IANTD's Essential's Class

[Superlyte27]

Well, I hope that in the future when I am an Instructor, will be known for my own merits (good or bad) rather than whatever the current reputation is of whatever organization I choose to teach from.

Hopefully, my reputation as an instructor will be just that. MY REPUTATION and not what other instructors are doing in a particular organization. Quite honestly, I believe I'm going to be pretty strict on my standards.

 

[LiteHedded]

Well, I hope that in the future when I am an Instructor, will be known for my own merits (good or bad) rather than whatever the current reputation is of whatever organization I choose to teach from.

Hopefully, my reputation as an instructor will be just that. MY REPUTATION and not what other instructors are doing in a particular organization. Quite honestly, I believe I'm going to be pretty strict on my standards.

that's good. you kind of have to police yourself with most of these agencies because they're not going to do it

 

[Superlyte27]

What i've seen more than once is... if you got the cash, you pass the class. Which is total BS, and i'm surprised it doesn't get people killed.

 

[Gombessa]

What i've seen more than once is... if you got the cash, you pass the class. Which is total BS, and i'm surprised it doesn't get people killed.

Particularly in Fundies, you can fail out (albeit extremely rare) or provisional (quite common, even for highly experienced divers or instructors taking the course). Plus, there are two levels of pass ratings, the higher of which is required for additional GUE training.

It's in practice pretty much the antithesis of "paying for the pass."

 

[LiteHedded]

What i've seen more than once is... if you got the cash, you pass the class. Which is total BS, and i'm surprised it doesn't get people killed.

it does sometimes

 

[AndyNZ]

In my small corner of the diving world I have watched GUE training evolve along with the other agencies. The level of instructors I see now in GUE has fallen quite a long way from the original and there are many more quality instructors with other agencies now that stress team diving and other 'DIR" concepts.

I think the latter is a very important point. As I understand the history, GUE was a somewhat reluctant training agency and the organisation and classes only came about as a result of people clamouring for courses that would help learn the skills they saw the WKPP team having. Part of the remit was (and still is) to influence other diving training organisations to up their game - so seeing more quality instructors in other agencies is a good result all round.

Ultimately, though, that will in itself reduce the gap and probably be the end of GUE. As the distinction continues to blur, consumers will start to be more price-oriented... Why fly in <instructor x> when <instructor y> down the road can do much the same thing?

 

[AndyNZ]

Well, I hope that in the future when I am an Instructor, will be known for my own merits (good or bad) rather than whatever the current reputation is of whatever organization I choose to teach from.

Hopefully, my reputation as an instructor will be just that. MY REPUTATION and not what other instructors are doing in a particular organization. Quite honestly, I believe I'm going to be pretty strict on my standards.

Good luck with that. Whilst it's feasible, it's a long slog to develop that reputation and some people will never even give you a chance.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, you became a PADI instructor. It doesn't matter how good your courses are, how well you engage with your students or how great their skills are..... 95% of members of Scubaboard will slag you off for the low standards of your agency, despite never having met you or ever having seen you teach.

The crazy thing is that the basis on which they think the agency standards are low is normally wrong..... A PADI Cavern instructor had a rant on SB at the end of last year about PADI standards being low - particularly because PADI (supposedly) didn't allow students to train in doubles and didn't allow the conduct of gas sharing in the overhead. Yet both of these restrictions were removed from PADI standards several years before hand. And that was a PADI instructor..... slagging off his own agency.

The agency you teach for is what opens the door - once you've got the door open, it's then up to you to sell your individual wares and build your reputation. Over time that reputation will grow enough that you no longer need the calling card, but in the early days of an instructing career you simply won't get any students unless you leverage the reputation of the agency you teach for.

Let's assume you just want to market on the basis of your reputation. That means that you need to remove any agency specific references to the courses you offer. Why (seeing as this is in the cave section) should someone do the Superlyte27 cavern class as opposed to doing the TDI class offered by Joe Bloggs down the road? You can issue your own card that says that the person has completed your course - but when they travel to Mexico, are they going to be allowed to do dives in the caverns?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not picking on you! But you can't separate the instructor from the agency.

 

[Superlyte27]

I guess we'll see where my rep is at this time next year. -- I'm guessing, except with the very small community i'll be servicing, it will be almost non-existent.

 

[rjack321]

Good luck with that. Whilst it's feasible, it's a long slog to develop that reputation and some people will never even give you a chance.

Maybe cause the good ones overwhelming issue cards via the agencies I respect. Yes there are a few high quality instructors in PADI (just to continue with your example but this could just as equally be IANTD). And yes if you do ALOT of homework you can figure out if JoeDiver down the street is an A-list instructor or not. Basically if you want to substitute your judgement as a prospective student for the judgement of revered agencies that everyone is clamoring to copy, go ahead its a free market. Honestly, I'm not obliged to give some other instructor a chance. Sometimes I do but there's a pretty big pool of already vetted instructors out there, why reinvent the wheel.

 

[ucfdiver]

I guess we'll see where my rep is at this time next year. -- I'm guessing, except with the very small community i'll be servicing, it will be almost non-existent.

If you want to make money as an instructor, especially cave, laying line and doing big dives are almost a must. Look at Mark, David, JJ, Dean, etc for GUE. Those guys are doing massive dives at Wakulla, Manatee, and elsewhere.