against her. Understanding that if it's a busy shop, they are liable to blow you off because they make them money.

I even wrote a book for new divers who are wondering what their class should consist of. It's called
"SCUBA: A Practical Guide for the New Diver"
and is available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats.
I'm retired from teaching now, but I still try to help divers not get screwed over by the industry.

Sounds like this is well before the days of e-learning. I take well to e-learning, while I assume a lot of people do not. That said, 6 weeks to get certified OW is a bit asinine.

 

[Outbound]

Before I retired, my OW class was a minimum of 6 two-hour sessions in the pool spread over 6 weeks so the student had time to absorb the info, did not get physically overwhelmed, and had time to practice skills in a logical progression. Not just tick them off on a slate.

Why do you assume that this is an inherently superior way, or that teaching the entire confined water portion over a weekend equates to just ticking skills off on a slate? Bit of a straw man argument, if you ask me.

There are definitely people who might benefit from more sessions spread over more days. But what about all of the students who are able to easily complete all the skills? Why burden them with having to spend extra time driving to and from the pool? That just drags out the whole certification process.

There might be pros and cons to both approaches, but you absolutely cannot say that six sessions is always better than two if the total time spent on skills is the same. In fact, I'd argue that, if polled, more students would prefer to do it in a weekend (with elearning at home prior) rather than spread it out over six weeks.

To the OP: it sounds like you got stuck with a crusty old instructor who has lost her patience for teaching. I'm sorry about that. Please don't let it deter you. The vast majority of instructors are not like that. Give it another shot with the new instructor your shop offered, and see how it goes. Best of luck to you!

 

[PamelaH]

I have dreamed of learning to scuba dive for many years. I love the ocean and aquatic creatures. I went snorkeling for the first time while on vacation last month and swimming around with the fish was literally the best experience I've ever had. When I got home I decided to finally make the significant financial investment to enroll in a basic scuba diving course.

That lady needs to be fired and then to take herself to jail. You need to call the school, tell them what happened and insist they let you have a round 2 FOR FREE. That's the only reasonable response to this abuse you suffered. Ok - I read above and they did offer you a 2nd go for free so take it. Also, give the shop a really bad review on-line when you're done. If the owners response was that this abusive person was her best then no one should be going there. Sorry you had such a bad time.

 

[arcie]

@blubberfish, sounds like your instructor was a f*&&% %^&* @#$% and you deserve a lot better than that.

I am so sorry to read this account of your experience. I also had a really bad confined water experience - being loudly mocked and yelled at in an over-crowded pool, eye-rolling and other bulls^&&, wetsuit so oversized that the many rolls of neoprene hanging off of me had me resembling a freaking Sharpei puppy. After pool day #1, I went home and stewed and then decided I wasn’t going to let that angry-ass f-^&*&ing &**&& ruin this for me. And I’m glad to hear that you are going to continue and not let that horrible person ruin diving for you.

So yes, I truly hope you continue! Find a great shop/instructor, consider a warm, calm water destination for the open water portion if your budget can swing it (and if you will primarily dive warm water). This board is full of folks with great advice on shops, destinations, and diving. Glad you found your way here!

 

[wnissen]

I would be worried that instructor is going to give someone significant barotrauma (ear damage). Everyone knows the paradoxical best way to equalize is slow down and ascend slightly. Hurrying and descending is going to give you a painful and possibly injurious squeeze.

 

[34109411]

I have dreamed of learning to scuba dive for many years. I love the ocean and aquatic creatures. I went snorkeling for the first time while on vacation last month and swimming around with the fish was literally the best experience I've ever had. When I got home I decided to finally make the significant financial investment to enroll in a basic scuba diving course.

Knowing literally nothing about the scuba diving community and all the different agencies, I chose to go with PADI as they are the largest and the most accessible to me. I completed the e-learning this past week and did the confined water dives over the weekend. I was SO EXCITED to finally be learning scuba and was feeling thrilled, giddy, and confident when starting the confined water training. I left feeling deeply unhappy, unprepared, in pain, and insecure in my overall abilities.

Disappointingly, I am not a natural at diving. I did not instantly take to swimming with fins and using the equipment properly. I needed some extra guidance to figure things out, but the instructor clearly expected me to perform all these new skills with perfect mastery on my first attempt. For example, when I didn't perform the emergency ascent using my buddy's alternate air source perfectly on my first try, she absolutely BERATED me. Told me I was awful, that's the worst she's ever seen, that I'm out of air and dead now and I should be ashamed of myself. I UNDERSTAND the importance of out-of-air procedures! This was my FIRST TIME EVER DOING THIS. Her yelling at me and berating me made me feel so stressed out and upset that it actively made it more difficult for me to learn.

On the first day, I had some difficulty descending and staying down while properly weighted. I am able to equalize but its kinda slow so I was descending slowly in order to compensate and not experience pain. I was also having some trouble maintaining depth and would bob back up sometimes- why? Not deflating BCD properly? Not in a horizontal position? Something else? I don't know, she never explained or tried to help me figure it out. She just added more weights to my BCD so I literally sunk like a stone. After being overweighted, I still attempted to descend slowly in order to make sure I was fully equalizing and comfortable. My instructor reached up, fully deflated my BCD, and pulled me down so hard and fast that I experienced MASSIVE ear pain, and this was only in 12 ft of water. She started doing this consistently and I would have to equalize once down at the bottom, sunk like a stone, and in pain. I explained to her that I was having trouble equalizing quickly which is why I was trying to descend slow and controlled and she was like, "you'll figure it out" and continued to aggressively drag me down in this way. I had already been struggling with maintaining neutral buoyancy once underwater while properly weighted, and with the extra weights, it was WAY WAY harder. On the second and final day I asked for the extra weights to be removed so I could learn to do things properly, and she declined. I left my final day of training with an EXTREMELY painful sinus squeeze due to being pulled down so fast without being able to properly equalize. It's been about 16 hours now and it's feeling a bit better but I literally had to call out of work because of it.

I spent over $800 on this initial training, and that is not chump change for me. I know scuba is an expensive hobby, and part of that price was the online course and equipment, but I'm really disappointed that I feel entirely unprepared to move onto open water dives after spending that kind of money. I also very much resent that I spent so much money on something that should be challenging but fun only to be berated, yelled at, and feel stressed out the whole time, and come home in extreme pain that was entirely preventable. Sure, I passed the confined water training on paper, but I honestly do NOT feel prepared or comfortable to start the open water training dives. It's not that I'm not uncomfortable underwater- I was never in fear or panicking, and it felt absolutely awesome and almost magical to be able to breathe submerged. I just needed some extra time and patience to learn the new skills and equipment and I don't feel like I got that. There was no repetition or reinforcement for any of the skills either- do it successfully once, now move on to the next thing. So I don't feel super confident in anything even though I know I have the ability to do it, if that makes sense. Is this a typical confined water training experience? Is it a PADI thing? Was my instructor just horrible? Or is it a skill issue on my part? I really want to continue pursuing my certification but this experience left such a bad taste in my mouth :/

Forget about him come and dive with me .

 

[landphil]

As a NAUI-certified diver, I’ve occasionally made fun of those PADI DM & instructor mills. But I’ve also been using the pool while a class is going on and have seen the instructor hand off students to one of an outsized collection of DM or assistant instructor candidates for some 1-1 help to master their skills. Maybe that’s something to look for in a shop.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

As a NAUI-certified diver, I’ve occasionally made fun of those PADI DM & instructor mills. But I’ve also been using the pool while a class is going on and have seen the instructor hand off students to one of an outsized collection of DM or assistant instructor candidates for some 1-1 help to master their skills. Maybe that’s something to look for in a shop.

I used to be one of those PADI DM candidates that they handed students off to. It was my job to show them how to breathe with no mask on.
That's the biggest skill that people have problems with. As mammals, as soon as water hits our noses our natural reflexes tell us 'not to breathe stupid'! you're underwater water! But scuba is an artificial contrivance and so are the techniques to use the gear, so some finagling of the brain needs to happen to trick ourselves into by-passing the natural reflex to not breathe.
To the OP: it sounds like you caught the instructor on a very bad day. I'll bet the instructor has had many bad days even way before you signed up.
That's not an excuse.
It sounds like she was/is totally burned out and completely lost her filter and patience.
It's not your fault.
I would report her.
She does bot belong there. She isn't doing anything positive for the shop. How many others have had bad experiences with her?
Scuba training is a very emotional thing. We're dealing with survival underwater using completely unnatural machinery to survive. It strikes to the inner core of our most delicate senses of survival.
Many people are at their most vulnerable when being submerged in water and it takes a special nurturing guide to bring people into that world, not a bulldozer.
As far as prepping yourself for more diving, I highly recommend learning to freedive first and becoming proficient at it.
It will make all the difference in the world.

 

[landphil]

That's the biggest skill that people have problems with. As mammals, as soon as water hits our noses our natural reflexes tell us 'not to breathe

I’ve broken my nose at least 3 times. It barely works now; so, I found that skill fantastically easy. Probably not a technique you’d want to add to your teaching arsenal, though