How Rigorous Should Training Be?

[SuPrBuGmAn]

The word is "retarded," generally used to identify people with significant identified learning disabilities. It is usually considered to be an impolite term to use in polite conversation, akin to a racial slur.

I'm feeling oppressed by your intolerance for my unpolitical correctness. Thats very un-PC of you.... and retarted.

The concept is that it is very possible for someone with good skills and great coaching/teaching ability to do a better job teaching those skills than someone who has excellent skills but a lesser ability to teach them.

I won't argue with this, as it has nothing to do with your past analogy of a coach with zero experience in anything but coaching, being able to teach something as dynamic as cave diving - or technical diving in general.

It doesn't matter whether it is basketball, dancing, drawing, chess, or anything else that can be taught.

It does matter. In your previous analogy and surely some of your examples here; the teacher or coach has some means of viewing and often reviewing a students action(s) which are meant to accomplish some specific point. Meanwhile in cave diving, things are far more dynamic in protocal, gear, and purpose that it will take more than someone sitting on the sidelines with no clue on whats going on in the water, why, and for what purpose to make any sort of intelligent critique. Thats going to come from experience and being in the water. Not from reading that kicking up silt is bad, and instructing the students not to simply not kick up silt.

Basketball & chess =/= Cave Diving.

Red Auerbach was a very good college player, but he never played at the NBA level ... and yet he coached more NBA championship teams than any coach in history. He literally invented the fast break, and developed the talent of more Hall of Fame players than anyone else in the history of the game.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yeah, but basketball sucks :cool2:

... which is why I said "Personal experience is important" ... but what you describe is endemic of modern diving instruction at all levels, including cave diving. Certainly these people should not be teaching at that level ... but their willingness to do it anyway suggest to me that they'd be poor instructors regardless of their diving experience.

I agree 100%. Experience doesn't necessarily make a good instructor. However, I would say that no experience absolutely necessitates a bad instructor. I'm not disagreeing with you on these points. I'm disagreeing with the analogy that a coach with zero basketball playing experience, who has the luxury of observing/teaching his students almost unlimitedly for a fairly simple objective, can succeed; and therefor an instructor with good teaching skills should be able to train cave diving without any experience... Considering the handicaps in time limitations, multiple gear configurations, multiple protocals, and the fact that a zero-experienced cave instructor cannot go into the caves to observe the students...

That last statement should pull a real "Duh" reaction from most, but apparently some would dissagree.

 

[rjack321]

Although, Bob, to realize one shouldn't be teaching at a given level, one has to know how much more there is to know . . . I think a lot of these [-]instructors[/-] divers believe, and have been given to believe, that they have reached the top of their mountain.

Fixed that for ya

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I agree 100%. Experience doesn't necessarily make a good instructor. However, I would say that no experience absolutely necessitates a bad instructor. I'm not disagreeing with you on these points. I'm disagreeing with the analogy that a coach with zero basketball playing experience, who has the luxury of observing/teaching his students almost unlimitedly for a fairly simple objective, can succeed; and therefor an instructor with good teaching skills should be able to train cave diving without any experience... Considering the handicaps in time limitations, multiple gear configurations, multiple protocals, and the fact that a zero-experienced cave instructor cannot go into the caves to observe the students...

That last statement should pull a real "Duh" reaction from most, but apparently some would dissagree.

... but no one ever suggested that experience doesn't count ... only that it's not the best indicator of what makes a good instructor ... and it's certainly not the only indicator one should consider.

I really don't get why people are objecting to that concept ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

You ignored the first four words of my sentence. Here ... let me say it again, this time highlighting those words.

Personal experience is important, but it's less important than what you teach, how you teach it, and how well you teach it ...

You know, Kevin ... any fool can make an argument out of anything by simply ignoring the parts that don't fit their argument. Please try not to do that.

I know divers with thousands of dives ... some of them very big dives ... that I would never take a class from, for one or more of the following reasons ...

- their diving skills are inadequate for the dives they've been doing
- their attitude sucks
- their diving style isn't compatible with where I want my diving to go
- their teaching style isn't compatible with my learning style
- they may be great divers, but they lack the skills or patience to pass on what they know to others

There are tons of reasons why someone may not make a good teacher, regardless of their experience level. Choosing an instructor based solely on the dives they've done is a crap shoot ... and not at all a good way to choose an instructor.

And FWIW - it matters not whether we're talking about OW or cave ... and an overhead is an overhead, whether it's in a cave, a wreck, or because you just went to 300 feet, so don't go getting all superior because you happen to live near caves. I'd just love to see how well some of you Florida boys would manage a dive in some of the conditions we deal with up here ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Ok, I do understand what you are getting at and agree with that. Not sure what it is about the original post but if I read it now I still get the same reaction from it.

On the diving where you are, I lived there for almost ten years. Why would I want to go dive there. It sucked when I was there, it hasnt changed. I liked the fishing and kayaking but I would have to be paid to go back and get in the water.

 

[boulderjohn]

I won't argue with this, as it has nothing to do with your past analogy of a coach with zero experience in anything but coaching, being able to teach something as dynamic as cave diving - or technical diving in general.

When on Earth did I say anything like this?

Lewis Carroll must have observed a conversation like this when he wrote the Mad Hatter scene. I was gong to say that this conversation borders on the bizarre, but it crossed that border long ago.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Ok, I do understand what you are getting at and agree with that. Not sure what it is about the original post but if I read it now I still get the same reaction from it.

I'm trying to think of a single reason why I should give a sh!t ...

On the diving where you are, I lived there for almost ten years. Why would I want to go dive there. It sucked when I was there, it hasnt changed. I liked the fishing and kayaking but I would have to be paid to go back and get in the water.

If your profile's accurate, and you've done as much cave diving as you claim, you couldn't have done enough diving here to know what it's like.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[rjack321]

On the diving where you are, I lived there for almost ten years. Why would I want to go dive there. It sucked when I was there, it hasnt changed. I liked the fishing and kayaking but I would have to be paid to go back and get in the water.

"Sucked" lol. Like Bob, I have a hard time believing you have much experience at all in WA or BC. I have around 1000 dives here and I'm finding more new and exciting stuff than I ever imagined.

Dig up the old logbooks, where did you dive here that "sucked"?

There are a few places which are only good for macro (i.e. poor vis) but even there you can find some amazing nudibranchs the size of thumbnails, grunt sculpins, spiny lumpsuckers and all other manner of cuteness.

 

[boulderjohn]

1. Not too long ago one of the divers in my dive group spent an interesting week diving with someone whose cave and technical diving experiences almost certainly blow away anyone on this thread--I would guess more than any two or possibly three people on this thread combined. This person's primary fame, though, is as an instructor. I would say that in that regard, I know people who come close to worshipping him.

He was not a student of that person, but due to very unusual circumstances he was in the water and participating in activities in which this person was instructing throughout the week.

When he was describing the experience to him, we asked if he would like to take classes from him. He said that not only would he not want to take classes from him, he hopes he never meets him again.

From what he said, those who worship him are so struck by the man's star power as a diver that they did not realize what a poor instructor he is.

2. Very similarly, I know someone who recently traveled a long way and spent a lot of money to take a class from one of the biggest names in technical diving. Again, this person's diving credentials are almost certainly beyond almost anyone you might know. He said it was the worst class he had ever taken, and he learned next to nothing.

.....

I am not going to name names because my point is generic. I am not talking about these individuals to provide a warning; I am talking about the concept that skill in an area does not necessarily equate with teaching ability.

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

"Sucked" lol. Like Bob, I have a hard time believing you have much experience at all in WA or BC. I have around 1000 dives here and I'm finding more new and exciting stuff than I ever imagined.

Dig up the old logbooks, where did you dive here that "sucked"?

There are a few places which are only good for macro (i.e. poor vis) but even there you can find some amazing nudibranchs the size of thumbnails, grunt sculpins, spiny lumpsuckers and all other manner of cuteness.

Ummm, where in the hell did it say I did a lot of diving there. I did one dive in a river here and that was enough to know it sucked too. The area I went was North of Edmonds, don't remember the shop tho. It was two dives and the only two I will ever do there. I thought it sucked bad. I also knoww peeople that think everything outside of bonair sucks too.

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

I'm trying to think of a single reason why I should give a sh!t ...



If your profile's accurate, and you've done as much cave diving as you claim, you couldn't have done enough diving here to know what it's like.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I will certaintly lose sleep of what you give a **** about.