NAUI versus PADI

[Diver0001]

So what pool session does PADI introduce neutral buoyancy?

Module 1. I may be a bit of an enigma, but I not only introduce neutral swimming in module 1, I introduce hovering too.

We (all of the instructors at the shop where I work) spend a LOT of time on neutral swimming throughout the course. During Mod-1 what I do is get the students moving and then lead them to the deep end of the pool while moving slower and slower until I'm not moving at all. At this point they also stop moving and are essentially hovering.

I discovered this by accident years ago and it was one of the triggers that put me on this journey of learning to teach the entire OW course while neutrally buoyant.

I realized that almost anyone can hover (to some extent -- obviously it's not perfect yet) straight out of the gate if you introduce it like this and are very directive about when they need to put air into the BCD or let it out. I don't brief hovering as a "skill" ahead of time in mod-1 but I do set expectations before going to the pool and I debrief it, explaining that this "floating" thing they did is what I want them to do as much as possible. I then instruct them that at any time during the training when they need to "wait" for any reason, they need to "wait" while hovering (or at least trying to hover).

All of this happens in module-1.

R..

 

[boulderjohn]

It's simple. NASE has minimum standards I MUST meet. I have additional standards that my students MUST meet. I am allowed to add ADDITIONAL standards as I see fit. If I felt that balancing a golf ball on your nose was essential before I put my name on your cert, then that would be an additional standard. Whether it's a "higher" standard is subject to discussion, but it's beyond the "minimum" standards for an OW course.

Folks, the phrase "minimum standards" means exactly the same thing as the word "standards." If you must meet a standard, then that is the minimum you are allowed to do to pass. That is the same for any standard in any context anywhere in the world. If one sales company were to set a standard of 100 sales for a bonus and another company were to set a standard of 1,000 sales for the bonus, they would both be minimum standards.

The problem with the phrase is the negative connotation of the word "minimum" when taken out of that context. When people don't like a dive agency, they say that the students are only required to meet minimum standards, implying that people are allowed to scrape by with pathetic performances.

 

[Diver0001]

It's simple. NASE has minimum standards I MUST meet. I have additional standards that my students MUST meet. I am allowed to add ADDITIONAL standards as I see fit. If I felt that balancing a golf ball on your nose was essential before I put my name on your cert, then that would be an additional standard. Whether it's a "higher" standard is subject to discussion, but it's beyond the "minimum" standards for an OW course.

Just to be clear, are you adding things to the list or redefining when it's good enough.

R..

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I think everyone knows that the performance requirements are typically not performed to the level of mastery. How can we say a student has mastered a skill if it isn't performed midwater to begin with? I honestly don't care if you can execute a perfect mask removal/replacement and clear 100 times in a row. I do care if you can do so midwater without losing it. As John said above, it won't be to the grace of a tech diver, but the student should not cork or plummet to the bottom.

A question I wonder is, if PADI requires that students are taught midwater, what impact will this have on the number of certifications issued each year? I am quite certain that if coral would speak, they'd say thank you! How many instructors will be certified each year if IDC's/IE's require that all underwater skills are taught/performed midwater? (I do know of one CD in Guam whose IDC does this. It can be done, but it requires more work). Can you imagine the mutiny if PADI required an IE refresher for all existing instructors where all skills were to be performed midwater? (I'd cheer for it as would people like Rob and John who are both personally responsible for instruction moving in the right direction). The zero-to-hero shops would certainly disappear (and I wouldn't shed a tear).

So when I hear "lower standards", I interpret it as "tolerated standards". When I hear "higher standards", I interpret at actual mastery. Not "well, he/she was able to clear the mask in the end, sign them off!"

 

[RayfromTX]

Module 1. I may be a bit of an enigma, but I not only introduce neutral swimming in module 1, I introduce hovering too.

We (all of the instructors at the shop where I work) spend a LOT of time on neutral swimming throughout the course. During Mod-1 what I do is get the students moving and then lead them to the deep end of the pool while moving slower and slower until I'm not moving at all. At this point they also stop moving and are essentially hovering.

I discovered this by accident years ago and it was one of the triggers that put me on this journey of learning to teach the entire OW course while neutrally buoyant.

I realized that almost anyone can hover (to some extent -- obviously it's not perfect yet) straight out of the gate if you introduce it like this and are very directive about when they need to put air into the BCD or let it out. I don't brief hovering as a "skill" ahead of time in mod-1 but I do set expectations before going to the pool and I debrief it, explaining that this "floating" thing they did is what I want them to do as much as possible. I then instruct them that at any time during the training when they need to "wait" for any reason, they need to "wait" while hovering (or at least trying to hover).

All of this happens in module-1.

R..

I totally agree and I'd like to share my own story about this. The story will include things that I now consider dangerous and I am not advocating for repeating what I did. I am only telling this story to relate the expectations of a new student and their personal relationship to neutral buoyancy and trim.

I was introduced to scuba on a discover scuba dive and I fell in love. I repeated the dive the next day and the instructor and the experienced diver we were with told my wife and I that we were naturals and that we seemed to be quite comfortable in the water. These dives were to 25-30 feet in 150 of visibility and we even did a swim through on both dives.

After the second dive, we asked what else we could do and the instructor told us his friend had a boat and so off we went to do our first two tank boat dive with a slight to moderate current. We were given instruction on the boat on the way to the dive site and were soon at 60 feet and simply amazed. We immediately learned to subtly control our buoyancy with our breath and were sinking over the top of coral heads by exhaling and leveling out by inhaling and not using our inflator much at all. It is of course much easier to do this at 60 feet than it is at 10.

We weren't experts or even very good at it but we experienced the concept and we were practicing it while we drifted past the sea turtle and the nurse shark and all this other cool stuff. We were in pretty good trim but honestly we were finning gently most of the time. We were flying! We were experiencing what is cool about scuba diving still today. We were dangerous but we didn't really know what we didn't know until we went home and started the process of getting certified, which brings me to the relevant part.

We trained under SSI with an instructor who does most of his diving in classes he teaches. Almost all of his diving is instructing and he teaches on the knees. When we got in the pool he wanted us on our knees and it seemed nuts. While he would work with my wife I would be behind him floating 12" off the bottom of the pool. Touching the bottom was a fail to me. Then he would work with me on my skills and he would want me on the bottom. He had me way overweighted so being neutral was harder because I had this big bubble and I was at about 9 feet of depth but it was an ok game to try to overcome it. The equipment didn't make it any easier. 10 lbs of lead on a belt in a bathing suit in fresh water in a poodle jacket. I had a clue that it was a horrible way to teach but only because I had already scuba dived for realz.

My point is that we get our expectations from our instructors and our experience and if we had no experience we would have only had our instructor to go by and that's often a terrible reference point. When were we supposed to learn to scubadive? It all could have been done from the beginning. All that time spent waiting for your turn should be spent neutral, not on your knees. This will make people want to be divers instead of just wanting it over with so they can do that bucket list dive vacation where they are a danger to themselves and others because they learned some standards but not how to scuba dive naturally.

There are things to learn to help us survive and they are vitally important but scuba diving is a natural physical act like riding a bike or walking or dancing and it should not be stifled by overweighting our students on their knees. Teach it naturally and you will create natural divers. Break it down into bits and pieces and you will create herky jerky divers that are most comfortable in an upright position resting on the bottom. We shouldn't make habits we will have to break later.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

We shouldn't make habits we will have to break later.

THIS!

 

[MichaelMc]

I'm very glad PADI standards emphasize neutral buoyancy control, and seem to allow its expectation and use in mod-1. Requiring skills to be done mid water in control of depth seems the best way to keep divers safe. Moving instruction to that would be great next steps.

On the NAUI front, under which I am happily a DM candidate, our manual does not highlight buoyancy as much as the current PADI one. Yet NAUI is all about over learning and allowing instructors to require higher or additional standards than those NAUI specifies, as long as the student is informed when they start. And the standard for instructors is would you let them teach your kids. Yet we likely have some teach on bottom instructors. But you could likely require air share mid SMB deploy while holding a +-1' hover if you wanted. It might be more than really needed for OW though.

I'm getting drilled into me primacy of learning, showing it right the first time. Which is what requiring demonstration quality of AI/DM is all about. Teaching off the bottom seems to go to that on the grand scale.

We trained under SSI with an instructor who does most of his diving in classes he teaches. Almost all of his diving is instructing and he teaches on the knees. When we got in the pool he wanted us on our knees and it seemed nuts. While he would work with my wife I would be behind him floating 12" off the bottom of the pool. Touching the bottom was a fail to me. Then he would work with me on my skills and he would want me on the bottom. He had me way overweighted so being neutral was harder because I had this big bubble and I was at about 9 feet of depth but it was an ok game to try to overcome it. The equipment didn't make it any easier. 10 lbs of lead on a belt in a bathing suit in fresh water in a poodle jacket. I had a clue that it was a horrible way to teach but only because I had already scuba dived for realz.

That is hilarious and would make a great video skit. Students would get instruction kneeling and then bob back up to a 1' hover to wait their next turn, all with confused looks about the kneeling.

 

[boulderjohn]

think everyone knows that the performance requirements are typically not performed to the level of mastery.

You are using the common dictionary definition of mastery. The PADI system--as is true of most agencies today--is based on the concepts Benjamin Bloom described in his theory of Mastery Learning. PADI defines what mastery means in the standards, and that is the definition to be used, not the one commonly used by the lay public.

A question I wonder is, if PADI requires that students are taught midwater, what impact will this have on the number of certifications issued each year?

Why would it have any impact? When I started teaching that way and throughout my instruction that followed, I was given the same amount of time in the pool and in the open water as all the other instructors in the program, and it didn't take me any longer to complete classes as the other instructors.

Can you imagine the mutiny if PADI required an IE refresher for all existing instructors where all skills were to be performed midwater?

I would expect the same mutiny as happened in the shop where I was working when I developed the skills I described in the article we published. I experimented and shared what I was doing with some of the other instructors. They tried and said, "Hey! This really works well!" The Course Director in charge of instruction was one of them. When he saw how well it works, he required all instructors working for the shop to teach that way, and they said, "OK." From then on they all taught that way. No problem.

The greatest obstacle to this change is people constantly saying (incorrectly)...

• It takes too long!
• Students won't be able to do it!
• instructors won't be able to do it!

So, I implore people who are in favor of this to stop perpetuating these myths.

 

[The Chairman]

Just to be clear, are you adding things to the list or redefining when it's good enough.

Both.

I think everyone knows that the performance requirements are typically not performed to the level of mastery.

Indeed. The only way to assert this is to redefine "mastery" to mean something far less. To most of us, mastery means that there is little to no room for improvement. You can't say that about any diver who's just learned to dive. Compare this to learning the piano. Being able to hit mid C repeatedly and fluidly does not mean they have mastered a thing. Hell, being able to play Mary had a Little Lamb (Slice of Beef, Piece of Ham) blindfolded doesn't make them a master either... but they can at least play the piano and begin their journey to master that instrument. My goal is for my students to be in control and comfortable under water and that means they have to have a good handle on trim, buoyancy, and propulsion. Their ability to handle/resolve any contingency depends on them being able to maintain comfort at all times. I see too many white knuckle divers in the Keys who aren't even in trouble. What are they going to do if something actually happens? ERMAGERD!!!

The reality of Scuba Instruction is that most instructors care about what they're teaching. Not all have mastered the skills they are trying to teach, a few of them just don't care, most are solidly competent and way too few rise to genius. That's true of any agency and any location. I'm going to be certain that my students are competent divers, that I have not knowingly taught them any bad habits and that I have allowed them to hone their skills so that they can dive without white knuckles. In other words, I aim for competency and not mastery. I want to see them dive using the skills I taught them in the pool.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

You are using the common dictionary definition of mastery. The PADI system--as is true of most agencies today--is based on the concepts Benjamin Bloom described in his theory of Mastery Learning. PADI defines what mastery means in the standards, and that is the definition to be used, not the one commonly used by the lay public.

Why would it have any impact? When I started teaching that way and throughout my instruction that followed, I was given the same amount of time in the pool and in the open water as all the other instructors in the program, and it didn't take me any longer to complete classes as the other instructors.

I would expect the same mutiny as happened in the shop where I was working when I developed the skills I described in the article we published. I experimented and shared what I was doing with some of the other instructors. They tried and said, "Hey! This really works well!" The Course Director in charge of instruction was one of them. When he saw how well it works, he required all instructors working for the shop to teach that way, and they said, "OK." From then on they all taught that way. No problem.

The greatest obstacle to this change is people constantly saying (incorrectly)...

• It takes too long!
• Students won't be able to do it!
• instructors won't be able to do it!

So, I implore people who are in favor of this to stop perpetuating these myths.

Honestly John, I find that OW works best with the pool constraints that I have to have ratios of 1:4 (I have 2 3-hour sessions). I can't handle 1:8 ratios, especially when I have students that need extra attention. For open water, our viz sucks so bad, 1:4 is pushing it. I prefer 1:2 . I do believe that it is easier to plant students on the bottom, consider being-able-to-complete-the-skill-in-a-half-assed-manner to be mastery (as is being done). Those issues are related. I see the issue as does an instructor care that the student has actually mastered a skill. If they care, then they have no issue teaching midwater.

Unfortunately, my IDC/IE were all done on the knees. I have made the switch when I switched shops. It would have been beneficial for me to have had my IDC/IE midwater (my CD has made the switch, but he moved out of the area). I'm not as good of an instructor as you John. I don't have the years of experience that you have. I did get a huge boost from PeterGuy coming into one of my classes where I just turned a portion over to him and learned. But I have no mentors to turn to other than online. And I'm trying to do the best I can, working on improving everything I teach. I know I'm going in the right direction, as I've gotten feedback by a number of people, including PeterGuy, that I've done a good job with one of my almost certified AOW students. If I every can make it out to Key Largo, I'd love to assist one of Pete's buoyancy courses. There's a very good reason why I continue to take courses. I hope before the end of the year to be trained by Jay Schier with some tech classes. One day I want to head out to Subic Bay and get trained by Andy. I'd love to meet Trace in Florida for cave training with him. There's a small chance I may be in your area a number of times and if that comes to pass, I'll be seeking you out for training and if you'd accept my offer, assisting your OW courses. Everything I learn from these guys, and possibly you, will be funneled into how I teach, but that's the future, not the present.

I think IDC's/IE's that required instructor candidates to master skills while midwater would result in fewer instructors being churned out, as it is harder. It isn't that instructors can't do it (they can), it is just that it takes more effort on the part of the CD and any assisting MI's or IDCS's. Students can do it, but it takes a more effort. I believe strongly that teaching mastery at every turn is what is best for the industry long term. Teaching people to be confident, appropriately skilled will result in far more people to keep diving.

I don't know if you feel that I'm perpetuating these myths. I believe that there is a strong correlation to mastery never happening and students being planted on the knees. Fixing one will fix the other.