Mentors?

[Gilldiver]

When I was a new diver getting into the wreck thing it was back of the boat mentoring, but you had to show up and make your bones for a while before the "masters" would give you much time. When they saw you on the boat 2 to 4 times a month and not acting like you knew it all, they would start opening up on the techniques and tricks on how to get things done, how to do things, and where to look for the goodies (artifacts, lobsters, clams, oysters, mussels, etc.).

They wanted to see that you were in for the long term before they would invest much of their time in you. But once you were in the club, it was an advanced masters of diving, above/under water rigging, boat handling, gear maintenance, etc., and some real wild parties at the Oak Beach Inn (OBI) on Long Island. If you have read the Last Dive or some of the Doria books, I'm talking about being with the Atlantic Wreck Divers, a team in every way be it doing deep dives (all on air, this was the late 80's and early 90's), getting the goods, or making asses of ourselves.

 

[CT-Rich]

I think the mentor idea is a fantasy most of the time. The idea of being taken under wing and shown the ropes and five other cliches is very appealing to someone just starting out in any activity. However, in order for anything to happen when it comes to human interaction, both parties need to get something out of the interaction. It's easy to see what the new guy gets out of the deal, not so clear what the mentor gets.

Most sports tend to self organize around experience levels and types. An experienced tennis player isn't going to have fun playing with a new tennis player. Likewise, a new tennis player isn't going to have much fun being trounced by an experienced player. Diving can be a lot like that. I'm sure there are 20-year multi-thousand-dive divers who still get off on tooling around familiar waters at 40 feet or less, but mostly people push limits and seek challenges. That means the possible mentor candidates you encounter are usually going to be not much more experienced than you...unless you are really pushing. If you are really pushing (as in going beyond your experience and prudent limits) you may guilt someone into mentoring you because they think you'll kill yourself if they don't, but you are just as likely to be aggressively pushed away as an unwelcome and unsafe addition to the more experienced clique.

Most mentor relationships exist within a larger relationship. Big Sister mentoring her little brother, Dad mentoring his daughter, senior employee mentoring junior employee, et cetera. In practical terms, that means if you want a mentor you need to make some other connection too. You need to be friends with the person, or family, or something meaningful. Club membership may count if the club is a real social unit for the members - some are, many aren't. If that relationship doesn't exist, you have no coin to pay your prospective mentor.

If you take away the people who start as kids, the people whose family or close friends already dive, and similar, the closest most people will ever come to having dive mentors is when they participate in a forum like this.

This is kind of sad, the whole what is in it for me instruction model of it isn't of value unless you paid for it mentality. I am afraid you drank the PADI Kool-aid. Experienced divers love to share, that is how you get the best sites, and gear tips. We all like an audience, too. And dive buddies change and people need to cultivate new buddies and friends. You can't buy knowledgable friends from the PADI catalog, but you will learn more about diving from them and they won't charge you for the skill (although bringing the beer is probably a nice idea...).

 

[Them]

This is kind of sad, the whole what is in it for me instruction model of it isn't of value unless you paid for it mentality. I am afraid you drank the PADI Kool-aid.

What does PADI have to do with anything? hbrother:

For that matter, where did you get "isn't of value unless you paid for it" out of anything I said???? :depressed:

 

[divergirl6]

Just my 2 cents worth.
I am a new diver. Through luck or chance I happened to meet an experienced diver of over 800 dives and his wife with over 1000. He helped me to find a used, inexpensive dry suit and then offered to teach me to use it. I agreed and ever since then we have been diving together - me, my mom (who recently got certified as well), him, and his wife. I read above some person or persons saying that what people consider as 'mentoring' is something where both parties get something out of it and that that is some kind of fantasy, that that's not how it works. That is how it has worked for me. I really enjoy working with my mentor and he has told me that he enjoys the ongoing learning experience of working with new divers. I believe that having a mentor is one of the best ways to become a better diver. It's helped ME not do stupid things and also to learn how to be more confident. And it can work out really well if both parties are open-minded and willing to work at it.

divergirl

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

As an example, I once read an opinion on ScubaBoard that every OW diver needs to have the skills needed to enter the ocean from the shore in heavy surf, such as is done in Southern California. I have dived in a lot of places and a lot of environments, but I have never done that. If I were to do that, I would be happy to accept an experienced local OW diver as my Mentor.

That's another excellent example. I haven't shore dived in surf for a long time ... the closest we get to surf in Puget Sound is when the ferry goes by. I wouldn't consider a surf entry without some coaching from someone who does it regularly ... preferably while they were being my dive buddy. That would make them my mentor, even if they were far less experienced overall than I am.

What would they get in return? Most likely a hearty dose of laughter as I demonstrated the sea-sand-sky-sea-sand-sky maneuver ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Them]

I read above some person or persons saying that what people consider as 'mentoring' is something where both parties get something out of it and that that is some kind of fantasy, that that's not how it works.

Sigh... I really should just start writing in Arabic.

1) Both parties must get something out of any relationship. Mentoring included. That's reality.

2) A lot of people have a an image of showing up as a noob and being taken under wing and mentored simply because they are noobs. That's a fantasy.

Your experience = both parties getting something = how it works. However, to be blunt it doesn't work for everybody. Some people are unpleasant to be around, some people are downright ugly, some people just don't have anyone around who could be a quality mentor. In our society there are a lot of unwritten rules that can restrict such relationships and a surprising percentage of the population subconsciously follow them.

 

[TMHeimer]

I see.

There are two issues at hand here. First is what the agency will do if you go diving with someone and push past the boundaries of their training outside the context of an official agency programme. The answer is "nothing". You haven't done anything to violate their rules because their rules weren't being applied to the dive in question.

The other issue is an issue of legal liability in the even that something happens during such a a dive.

In order to be nailed to the cross for liability if an accident happens then the courts will have to do three things: (1) show that you had a responsibility to do (or not do) certain things. That's called a duty of care, (2) show that that you deliberately didn't do what you were supposed to do (an act of negligence) and (3) show that any damages, for example, someone having an accident, is a direct result of #2. The chances that even a good lawyer could show a direct causal relationship between #2 and #3 for something you said on the internet to a stranger is pretty slim, tbh, so I wouldn't worry *too* much about that. Just don't suggest idiotic things (ie. use your common sense), don't present opinions as if they were facts, etc... which, in your case, is what you do anyway. This doesn't just apply to dive pro's by the way.

That said, if you're diving with someone and you take them outside the boundaries of their training and something happens, then they have a case. One of the functions of an agency is specifically to create a legal buffer for instructors if accidents happen during training, since the nature of a training dive is to do something they haven't done before. Standards create a definition for the duty of care and following standards shows that your adhered to your duty of care in the event of a liability case.

There's a third issue that sometimes crops up when an accident happens and that's the issue of whether or not what you did constitutes such a big breach of conduct that an actual crime has been committed (manslaughter, for example). To be honest I don't know much about how that's approached in relation to diving accidents. I just know that it can happen.

So that's some context for you to get a grip on it. So your question about if suggesting breaking new ground with a mentor could get you in trouble or not? I seriously doubt it. Should you do "ground breaking" dives with your dive buddies outside the context of an agency programme? If you do, then you won't have any protection from standards if something awful happens so I would say you would be taking a risk. Does that apply more so to DMs and instructors than it does to the average diver? I would think most lawyers would argue "yes" that as a "pro" you should know better. Would you lose your status as a DM if you had such an accident? No.

Honestly, if you just use your common sense then you don't need to run around second-guessing yourself at every moment. I've been a pro for quite a while and I've only ever "avoided" one dive that I thought would get my butt in a sling if it went wrong. I'm a certified ice diver through IANTD and a PADI instructor and a few years ago some guys with no ice training invited me to join them to go ice diving. I would have been the only "pro" there and the only diver with ice training. I declined and firmly advised them to seek a qualified ice instructor to accompany them. I would have loved to have done the dive and my presence probably would have made things safer for them than my absence but I couldn't accept the liability risk. It's the only time I can remember not going diving because I was worried about being crucified if an accident happened.

R..

R, Thanks very much. All of what you say, the details and examples, makes sense to me. I'll pose one more related question. As I mentioned way back, some charter ops sanction, require, and provide a DM to accompany OW divers on dives below 60'. When I was a new OW diver we visited an area of Florida. Two PADI shop charters did this, with at least one mentioning it on their website, and there is a fee for the DM. A 3rd shop (NAUI) teamed me up with an experienced diver who was not even a DM (he was husband of a NAUI Instructor who was doing an AOW course on board). This boat was actually my FIRST boat dive and first dive of any "real" depth. She knew this and asked if I would be uncomfortable going to about 75' (I dumbly said no, as I have always been comfortable in water). These are all very well respected shops in the area. What do you think? Are the shops (as well as the DMs) breaching agency standards? If I had had an incident would they have been in some trouble (legally or with the agency)?

 

[CT-Rich]

What does PADI have to do with anything? hbrother:

For that matter, where did you get "isn't of value unless you paid for it" out of anything I said???? :depressed:

First, after I re-read my post I realized that my comments probably came across as more snarky than was fair. I apologize. But my larger point is diving is a social activity. Are there divers that are socially inept, or as some put it, ugly and unpleasant? Yes, but part of diving is having something in common with another person. Building a relationship with someone you might otherwise not have a reason to get to know. Diving, for me, has a lot to do with inner peace, like going for a walk in the woods. But when I see something cool, I want to share it with someone else, either by talking about it, or showing them. Who doesn't spend money on a new piece of gear and then want to show it around?

I get as much enjoyment out of diving from the hanging out with other divers or talking in the LDS as I do from the diving. different reasons but it is just as important. The idea that there are no mentors out there or that you can't learn from someone because they not instructors or DM is being dismissive of one of the best parts of diving... By analogy,You can talk about cars with someone that is not a certified mechanic, you can get advice from them. Ultimately, it is your responcibility to decide to work on the brakes of you car yourself. Some people do, some don't. you need to use your judgement to decide whether it is a good idea or not.

Like I said in my earlier post, there are no dive police. you can put on scuba with absolutely no training and go diving. I know a couple of people who started out that way. I don't recommend what they did and they were lucky they didn't hurt themselves, but it was not illegal. Same with tank fills, you don't need a C-card for getting a fill. The norm is that you do, but it is not illegal and shops require it to keep down the libility.

Finding divers with experience who are interested in helping you learn and dive safe is in my experience the norm. Nasty boorish people exist and if they have trouble getting dive partners, they might want to reflect on their attitude.... most divers I know are out to have fun and do cool stuff and seldom are they not interested in sharing..

 

[Them]

CT ... one of my quirky personal beliefs is that there are very few social activities. There are social people. Social people will socialize while engaged in whatever activity, while less social people won't. Same activity, same rewarding feeling for the participants, different amounts of 'social'.

The idea that there are no mentors out there or that you can't learn from someone because they not instructors or DM is being dismissive of one of the best parts of diving...

I'm pretty sure I didn't express any of that.

By analogy,You can talk about cars with someone that is not a certified mechanic, you can get advice from them. Ultimately, it is your responcibility to decide to work on the brakes of you car yourself. Some people do, some don't. you need to use your judgement to decide whether it is a good idea or not.

I'm going to be honest and admit I don't know how this connects to the topic, but it is interesting because I have never understood the bizarre hang-up people have with fixing brakes. Every time you drive you are literally one wheel-jerk away from killing people but that's fine, nobody has a hang up there. But the idea that, in your garage with all the time in the world to do a very simple job, you might screw something up and that screw up might get someone killed somehow - that hangs people up. In my language we call that very strange.

On the other hand, when as a child I asked my father why we had to do brake jobs ourselves instead of paying someone like we did to change tires, he told the story of taking his car to a shop to have the brakes done, and the car just not working right afterwards, and how he disassembled a brake and found that the shop had put the brake shoes on backwards. I did my first solo brake job at 9 and have never had a shop service the brakes on any car I've owned. So maybe my perspective is atypical.

Finding divers with experience who are interested in helping you learn and dive safe is in my experience the norm. Nasty boorish people exist and if they have trouble getting dive partners, they might want to reflect on their attitude.... most divers I know are out to have fun and do cool stuff and seldom are they not interested in sharing..

Sigh. In psychoblather circles they talk about extroversion where people are energized by social interaction/drained by time alone and introversion where people are drained by social interaction/energized by time alone. What that means in practical terms is that when a person wants to renew themselves by engaging in an activity, some will renew more by being social, and others will renew more by breaking away from the pack.

Now I think it's pretty cool to dismiss introverts as nasty boorish people and tell them they should reflect on their attitude. While we are at it we should tell left handed people to get over themselves and just use their right hands like, well, like right people do. I'm just not sure it's productive. Fun, sure, but I don't think they will take the advice. So yes, I agree, we should do that-it'll be tons of fun, like shooting fish in a barrel. However, if you go back to my post, it wasn't really what I was addressing.

My premise is that mentor relationships primarily exist within a broader relationship. Family, friendship, whatever. That doesn't mean there is no such thing as a mentor, or that mentors are worthless because they don't charge. It means the advice to seek a mentor is basically wrong. The advice instead should be to build a social circle that shares your interests. Within such a circle mentoring will happen. Outside that circle...it may happen too, but as I and others have pointed out, because the incentive to mentor is the reward of thinking you are helping instead of something like a genuine interest in the person and their safety/development, it can also horribly misfire and the mentored may not be able to recognize bad advice they are given.

There is a fantasy of finding a mentor who takes noobs under her wing and helps them for the joy of helping noobs, and does great good. It's just not the most likely scenario.

 

[AfterDark]

Sigh... I really should just start writing in Arabic.

1) Both parties must get something out of any relationship. Mentoring included. That's reality.

2) A lot of people have a an image of showing up as a noob and being taken under wing and mentored simply because they are noobs. That's a fantasy.

Your experience = both parties getting something = how it works. However, to be blunt it doesn't work for everybody. Some people are unpleasant to be around, some people are downright ugly, some people just don't have anyone around who could be a quality mentor. In our society there are a lot of unwritten rules that can restrict such relationships and a surprising percentage of the population subconsciously follow them.

That's a ways away from what you posted originally. As Gildiver posted some potentional mentors want proof that a diver is "deicated" enough to spend time on. Of a world class A-hole nobody wants to deal with! That's a 2 way street by the way.