How do you feel about PADI bashing on this thread??

[m3830431]

I think it is unfortunate that a semi regulated agency should have such a variety or members.

Thsy do need more control.

 

[drew52]

So you are obviously one of those people that needs the warning on the food packet. You know the one that says the packaging will be hot when you remove it from the oven after 30minutes at 450F.

And yes to answer your question your manual is outdated.

Some stuff just shouldn't need to be spelled out to people. In this case however there are recommendations expanding on the actual wording. Spelling out to people how they can meet the requirments.

There is mention of all this stuff you are saying is not mentioned. It is in the recomendations.

13 "Under direct instructor or certified assistant supervision, explore underwater to gain experience"

A very important part of the training dive. How much time are we going to devote to this? Why is there no mention of what the student must occomplish in regards to buoyancy control, trim, buddy awareness. It looks to me like the diver could crwl through the tour and move on to the next dive. Indeed, I have seen exactly that done many many times.

Is my copy, out of date? Has some of this been fixed? Thanks.

 

[Thalassamania]

It is in the recomendations.

Recommendations are nice, but mean nothing in the final analysis.

 

[drew52]

It seems we can choose to read and interpret the manual differently. Ultimately it is still the instructor at the end of the day that interprets the stuff. The good will do the right thing and the bad won't. This is no different in any agency with any standards. Some instructors even choose not to follow what is stated clearly in the bold and again I'm sure this goes for all agencies. The agencies are reliant on their instructors to do the right thing.

 

[MikeFerrara]

So you are obviously one of those people that needs the warning on the food packet. You know the one that says the packaging will be hot when you remove it from the oven after 30minutes at 450F.

And yes to answer your question your manual is outdated.

Some stuff just shouldn't need to be spelled out to people. In this case however there are recommendations expanding on the actual wording. Spelling out to people how they can meet the requirments.

There is mention of all this stuff you are saying is not mentioned. It is in the recomendations.

It clearly does need to be spelled out because students crawl through their "tours" and don't learn to dive. Sometimes they get tours that are only a couple of minutes in length following an instructor in a pack. This all demonstrable fact and if PADI doesn't approve, they absolutely do need to spell it out in the bold performance requirements.

Those recommendations have always been there and they have no effect on how this course is being taught.

What you seem to be telling me is that there have been no meaningful changes. Skills are still not required to be done off the bottom in a real diving situation, students can still crawl through tours and that your answer is that somehow instructors should just do something else even though the agency isn't going to force the issue? And you refer to me as a "so-called pro"?

 

[MikeFerrara]

It seems we can choose to read and interpret the manual differently. Ultimately it is still the instructor at the end of the day that interprets the stuff. The good will do the right thing and the bad won't. This is no different in any agency with any standards. Some instructors even choose not to follow what is stated clearly in the bold and again I'm sure this goes for all agencies. The agencies are reliant on their instructors to do the right thing.

As I showed, there is more that is not specified in bold than what is.

At the end of the day what matters is what the agency will enforce and what they are really asking of their instructors. IME, they will enforce what's in bold and they won't enforce what isn't.

It wouldn't be very haed to change the bold to reflect what is in the recommendations if the agency chose to do so. I've talked to them enough that I'm convinced the wording is no accident. They know what they're doing.

If they thought that a diver should be able to replace a mask or manage a free flow while midwater, they would say so.

Of course, some instructors will do all this and more with no help from the agency but if we're going to talk about standards and what they require, then we need to focus on what is actually required.

 

[drew52]

For the good instructors the stuff is all there. For the bad ones it would make no difference any way. They would still train the way they do.

Even Mike who clearly taught great courses towards the end probably needed to read a couple of the recommendations when he first started teaching. If he had followed some of those perhaps he would have taught better classes from day 1. Maybe not great classes but certainly better than he did.

We all learn along the way and maybe I knew better thanks to the instructors that taught me along the way.

I'm out of here. Have a great day.

 

[MikeFerrara]

For the good instructors the stuff is all there. For the bad ones it would make no difference any way. They would still train the way they do.

Instructors who are already good don't need agency requirements because they're already doing it. What we have to be concerned with is what determines whether an instructor is good or acceptable. that's where the actual requirements come in.

Let me ask you this. What is the absolute lousiest most minimal skill set is PADI willing to put their name on. What is the WORST that legitimately meets standards? That's what the standards are demaning and no more.

Even Mike who clearly taught great courses towards the end probably needed to read a couple of the recommendations when he first started teaching. If he had followed some of those perhaps he would have taught better classes from day 1. Maybe not great classes but certainly better than he did.

We all learn along the way and maybe I knew better thanks to the instructors that taught me along the way.

I'm out of here. Have a great day.

It's fine to have the recommendations and they should be used. However, if there is anything in those recommendation that the agency sees fit to insist on, they need to reflect that in the requirements. If they wanted students off the bottom during the tour, they could clearly say so in the requirements. Do you know why they don't? OW dive 1 is the perfect example. If the diver goes directly from CW 1 to OW 1 they haven't learned anything about buoyancy control yet so it can't be required. If they changed this, they wouldn't be able to give OW dive 1 credit for a DSD program. Can you see that? So it is acceptable for the instructor to drag the student around through the dive controling their buoyancy for them.

For example, note all the bold type concerning the conduct of the CESA. Given the structure of PADI standards, a good start would somply be making selected lines of the recommendations, bold type.

That would still leave things like midwater skills and gas management unaddressed but it would be a start.

 

[Thalassamania]

Requirements must be done, if the are not the instructor can get the boot.

Recommendations are fluff, they may or may not be of value, they may or may no be read, they do not have to be followed, there is no penalty (except to the student) if they are not.

 

[drew52]

You have your opinion and I have mine. While I agree, to some degree, with a large amount of what most people say I just think you guys all to easily blame one particular agency. Now for those who think PADI started the rot the other agencies did not have to follow. Personally I have found that most of the divers I come across, irrespective of which agency, have skills that leave a lot to be desired. However here is were my experience differs from yours. Most of the poorly skilled divers I see have not followed any agency recommendations. Most were trained anytime between 1980 and present. Most have not dived in 3 to 25 years and now want to dive. Most do not want to pay for a refresher, as recommended by most agencies, but rather just want to go diving. Most are proud to tell you how much diving they have done. This ranges from 5 - 15 dives spanning over 3 - 25 years all over the world. Most should not be diving but do any way. These are the people I usually see with bad dive skills. In fact they usually have no dive skills. Now it is difficult to say whether this is training based or not but I am assuming it isn't. After all some of you seem to think training was much better long ago. If this is the case these people trained in the early eighties can't really blame their training.

The divers who are recently certified, who are really bad are also just as common from all the agencies I come in contact with.

A large amount who are recently certified, who practice and dive on a regular basis are usually OK. They may not be perfect and a lot could practice trim but they aren't the liability you make them out to be. Am I going to fail someone who doesn't have perfect trim? No but I am going to point them in the right direction and talk about it after each dive. My students are well aware of this by the end of their course. If they haven't got it 100% it is now time for them to practice.

My personal opinion is at some point people today should start taking personal responsibility for themselves. If you haven't dived in a while get in the pool, pay someone, find a buddy who dives often, whatever just get some practice in before going off to the lake, quarry or tropical dive vacation.