Most Pointless and Ridiculous Thread Ever on ScubaBoard!

[irishsquid]

Good night everyone!

 

[Atomic_Diver]

eepwalla: Meow!

 

[Atomic_Diver]

Good night everyone!

Wait!... Just 1 question, is there room at the Holiday Inn?..

 

[Atomic_Diver]

Where is Tanked2.0?

 

[Atomic_Diver]

As a matter of fact Where is Everyone? :dropmouth: :w-t-f: .... :depressed:

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Trace, pardon me, but . . .
[ignorance] Where did "PDIC" come from? I hadn't heard of y'all before. [/ignorance]

I started with the local NAUI, did Nitrox with PADI, and then when I came back after my minor interruption, our local guy is now SDI.

The "complete course concept" sounds interesting, and seems to answer the many arguments about other agencies making shorter and more simple courses for this very complex sport.

I only scanned the web -- sorry.

PDIC, the Professional Diving Instructor's Corporation, branched out of the National Association of Skin/Scuba Diving Schools (NASDS). John Gaffney, the founder of NASDS, created the NASDS after his job as a sales rep for Skin Diver magazine took him around the United States and allowed him to see how the fledgling sport was being marketed and serviced by many local dive centers. Gaffney realized that the sport would grow if the public would have access to professional instruction, retail sales, service and safe air fills. He started a training agency that did more for diver safety than almost any other. It was the NASDS that first demanded additional second stages, submersible pressure gauges, BCD's and the like as standardized gear for both instructors and students. Sadly, the history of the NASDS and the agency's impact on diving is being lost. The NASDS was purchased by SSI a few years back and absorbed into SSI's history.

During its inception, Gaffney realized that the NASDS needed professionally trained instructors at a time when an agency like NAUI was creating instructors based upon the submission of outlines and logbooks. Gaffney created the Professional Diving Instructors College in Southern California in the early days of the sport and hired US Navy scuba and hardhat instructors to be the instructor trainers for a rising tide of sport instructor candidates. Every NASDS instructor had to attend the college to learn diving skills, teaching skills, sales and service skills.

If you read diving magazines from the late 1960's and early 1970's you will see courses being offered by NACD, YMCA, NAUI and the NASDS far more than PADI. As the PADI model began to shorten dive training to appeal to the travel diver who didn't want to spend the weeks needed for the rigorous training of the day, Gaffney wanted to move away from some of the more military standards his instructor trainers put in place. The instructors didn't want to drop their standards and a schism happened between the college and the agency. Court battles decided that the Professional Diving Instructors College could break from NASDS and they created the Professional Diving Instructors Corporation by the late 1960's.

PDIC was run by Ed Brawley who won the lawsuit. The "agency" they were fighting over was really the instructor manual and training format. In the late 1970's, the current owners purchased PDIC and gave all PDIC instructor examiners a chance to "opt in" for co-ownership. None did and the Murphy family took the reins.

Frank Murphy had been trained as a YMCA instructor, picked up PDIC, PADI, and NAUI along the way and also had a regional certification. He, his wife and son ran the agency until Frank, a WW II era paratrooper and private pilot, passed away from cancer a couple of years ago. His wife and son still own and operate PDIC.

Many GUE instructors were PDIC instructors such as Jarrod Jablonski, Bob Sherwood, Andrew Georgitsis, Marcus Werneck.

The technical program was implemented by both Tony Davidson, of TDI, and Marcus Werneck director of PDIC Brasil. PDIC Brasil created DIR standards and DIR materials from OW through Trimix, while Tony's courses were much like TDI and IANTD in philosophy and standards.

When I became tech training director, having started my tech training through GUE, I created an advisory board and promoted qualified DIR instructor trainers to various positions within the organization. Our tech program follows the route of GUE, NAUI Tec, and UTD. Because so many PDIC instructors had been trained by GUE, it wasn't a stretch to adopt a DIR-compliant philosophy as a base of education. My challenge has been quality control of the program while grand-fathering in so many old school PDIC instructors who teach deep air and nitrox based tech diving and who don't wish to adopt. We kind of have a "young guys vs. old guys" thing going on, but all new instructors must pass in-water DIR type tech training. Once the basic DIR philosophy is understood as a foundation, we do allow side mounting, solo diving and other concepts to allow explorers to keep exploring unfettered by dogma. I see DIR as basic training to understand the beautiful unity of team, gases, protocols and the foundation by which one can measure diving safety. Yet, I see flexibility and adaptability being important attributes for divers as well.

However, the organization suffers from lack of a modern marketing. The downside is that some people do not know about it. The upside is that training standards are not reduced or impacted by the modern training marketing schemes. For example, PDIC open water divers should be able to perform no mask air sharing ascents without kicking and using breath control and the BCD dump to control rate of ascent.

 

[Atomic_Diver]

.................

 

[Atomic_Diver]

olice: olice: olice:

 

[Atomic_Diver]

................................

 

[ScubaSteve]

eepwalla: Meow!

Wait!... Just 1 question, is there room at the Holiday Inn?..

Where is Tanked2.0?

As a matter of fact Where is Everyone? :dropmouth: :w-t-f: .... :depressed:

.................

olice: olice: olice:

................................

OK who else thinks that this has a Wormil feeling?