Is there a "hardest cert/most stringent certifier?"

[Sam Miller III]

@GameChanger
I am sure there are some old NASDS folks here...
Early 70's NASDS with San Diego Divers Supply. Courses taught by current & former UDT/SEALS and other instructors. Basic OW course included harassment dives (turning off gas, ripping mask off, simulated OOA diver grabbing your reg (no secondary regs back them), on the surface mouth-to-mouth resuscitation drills, dropping weight belt-emergency ascent drills (no BCD-Mae West vest with a CO2 cartridge at best), no such thing as safety stops, mandatory dive table comprehension to pass, rough surf shore entry and exits (taught us to crawl in/out),
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Gaffney the founder of NASDS was a close personal friend -- I certified students as NASDS divers but never attended any of the NASDS instructor courses- I still have a stack of blank NASDS certifications.

I was also a close personal friend of Bill Hogan who wrote the NASDS instruction book Safe SCUBA ,. One , if not the best most enduring dive training books ever written-- hard back .printed on glossy high quality paper and certainly well illustrated with line drawing and photographs- I have several editions in my library

@mac64

What exactly do you wish to do? Why would you learn something just for the sake of it and look for the hardest way to do it. Is it spearfishing, underwater photography or maybe wreck exploration, diving is just a means to an end.

Practice emergency events in controlled conditions observed by one who is knowledgeable and skilled who can and will provide guidance until perfection is achieved
A prefect response to an imagined real experience until perfected
Then it is repetition ! repetition ! repetition !

But one must first achieve perfection for only perfect practice creates a perfect response.
This type of training created divers who could dive - not people who just dive .


sdm 111

​

 

[Celt]

@GameChanger
I am sure there are some old NASDS folks here...
Early 70's NASDS with San Diego Divers Supply. Courses taught by current & former UDT/SEALS and other instructors. Basic OW course included harassment dives (turning off gas, ripping mask off, simulated OOA diver grabbing your reg (no secondary regs back them), on the surface mouth-to-mouth resuscitation drills, dropping weight belt-emergency ascent drills (no BCD-Mae West vest with a CO2 cartridge at best), no such thing as safety stops, mandatory dive table comprehension to pass, rough surf shore entry and exits (taught us to crawl in/out),
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Gaffney the founder of NASDS was a close personal friend -- I certified students as NASDS divers but never attended any of the NASDS instructor courses- I still have a stack of blank NASDS certifications.

I was also a close personal friend of Bill Hogan who wrote the NASDS instruction book Safe SCUBA ,. One , if not the best most enduring dive training books ever written-- hard back .printed on glossy high quality paper and certainly well illustrated with line drawing and photographs- I have several editions in my library

@mac64

What exactly do you wish to do? Why would you learn something just for the sake of it and look for the hardest way to do it. Is it spearfishing, underwater photography or maybe wreck exploration, diving is just a means to an end.

Practice emergency events in controlled conditions observed by one who is knowledgeable and skilled who can and will provide guidance until perfection is achieved
A prefect response to an imagined real experience until perfected
Then it is repetition ! repetition ! repetition !

But one must first achieve perfection for only perfect practice creates a perfect response.
This type of training created divers who could dive - not people who just dive .


sdm 111

​

What emergency events,

 

[caydiver]

I like what I see from BSAC and NAUI. We started out with NAUI and it was 2 x ten weeks a couple hours in the classroom and then in the pool. We did referrals with 2 couples from two other agencies. We felt pretty confident in our skills going in and better as the cert dives continued. We did OW and Advanced and then had to switch to PADI. Would have continued in the NAUI family if it was an option even though it was more involved and time consuming.

 

[Celt]

Best training you can get would be commercial diver training. It’s not cheap and will take a long time. You will come out knowing more than any scuba instructor.

Commercial training to do what, what career are you talking about, what industry are you talking about.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

Best training you can get would be commercial diver training. It’s not cheap and will take a long time. You will come out knowing more than any scuba instructor.

Definitely agree with you to an extent, but also defer to your experience. I loved my commercial training and learned a hell of a lot from the courses, but it's a completely different beast from rec or tech diving. In some respects quite liberating not giving a rat's arse about buoyancy, trim and all that malarkey .

 

[caydiver]

I think perhaps the diver I most wanted to emulate for grace of movement and efficiency was an ex South African Navy diver. He was a big guy and on land grace was not a word I would ever think of in connection to him, but in the water he was magic. Some pretty impressive training and experience came in that package.

 

[pauldw]

This seems like essentially a "Which agency is best?" question by the OP. It seems to me that answers to that question should be qualified with an explanation first: there are two sets of agencies, the normal ones, and the DIR ones, and you need to pick a track and ask which, within the tradition you picked, is best/most rigorous/whatever, not which is best overall. If you're into the DIR religion, that's one thing. If you're the other 99%, the answer needs to go another way.

In Scubaboard, the answer, particularly as related to normal agencies, seems always to be to pick a good instructor. Technically, that's true. If I wanted a kid to take piano lessons, I'd pick an individual instructor based on how well they taught music. But practically, I always marvel that people say it about OW classes. Most people who want to learn to dive wander into a dive shop knowing nothing. They sign up for a class, and have no idea who their instructor will be; they meet him or her at the first class. So, where in that is there room for the average person to make an informed choice on picking an instructor? How is there even a practical way to pick an instructor?

It is occurring to me just now that maybe the agency and instructor don't even matter in many if not most cases. If there are more vacation divers than local divers, then what these once a year or two divers need is not the best OW agency or instructor, they need the best divemaster available in their vacation area. Someone who will shepherd them through as close to an idiot proof dive as possible.

?

 

[pauldw]

See this video from Andy Phillip which shows what PADI and progressive instructors are now trying to teach.

That video says that when opening the tank valve, to hold down the purge button. I wasn't ever taught that, and don't recall seeing anyone do it. What's the rationale?

 

[tursiops]

That video says that when opening the tank valve, to hold down the purge button. I wasn't ever taught that, and don't recall seeing anyone do it. What's the rationale?

Lessen the pressure shock on the second-stage valve seat.
Per your previous post....a good instructor will know and teach this, even in an OW class.

 

[pauldw]

Lessen the pressure shock on the second-stage valve seat.
Per your previous post....a good instructor will know and teach this, even in an OW class.

I don't recall my assigned instructor doing that. But I do recall him ever so slowly opening a bottle of pop, so that it didn't fizz, and then opening another quickly, and I haven't forgotten that lesson!