Ken Kurtis
Contributor
I said yesterday that if I was wrong I'd cop to it and here I am.
Although this does not involve a specific accident, since it got started in the Yukon accident thread, I thought it appropriate to post in this forum. AndIi thought it best to make it it's own thread so it doesn't just get buried in the voluminous posts of the previously mentioned thread.
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There was a rather vigorous discussion yesterday about whether the NAUI swim standard was still 225 yards non-stop (any stroke) as I contended, or whether it had been changed to 15-stroke cycles as The Engineer contended.
I was wrong.
I just got off the phone with Jed Livingstone at NAUI who told me that the standard was changed but he couldn't remember exactly when, though he thought it was 7-10 years ago.
The reason was that the ANSI standard has expired (1999) and the RSTC couldn't agree on a new standard (somewhere around 2000). Some wanted to keep the 225-yards, some wanted to go to 300-yards but allow it to be done with mask/snorkel/fins. Jed said NAUI's position was, "We're not going to certify people who can't swim!!!"
But they also started thinking about what it was they were trying to measure/evaluate. They used the standard of someone who huffed and pufffed and struggled through 225 yards but was able to do it, though not comfortably. And how would you deal with someone who was comfortable, but didn't have the stamina for 225 yards?
They said what they wanted was for instructors to be able to evaluate how well a person could swim, as opposed to swimming a specific distance, and if what was being evaluated was ability/comfort, what was required to do that?
That's where the 15 swim stroke cycles (which I still say sounds like non-NAUI jargon) came into being. Jed said that the feeling was that a NAUI instructor should be able to tell in that amount of strokes/time, whether or not a person is comfortable enough in the water to be able to learn to dive safely and not be a danger to themsevles.
Now in my defense, since what NAUI sets are minimum standards, I can personally still require my students to do 225-yards since it will also encompass 15 swim-stroke cycles. And to be honest (and I mentioned this to Jed), I've always felt the most telling skill was the drownproofing, where you float on your face until you need a breath, take it, float on your face until you need a breath, take it, etc., etc., for 10 minutes. I can usually tell in 30 seconds who's going to have problems and who isn't.
But this is my mea culpa as I had it wrong yesterday. And without making any value judgment, 15 swim stroke cycles it is.
One good thing that may have come out of this is I mentioned to Jed my frustrtaion at not being able to find on the NAUI website the current up-to-date standards. And while he said that I was correct in that my master copy of the 1996 version is the basis, if there are changes any year, they are sent out as errata pages that can easily be changed out to update your copy.
But those pages don't exist on the website so if you missed something, there's no way to contemporarily get caught up. So Jed's going to look into getting that info all up on the website so any instructor can make sure at any time that he/she has the most current information.
I think that's my dose of humble pie for today.
- Ken
Although this does not involve a specific accident, since it got started in the Yukon accident thread, I thought it appropriate to post in this forum. AndIi thought it best to make it it's own thread so it doesn't just get buried in the voluminous posts of the previously mentioned thread.
---------------------------------------------------------------
There was a rather vigorous discussion yesterday about whether the NAUI swim standard was still 225 yards non-stop (any stroke) as I contended, or whether it had been changed to 15-stroke cycles as The Engineer contended.
I was wrong.
I just got off the phone with Jed Livingstone at NAUI who told me that the standard was changed but he couldn't remember exactly when, though he thought it was 7-10 years ago.
The reason was that the ANSI standard has expired (1999) and the RSTC couldn't agree on a new standard (somewhere around 2000). Some wanted to keep the 225-yards, some wanted to go to 300-yards but allow it to be done with mask/snorkel/fins. Jed said NAUI's position was, "We're not going to certify people who can't swim!!!"
But they also started thinking about what it was they were trying to measure/evaluate. They used the standard of someone who huffed and pufffed and struggled through 225 yards but was able to do it, though not comfortably. And how would you deal with someone who was comfortable, but didn't have the stamina for 225 yards?
They said what they wanted was for instructors to be able to evaluate how well a person could swim, as opposed to swimming a specific distance, and if what was being evaluated was ability/comfort, what was required to do that?
That's where the 15 swim stroke cycles (which I still say sounds like non-NAUI jargon) came into being. Jed said that the feeling was that a NAUI instructor should be able to tell in that amount of strokes/time, whether or not a person is comfortable enough in the water to be able to learn to dive safely and not be a danger to themsevles.
Now in my defense, since what NAUI sets are minimum standards, I can personally still require my students to do 225-yards since it will also encompass 15 swim-stroke cycles. And to be honest (and I mentioned this to Jed), I've always felt the most telling skill was the drownproofing, where you float on your face until you need a breath, take it, float on your face until you need a breath, take it, etc., etc., for 10 minutes. I can usually tell in 30 seconds who's going to have problems and who isn't.
But this is my mea culpa as I had it wrong yesterday. And without making any value judgment, 15 swim stroke cycles it is.
One good thing that may have come out of this is I mentioned to Jed my frustrtaion at not being able to find on the NAUI website the current up-to-date standards. And while he said that I was correct in that my master copy of the 1996 version is the basis, if there are changes any year, they are sent out as errata pages that can easily be changed out to update your copy.
But those pages don't exist on the website so if you missed something, there's no way to contemporarily get caught up. So Jed's going to look into getting that info all up on the website so any instructor can make sure at any time that he/she has the most current information.
I think that's my dose of humble pie for today.
- Ken
