Are you seriously saying that learning to weight students properly (which is already a standard) will be such a demanding task that prospective instructors won't be able to handle it and will drop out of the IDC?
Instructors: teaching neutrally buoyant
- Thread starter h2ogypsy
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Are you seriously saying that "some effort" is equivalent to a demanding task that most won't be able to handle and drop out?
Come on.
There are platinum CDs that can't perform skills neutrally buoyant and trim without constantly sculling. These guys are complete clowns and I don't see them making the effort without being given an ultimatum.
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
I would think this is the issue. The students handling NB and Trim given instruction and learning faster with it is fine. But not if the instructor does not have it in the first place and needs to change to learn it.
Of course, given that it is easy for the students would suggest it should be easy for a many-year veteran instructor. One would think.
Exactly!
While I was experimenting with technique and writing the article, other instructors in the shop[ saw what I was doing and started doing it themselves. The the Course Director running the instructional program decreed that all instruction in the shop had to be done that way.
No problem. Easy Peasy.
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
Would all have done it if the course director had not decreed it? Which goes I think to your point of needing it to be required strongly.
Well, I would think so too, but then I think of an IT who washed out of fundies. Couldn't earn a rec pass despite thousands of dives. Drove everyone around him crazy to practice to the point of having an intervention. Then it was GUE's fault.
You're never going to get someone like that teaching new instructors to be neutrally buoyant and trim.
Ayisha
Contributor
Some of the most "veteran" instructors or divers have the most trouble with maintaining neutral buoyancy and trim while being task loaded.
I think someone (maybe Boulderjohn?) had mentioned primacy and recency on one of these threads. Most people are very receptive to the way they are taught the first time. Given practice, it becomes ingrained. Montessori education has been based on teaching something correctly from the beginning, and then building on that knowledge, and so have the GUE/DIR philosophies. Apparently the brand new o/w students tend to grasp Rec 1 a lot easier than many certified divers grasp Fundies.
It's a lot harder to change an ingrained habit. Under stress or confusion, the student will fall back on what was familiar. Recency or something competing that was just learned will often require more presentations and much more of the new kind of practice to develop new habits. The student may experience cognitive dissonence, embarrassment, a bruised ego, etc, and all can interfere with learning and drag out the learning curve.
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I don't know. I'm beating a dead horse I know, but all the instructors I assisted (I counted them- 13) seemed to me to have very good buoyancy and trim. Same with the 5 other DMs I worked with. I assume most or all of them learned kneeling. I also assume they were dedicated divers who corrected any faults resulting from the kneeling and became very good divers.
I've read on SB about people observing instructors and divemasters whose buoyancy sucked, just haven't met any myself, including the other instructors I took courses with. It's a curiosity.
I've read on SB about people observing instructors and divemasters whose buoyancy sucked, just haven't met any myself, including the other instructors I took courses with. It's a curiosity.
This is the real problem. So many people, including instructors, keep spreading the idea that no knees is so much harder and they haven't even tried it. I feel compelled to jump in with a counter any time I see that. If you make the effort, the rewards will far, far outweigh the effort you put in. But, you do have to make a commitment to do this. Sure, you can ease into it. No need to change your entire teaching protocol in one broad sweep. But get started and see just how much easier it is to produce students in control from the onset.
That was me. It's an important concept to comprehend. Teaching it right is easy enough. Trying to break an already ingrained bad habit is far harder. That includes sculling, kneeling, and so forth. An ounce of early trim and neutral buoyancy is worth pounds of remedial instruction in regards to those bad habits.
Until I took a cavern class, I was one of them. Then my eyes were open to how many divers, including instructors, have issues with their buoyancy. Now, every one of those instructors believes their buoyancy is fine. But, the proof is in the pudding and their students mimic their poor control.
During my ITC, we went to Three Sisters spring on Crystal River. I was to teach a skill and they pointed me to this incredibly silty area. Oh, there was sand, but it was all on slopes. Trying to get peeps to kneel in that was hilarious, only I wasn't laughing. Just a little movement caused the silt to billow. It was frustrating as all hell. The entire staff laughed during the debriefing and somehow I passed. I think this was the genesis for me thinking that there must be a better way. A half-year into teaching, I actually had one of my students kneel on the reef to clear his mask. He just couldn't see anything wrong with shat he did and I traced it back to him first learning how to clear his mask on his knees. There had to be a better way. I was still kneeling and weaning them off the bottom as early as possible and then I went to teach a class at Alexander Springs. There were more classes than there was room and we all seemed to hit the water at the same time. So, instead of getting all the skills out of the way in the traditional semi-circle. I had my class do their skills over everybody's head. It was probably pretty comical, but I got it done. I even got reported by one of the instructors for "not being in control". The regional director called me about it and finally determined that I had not violated standards. I started trying to eliminate kneeling in the pool after that. I think it took me a couple of classes to do it, but everything became easier. I mean everything. When I suggested this on SB I was called a liar and at least one person still believes I was lying. Meh. I know what I did and when/why I did it. It still stings a bit, but that's life.
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