One thing to consider is SDI requires an instructor to affiliate with a shop. This usually implies a higher level of accountability than an independent instructor who is just winging it. A shop should place a higher value on reputation. There are still plenty of great independent instructors out there but if you are just rolling the dice then I believe SDI gives you better odds.
First, SDI doesn't require affiliation.
Second, even if they did you're making a wild-@ss assumption that the shop any individual instructor's teaching through isn't just winging it. My experience is that, by and large, if you're just rolling the dice you may likely be better-off with an independent instructor. A shop's reputation is tied to a building/business. An independent instructor's reputation is squarely on themselves and their name. Further, an independent instructor isn't at cross-purposes when it comes to trying to train you, and sell you gear, and keep the service dept's lights on, and sell travel, etc, etc.
Obviously, the OP wasn't even asking about independent instruction... but the whole discussion comes back to "it's the instructor... not the agency, or even the shop."
That being said... does anyone recall a SINGLE post on SB, ever, where someone came here an railed against an independent instructor? Regarding ANYTHING? Seriously. Shops get blasted, agencies get blasted, instructors at shops get called out, assumptions are made about instructors from one agency or another.... But I've never seen a single "I am SO done with independent instructors" thread in the nearly 10years I've been on SB. Not a single one. ~250,000 SB members. 800,000 unique visitors. More than a half-a-million threads and over 6 million individual posts since SB was started. And I've never see even ONE complaining about an independent instructor. Is it even remotely possible that is due to random circumstances?
