How many dives to be a PADI scuba instructor?

[dallaskincaid]

So, I had lunch a few weeks ago with some new friends who had gone to Thailand to become dive instructors. They both had less than 200 dives, did all of their dives in a summer to become instructors and had never really dove anywhere but Thailand. They had only used dive shop equipment and owned nothing of their own. So, yeah...from certified to instructor with less than 200 dives in a summer so sum up.

I had to wonder what kind of instructors they could possibly be with such limited experience with diving in general and conditions outside of Thailand?

Would you send someone to an instructor with such little experience? Are the prerequisites for instructor not enough?

Thoughts?

 

[KevinNM]

IIRC, the requirement is 100 dives to attend the instructor examination. As to the rest, the answers are probably what you expect. But maybe not. It certainly seems possible to me for someone develop a whole lot of skill in a few months of constant diving in a training environment.

 

[DENLASCUBA]

You only need to have 100 dives to become a PADI Instructor and this is always a controversial topic amongst seasoned instructors and other SCUBA agencies. I feel that there should be a higher requirement in regards to the number of dives you need and DM experience required. With this said that doesn't mean that that person will not be a good instructor but yes they will lack experience to bring into the classroom to pass on to their students. Diving in only one area all the time may not provide enough experience unless they will only teach in that area as you may not experience different conditions. If they are planning on teaching where they have conducted most of their dives then that is not so bad but it is still good to have experience from various areas with different conditions viz, temp, currents, boat dives, beach dives, ect to pass on to the students.

Also the few dives shows they have little to no experience working as a DM as you can do a 2 week course so you are starting from square one once you finish your instructor course. They may not have had the chance to really see how a diving operation works and watching instructors but instead only sitting back, relaxing, enjoying their fun dives.

As for sending someone to an instructor with little experience, this is a hard one. Unless you personally know that instructor or know some one who knows ect, you would never know their actual level of experience. Even though they have little experience they may still be a good new instructor, if you know them personally (personality, level of mauturity, work ethic, ect) then you can make a better judgement call.

This is one that always gets me a diver becoming a DM that does not have their own equipment, and it gets me even more if they are looking to become an instructor. At these levels you should have your own personal gear, gear that you are familiar with. How can you talk about your gear if you only rent gear and do not know much about it, also do you know the exact date it has been serviced and by who, has there been any problems another diver who rented it may not have mentioned to the shop. I have seen some who have rented a bcd, set of regs, or fins because they did not want to travel with theirs due to luggage weight but I still think that is silly.

 

[RJP]

Would you send someone to an instructor with such little experience? Are the prerequisites for instructor not enough?

Thoughts?

Good question... since this hasn't been discussed, ad nauseum, in almost a week!

:shocked2:

Let me ask a different question: How many dives ARE enough... such that dive count is the only thing you need to know about an instructor?

By itself, the number of dives someone has is almost irrelevant. Would you send someone to an instructor with 500 dives... if that was the only thing you knew about that instructor? 1,000 dives?

While I'm not a fan of zero-to-hero programs, I would need to know what kind of instructors they ACTUALLY ARE before I could determine whether or not to send someone to them. Dive count is only one piece of information. Sure, if it was all I had to go on... I would probably send someone to a different instructor. But it would be an instructor I actually knew a lot more about than how many dives they'd done.

Would I "send" someone to them? No. Because there are other instructors that I know well. But if a friend of mine called and said "I'm here in the Caribbean and going to take a scuba class with ______, what do you think?" and I felt that your two friends really knew their stuff, had a good teaching style, were really great folks, had good dive skills and actually were good, effective instructors I would probably have no problem with someone I knew who was looking to get certified as a warm-water vacation-only, pretty-fishies diver taking a course with them.

Of course if I felt/knew your two friends were idiots, unsafe, had no skills, or were simply crappy instructors, or the person wanted to dive NJ wrecks right after they got their c-card… that would be a different story. Just as it would if your friends had 500 or 1,000 dives.

I think I lost my arrogance - or drank the Kool-Aid - when I went through the instructor training program myself. I learned two key things there:
1. Being a good instructor is not about how well you can dive... it's about how well you can teach.
2. There was very little correlation between dive count and instructor quality among the 20+ candidates in my IE.
In fact, the most experienced, skilled diver in the group did not pass. Why? Because he was not a good instructor. There were others who had far fewer dives than I do who you could tell would be phenomenal instructors.

To be clear, I’m not saying that dive skill/experience is NOT important. But it’s not the only thing, and dive count is only one piece of that. I had nearly 1,000 dives before becoming an instructor, but I can assure you that I was nearly as skilled/experienced a diver at 200 dives.

Am I a better instructor because of the additional 800 dives? Probably.
Would I have been a good, effective instructor at 200? Maybe.
Are there people with 5,000 dives who would never be a good instructor? Certainly.

Experience in an important thing… but it’s not the only thing.

 

[Scared Silly]

This is one that always gets me a diver becoming a DM that does not have their own equipment, and it gets me even more if they are looking to become an instructor. At these levels you should have your own personal gear, gear that you are familiar with. How can you talk about your gear if you only rent gear and do not know much about it, also do you know the exact date it has been serviced and by who, has there been any problems another diver who rented it may not have mentioned to the shop. I have seen some who have rented a bcd, set of regs, or fins because they did not want to travel with theirs due to luggage weight but I still think that is silly.

Given that one often works for a dive op that requires their staff to dive the gear they sell I can easily understand why a newly minted DM/Instructor might not have their own gear. Further, once a professional they might be able to land key pricing.

When I played DM I rarely used my own gear for the pool sessions. Why let it take all that wear and tear.

 

[RJP]

They had only used dive shop equipment and owned nothing of their own.

Was the dive shop's equipment from another planet? Assuming not, if they had purchased that exact same gear from the exact same dive shop... would the equipment have been different in any way? Would their experience with that equipment have been any different based on having a receipt for it in their wallet?

 

[dallaskincaid]

Was the dive shop's equipment from another planet? Assuming not, if they had purchased that exact same gear from the exact same dive shop... would the equipment have been different in any way? Would their experience with that equipment have been any different based on having a receipt for it in their wallet?

Not necessarily, but I also feel having more experience with a wide array of equipment makes for a better experience for the student. The instructors end up being salesmen/women by proxy for the dive shop.

 

[boulderjohn]

Not necessarily, but I also feel having more experience with a wide array of equipment makes for a better experience for the student. The instructors end up being salesmen/women by proxy for the dive shop.

Instructors who work for a shop that sells specific brands of equipment will usually support the brands of equipment the shop sells. Most shops sell all KINDS of equipment, but they sell different brands. There are two shops in our town. One sells primarily ScubaPro and Aqualung. The other sells primarily Oceanic and Zeagle. Both shops sell jacket BCDs, back inflate BCDs, back plates and wings, split fins, blade fins, etc. They just sell different brands. How different are those brands in quality? As a dive instructor, I talk to students about the different kinds of equipment available to them, and I give them the pros and cons of those different kinds of equipment. Of course I do that by walking through the shop and showing them examples from the brands the shop sells. I am not sure what's wrong with that.

Do you really think that an instructor working for the ScubaPro/Aqualung shop should tell the students there to buy Oceanic products instead? Would you expect a paint store employee to tell customers to buy paint from their competitors? Will a mechanic working in a Honda dealership tell people to buy Toyotas? Why do you expect scuba instructors to be different from any other employee working in any other business?

Of course, I could tell all my students to buy brands that the shop doesn't sell. If I and the other instructors working for the shop are good enough at doing that, the shop will lose all customers and go out of business. I don't see how that helps anyone.

 

[TSandM]

I don't have any problem with someone whose only experience is in Thailand becoming an instructor with 200 dives, especially if they intend to teach in Thailand. I'd probably have trouble preparing someone to dive in Thailand as well as a Thai-trained instructor would. They'd have problems preparing someone to dive in Puget Sound, too. Students who intend to dive in Puget Sound probably shouldn't get certified in Thailand, unless they intend to take further training when they get home. (BTW, one of my favorite dive buddies for several years got certified in Thailand, and I did his first Puget Sound dive with him.)

200 dives is a fair bit of experience, as diving goes; if someone's skills are also good, why shouldn't they instruct? I have a problem with someone going straight through training and going into an instructor program with the minimum number of dives, especially if almost all or all of them have been done under instruction themselves. But I don't think you can rack up 200 dives doing that (or you'd have an awful lot of specialty cards if you did )

Bad skills and bad teaching are what I deplore. You can definitely acquire pretty darned good skills in 200 dives.

 

[Hawkwood]

I don't have any problem with someone whose only experience is in Thailand becoming an instructor with 200 dives, especially if they intend to teach in Thailand. I'd probably have trouble preparing someone to dive in Thailand as well as a Thai-trained instructor would. They'd have problems preparing someone to dive in Puget Sound, too. Students who intend to dive in Puget Sound probably shouldn't get certified in Thailand, unless they intend to take further training when they get home. (BTW, one of my favorite dive buddies for several years got certified in Thailand, and I did his first Puget Sound dive with him.)

200 dives is a fair bit of experience, as diving goes; if someone's skills are also good, why shouldn't they instruct? I have a problem with someone going straight through training and going into an instructor program with the minimum number of dives, especially if almost all or all of them have been done under instruction themselves. But I don't think you can rack up 200 dives doing that (or you'd have an awful lot of specialty cards if you did )

Bad skills and bad teaching are what I deplore. You can definitely acquire pretty darned good skills in 200 dives.

Nicely said!