It's just logical that the same person who has done the same skill 200 times is going to be much better at it then when he has done it just 25 times. Are there divers with 200 dives who still suck? Sure. Are there divers with 25 dives who are good? Sure. But what is the distribution of these occurrences? I suspect the majority of people with 200 dives are going to be better at it then those with just 25 dives.
All other things being equal, I have to fully agree with this. The issue that's been under discussion has been that looking *only* at the dive count is a poor indicator of comparative skill. That's the reason why divers are evaluated in the water before going into a course.
Plus, what kind of mindset does a person have who goes and takes up technical diving with just 25 dives? Is that kind of mindset or personality suited for technical diving?
fully agree on this as well.
It just doesn't seem to me that extended range diving would/should/could be very attractive to someone who has just barely scratched the surface. The one person I've met and dived with who had a tek rating and all the gear with limited experience was an AOW diver with about 80 dives who came in for what we call a "fun" dive with an t-shirt on saying "instructor". He had some PADI tek thing, tek-40 or something and a massive swagger on about it.
It soon became clear that he was more interested in showing off his gear to the girls and pretending to be an instructor than he was in actually diving. I didn't actually say much to him about it but I did try to give him some tips for not going turtle in his twin set during the descent.... :/ Some of my open water students can dive better than that guy, which has been the point of this thread from the beginning.
During the lunch he started "one-upping" everyone about their diving adventures and started asking me for stories. I guess he thought I was some shop lacky who was sent along to sort out the logistics. When I told him how long I'd been diving and how long I had been diving technically and teaching scuba diving, he jammed his tail between his legs and avoided me for the rest of the day. That's the only experience I have with someone rushing into it and he obviously did it for all the wrong reasons.
If I had to pick a number I'd say a minimum of 100 dives.
I would personally put the number even higher. 100 dives isn't much for a serious diver and before starting tek training you'd like someone to demonstrate that they are a serious diver and not just out the get the t-shirt. In terms of skill, of course, some divers will be able to "handle it" before that. Now we're talking about a separate issue to what dive count says about your skill level. We're now talking about what dive count says about your commitment as a diver.
R..
---------- Post added July 20th, 2015 at 09:14 AM ----------
I've basically been preaching all my instructor-life that people should take it slow, go diving and not just do courses one after the other, in other words don't do OW, AOW, Rescue and then take a deco class. I still stand by that and I will keep telling that to people... I must have wrote this 10 times know.
Good for you. I say the same things to my students. That's not what the discussion has been about on the surface of it, though. Although I can understand where you're coming from.
Where we seem to disagree about the value of the log book as a comparative indicator of skill. When taking any diver in to a course I dive with them first to see what they need to learn.
Again, please carefully consider your tone. Your communication skills need a lot of work. I hope it's just a language issue. In any event, sarcasm has no place in rational discussion between adults.
R..
---------- Post added July 20th, 2015 at 09:24 AM ----------
or maybe a better way for agencies to phrase it would be... "meets pass requirements for intro to tech?"... and put the 25 dive minimum on the intro to tech cert
The rub is that the agencies/shops interests are not always in line with the interests of the instructor. Many instructors are much more conservative (and for good reason) than the agency says we need to be.
Fortunately, it's the instructor in the trenches and if a student is evaluated and found to be in need of much remedial work that a conscientious instructor will send them away with home work and tell them to come back another time. It should be clear to everyone that the student doesn't have a *right* to be trained with X number of dives in their log book.
R..
. Therefore someone who has done the minimum number of dives to qualify could do their first 'simulated' deco dive on dive number 5:
