If you were to design your own OW course, how would it go?

[TMHeimer]

As far as the instructor's pay and time, I'm certainly no expert, but the answer would seem logical. At our shop the instructor got paid $75 per student and the OW course was basically a set number of hours, give or take a little. If you had a "premium" OW course the instructor should get paid simply for the extra hours put in. Logistics would obviously come into play. If the "add on" stuff means a separate day or days (it of course would), the time it takes to go to and from the shop/pool/ocean, or gear set-up, rinse off, returning gear to it's place in the shop, etc.-- should be time the instructor is paid for.
Our shop still had the odd "3 week", 2 nights a week classroom course when I was a DM there, though most OW courses were the 2 weekend variety. If I were an instructor (or DM) and were to get the same pay for either, I'd only sign up for the long course if that was all that was left available. Maybe seniority comes into play there.
In thinking about it though, the "3 week" course would involve much more time setting up & tearing down, so it SHOULD mean more pay. So maybe I'd go for that.

You could say OK, so the shop gives students a discount for the premium course as opposed to taking all the other little courses, but pays the instructor, DM the same hourly/daily wage for the extra time. So the owner winds up worse off financially. Perhaps. But there also may be a better core of dedicated divers around to purchase equipment, which is where shops make most of their money so I read. It may balance out.
If a premium course were offered back then I may well have gone for that. Of course I wouldn't have all those neat (and invaluable........) cards.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Did you ever think that the fact that ALL agencies do it might indicate that they see something good about it? You still have not explained what is wrong with having different courses to teach different skills.

By the way, all the local colleges around here do the same thing, those scoundrels. You can take all sorts of courses on all sorts of topics, and those dirty rats charge money when you take them.

Yes, and the regents make 500K a year on average.
My local college by the way does a NAUI class, one semester long. They do everything I previously mentioned in that one class alone.
I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say. I never said instructors should work for free. I think instructors would actually make more money because of volume and efficiency of time. If everything I mentioned was packaged instead of broken up and more expensive, they would actually get more people to sign up for the premium course. Especially in my part of the world.
It would also be easier for people to commit to a scheduled block of time instead of a bunch of classes broken apart. A lot of times they have to wait to get enough people to fill those piecemeal classes before they can run them. it’s hard for people to schedule around uncertainty.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

@boulderjohn
How much do you or your shop charge for:
OW
AOW
PPB
Rescue
Nitrox

 

[boulderjohn]

@boulderjohn
How much do you or your shop charge for:
OW
AOW
PPB
Rescue
Nitrox

Until last year, I taught exclusively for a dive shop, so their prices were my prices. I am now independent, and I teach almost nothing but technical diving. I will teach recreational classes on occasion, but that is not the norm for me. I am currently reorganizing my whole business model and prices, so my current web site does not reflect that reality. I should have a new one soon. Since I don't normally teach the classes you list, I would do so only under special arrangement.

My prices for all would be below standard pricing for other operations because things are a bit different for me than they are for a normal operator. I don't have a large inventory of gear to maintain. I don't have a shop to maintain. I can loan out some equipment, but for the most part, if you are coming to me for a class, you are providing your own gear.

My tech diving prices are established. I suspect you are not interested in those for the purpose of this discussion, though.

 

[The Chairman]

But packaging several courses together at somewhat of an overall discount IMO is a win win.

If the diver/student wants that, sure.

Most people I have taught OW have no idea going in that they might want to continue. They're already a bit intimidated by learning how to breathe underwater and usually can't see past that. I don't charge any extra for my time to include NitrOx into the OW course. Maybe 20% of my students opt in because they already feel overwhelmed and we haven't even hit the pool yet.

The real issue in any course is time. It seems people have more an issue with the time a course takes more than the actual fiscal commitment. No, not everyone, but my students tend to be rather affluent. The amount of time allotted for the pool is down from years past. Mind you, those nights and nights of pool sessions are a bit overexaggerated. Most of those resulted in only 45-60 minutes in the pool at a time. By the time they were getting comfortable being wet, they were crawling out of the pool having done a skill or two. My normal pool session is 3.5-4 hours long. I only get two of those and since my goal is having students graduate with cavern ready buoyancy skills who are comfortable underwater, I have to optimize our time. There's just no time for not being prepared, telling long stories of daring do or losing your focus. Some of the things I do are to pre-empt issues during training, like the mask clearing in the kiddie pool. The best thing I ever did to streamline the learning curve was to put trim and buoyancy at the beginning of the class. Not having to deal with the distraction of bolters which is a function of the kiddie pool and trim/buoyancy, cuts the time I need to transfer skills to my students dramatically. -Dramatically-. Putting my students in control means less work with fewer distractions for me, and the time I save is exponential as the class moves along. Once the student is truly comfortable being trim and neutral, I find I can throw just about anything at them with little or no explanation. There might be a bit of discussion about why we did something a particular way, but I almost never discuss OOA before I'm signing it to my student. I'll spend more time discussing how to do an effective frog kick (it's in the bottom of your toes) than I discuss how to find a regulator or how to swim with only one fin. It's amazing how many times I run out of air during a class.

BTW, with the current pricing, 5 or 6 students seems to be a break-even point, and profits are made with classes of 7 and 8. I refuse to teach a class larger than 4, so that puts me in the loss leader slot unless I charge substantially more. I do the latter. Don't look to me for a "deal" on learning how to dive. The budget diver is not my target. I want to teach corporate executives and their spouses who want to learn how to Scuba correctly from the get-go and I do. I want people who are more interested in skills than cards and who value their time more than their money. Having no white-knuckle divers is my result.

 

[admikar]

If the diver/student wants that, sure.

Most people I have taught OW have no idea going in that they might want to continue.

^^This.
Not only most students don't know whether they want to continue, even if they do, they don't know WHAT they want to continue.
Do they want to go deep, or night, or low viz or whatever specialty there is.
After my DSD I thought that BP&W is way too "techie". Now, I have two sets of BP&W, diving primary donate,searching for affordable doubles, doing my reg service course in two weeks, have AN/DP.
So far, I'm doing great not going "techie" route.

I had no knowledge about any of this when I started.

 

[EireDiver606]

Your post implies that there are only two levels of buoyancy: terrible and perfect. You suggest that at some point after OW certification, people with terrible initial buoyancy suddenly become perfect. I am not sure when that happens--I am far from that myself, and I have been diving for a while.

There are many levels of buoyancy control, and what many of us would like to see is students leaving class with far better buoyancy control than used to be the norm. They will continue to improve as they dive, but they should start out with pretty decent skills if properly instructed in it from the start. What we should not do is say, "Well, they are not going to be any good at this until they go out and dive any more, so there is not point in working on it now."
There are tons of training options available from just about every agency. That is one of the criticisms you see the most often on ScubaBoard. People complain that there is a class for everything imaginable.

Im not trying to be rude but please re read my post. I did not imply and/or state some of the sentences you mentioned. I never said they have terrible buoyancy and they become perfect instantly. I said they build up their skill over time as we all have done (I’m still a long way off), you can’t despise the OW course completely because divers just after completing 4 dives come out and their buoyancy is questionable and trim is off.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I am merely saying that it takes time to perfect your skill. Everyone rambles about OW courses saying that they’re sub par, but that’s only because after your course you learn so much more during the years after that on your own and you look back and say “wow they didn’t teach me anything compared to what I know now.”

Did you come out of OW with perfect buoyancy and trim? I don’t think so..

I do agree that of course they should come out with a solid basic foundation of buoyancy skills etc but for a lot of people, it is simply not possible in that time frame.

I agree the OW course for most agencies isn’t the best it could be, but at the same time, it doesn’t deserve this much bashing from “some” scubaboard members sitting up high in their pedestal looking down from the clouds.

And yeah sure there are lots of courses after OW. But I’d rather quality than quantity. Unless you go down the tec route, none of them really teach you stuff you will use very often for example : adventure diver, rescue diver, boat diver (is a useless course), etc etc etc. A lot of them are simply a waste of time. Too expensive for what they reall are.

 

[EireDiver606]

Upon reading scubaboard I began to wonder if DCS was not the only medical condition brought on by diving, many seem to suffer from EUA (Excessive use of Acronyms or Abbreviation).
To get back onto topic I feel training is what it is because there has to be compromises. Obviously more training / experience makes you a better diver but costs more and takes more time. There are probably also broadly three different types of recreational diver. Those who give it a brief try then quit or may do only very occasional holiday dives, those who want to do it mainly on holiday (in good conditions) and those who intend to do a lot and progress to limits of recreational diving and possibly eventually tech. For the first two groups diving has to be fun and mainly in the water - who wants to sit in a classroom when a vacation typically costs £100 to £150 per day?
From reading scubaboard it looks like a number of dive courses do not get their students properly weighted, or give buoyancy control the emphasis it should have. My feeling is the PDI OW course done over 4 days, plus some self study time, is about right for most people starting diving.
Regarding instructors, I have either been taught by, guided by with a little instruction or been closely involved with someone they have been teaching, all have been good but two stand out as being particularly patient and caring with students who were nervous or struggling. Also students are different. One of the student I started my OW with was a lot keener and more confident than me and was a quicker achiever than me in the pool, but when it came to the theory tests he really struggled and on his first sea dive he was weak, trailing behind and had to have another instructor in with him on a one to one basis. He did not come back for the second day of the course.
I am a completely different kind of student, because of my technical background the theory is dead easy. I am a strong swimmer, confident in the water and find dives effortless. But when it comes to a few of the training exercises I really struggle particularly in a pool because of its lack of depth. Due to past injury I have limited mobility in my arms and legs, This makes in water exercises like putting weight belt on, recovering the mouthpiece and putting the BCD on very very difficult. For example I cannot reach behind my back properly so to put a weight belt on I have to lay flattish in the water and roll over or fasten it just above knee level then pull it up and re tighten it.
These sort of difference mean there can never be a one size fits all training package, throw in low temperatures and the need for drysuits and it gets even more complex.
Regarding PADI I feel Nitrox, deep diving (say to 30m) and boat diving should be just a brief add on, not an expensive package involving things you don't want. For that reason my progression from 18 to 30m is likely to be with SCOTSAC

+1

 

[EireDiver606]

I think a lot of the irritation with how dive instruction is structured is how it’s seemingly become a cash cow for agencies, and the source of contempt for people here on SB.

Open water teaches the bare minimum to get in the water. You want a little more like to get on an average charter boat? Then you need AOW, $$$ ding ding ding $$$.
Another $200 or whatever it is now.
Want to learn to have good buoyancy, then you need PPB, $$$ get your wallet out $$$.
Want to use nitrox? $200 please $$$
Rescue class $$$ Pay up sucker $$$
Another $250 or whatever is is now.
And it goes on. By the time you take all the courses you’re in it thousands.

So, Put Another Dollar In is a valid acronym in the minds of many. A lot of people are reading between the lines and seeing through the guise that it’s structured this way to feed students slowly with info for better absorption. However it also hard to ignore that it smacks of greed and a money shake down.

If they were smart they would have an optional alternative course to the piecemeal option.
They need to have a premium class that’s a lot longer that includes all the stuff mentioned above. So the initial OW course stays the same at the same price. But then all the other things get included at a discounted price because you already have the students there. They’re already signed up, payed up, and the logistics of assembling the students is taken care of.
So for example, instead of nitrox costing another $200-$250, it costs $100 or $150 because it’s a simple add on and everybody is already there in learning mode. A Course like this could be carried over a few weeks with some class work being done at night during the week. Also a few dives could double for other dives. In other words, a few AOW dives could also serve as the nitrox check out dives to maximize efficiency. Everybody is already on the beach geared up during all these dives, do the rescue dives.
The entire combined course could be called something like Platinum OW Diver...or something else creative.
But the program would be an option for those that have the interest, the time, and the money.
It would be expensive, but look at everything you’d get, pieced together the way it is now would be a lot more money.

I agree that the courses are too expensive for what they are mostly.

But the OW course doesn’t teach the bare minimum to get into the water. Well, not for me at least. It depends who your instructor is. On the last day, he had me doing navigation in 2 foot visibility, filling an SMB on the surface and keeping it taught and how to respond if someone has a cramp and also how to do CPR(I already knew this to a much more detailed level) but still, he had effort and made the course much better.

 

[The Chairman]

I never said they have terrible buoyancy and they become perfect instantly. I said they build up their skill over time as we all have done (I’m still a long way off), you can’t despise the OW course because divers just after completing 4 dives come out and their buoyancy is questionable and trim is off.

Most do have horrible trim and buoyancy and I know because I've seen it. A whole lot of it. I don't despise them, but I lament their instruction. This whole notion that it "takes a hundred" dives to get your trim and buoyancy to a competent level is a lie. IF you teach it correctly, there's no need for an OW diver to struggle with maintaining their trim and buoyancy to the point they don't bounce off of the reef or can't get down so they can enjoy it. It's a ten-minute discussion about the physics of diving and then its application in the pool from beginning to end. It's not rocket science: it's submarine science. If you don't understand it, and it's not that hard, then how can you hope to succeed?

Many (most?) instructors can't or won't teach trim and buoyancy because they simply don't understand them and their connection. They might teach buoyancy apart from trim, but that's a fool's errand. The Budha hover is a parlor trick and nothing more. You can't really have buoyancy without trim and most instructors have horrible trim. How do I know? I see them dive with their students, head up, foot down trying to look cool but not setting a great example. Sometimes they turn around so they can supervise their students going through the water. Oh my, how cool that you can Scuba backward... NOT. Your feet are dangling and your head is up. You HAVE to be overweighted to swim like that and not rocket to the surface. Monkey see, monkey do! How can an instructor hope to teach when they aren't setting a great example? Odds are that can't set a great example. Odds are 10 to 1 that they don't even know it's a bad example. Stupid is as stupid learns. Stupid learns as stupid teaches. Worse: they probably got this from their IDC and feel like they are great divers.

No, I don't despise anyone, let alone the poor OW diver white-knuckling through their dive, totally out of control, missing most of the cool stuff, sucking air like a hoover, sculling like they're swatting flies (lots of flies at that) and wondering if or when it will get better. I pity that no one has taken the time to show them just how simple and easy Scuba can be when you start with being trim. Dive and let dive is my motto, so I let them struggle as much as they want to until they give up on diving or kind of figure it out. But I won't let my students go through that crap. No, no, no. They've come to me to learn how to have fun underwater. Their safety and fun are my responsibility and I take that charge very seriously. I teach by setting the right example all the time. They respond by diving like me with trim and buoyancy good enough to take a cavern course with.