Question Outdated training manuals

[Hppyfam]

When the group does a deco dive do you decide on a plan using the same algorithm or do you let each student follow their own plan using their own algorithm and settings?

Typically you agree to a specific algo/GF/settings to make sure its not outside anyone comfort zone, and run the dive plan.

 

[Twiny]

I recently did the online component of TDI AN/DP. I must admit aspect of the course were lacking (namely actual gas planning). Also there seemed to be an emphasis on bubble models which seems dated at this point.

That said the actual in person instruction hasn't happened yet because I'm traveling for several months.

Totally agree, and if you download the "paper version" manuals, it is even worse ...
Updating an online material is not a big thing so I do not understand how it can remain so outdated.
It seems to me that recreationnal diving with its large market provides excellent and updated materials but that Tec diving with its niche market does not. I even had a Tec training without getting any material after the course ...
PS : PADI/DSAT has just launched their new Tec Rec Elearning

 

[KevinNM]

Totally agree, and if you download the "paper version" manuals, it is even worse ...
Updating an online material is not a big thing so I do not understand how it can remain so outdated.
It seems to me that recreationnal diving with its large market provides excellent and updated materials but that Tec diving with its niche market does not. I even had a Tec training without getting any material after the course ...
PS : PADI/DSAT has just launched their new Tec Rec Elearning

It costs money, someone gets paid for this. And the organization clearly doesn’t think the providing manuals that represent current best practices to students is worth the money. Which you might take into consideration when choosing what organization to use.

 

[boulderjohn]

When the group does a deco dive do you decide on a plan using the same algorithm or do you let each student follow their own plan using their own algorithm and settings?

I am no longer teaching, but my instruction required students to research, discuss the results, and the discuss (with me present but mostly letting them talk). Eventually they decided on what they are going to do, and it usually came out to roughly what I would do. The only difference would have been the exactly GFS to use. We then would plan our dives accordingly.

When a team dives, they all use the same plan.

 

[Troglodyti 4.0]

Mark Powell is an experienced technical diver and from a positive standpoint, he has revealed alternatives. We all strive toward improving technique and equipment configuration. What concerns me is some of the interesting questions being asked by novice and experienced technical divers on the forum. Which raises the question: Who is training these people? The first example comes from someone wanting to do longer deco dives using air for back gas while only using 100% for deco. I have done a similar dive to 7 Ata without realizing the consequences—should a free flow or burst O-ring occur. Do I skip my initial and subsequent deco obligations to conserve what little back gas I have and decompress at 1.6 Ata on O2? Does my buddy have enough gas in reserve to assist? Do I have enough O2 to extend the deco obligation if my back gas is empty? Will I be able to hold a deco stop at 1.3 Ata to conserve O2? Is O2 toxicity a concern? Another example: Where a certified cave diver was asking how much gas to use before placing the stage bottle on the guideline. If they don’t understand basic gas consumption, they shouldn’t be using a stage. Another example was a cave guide asking a CCR diver whether they understand bailout planning. A technical diver is no longer a recreational diver and must think like one at all times. I haven’t taken redundancy planning seriously at the best of times, sometimes through my own short-sightedness or because of team decisions being flawed. One mistake at depth could cost you your life, successive mistakes guarantee you won’t survive.

• Discovering obstacles and difficulties in training
• Defending multidimensional skills and theory
• Debunking past practises
• Discarding current practices
• Demand for responsible outcomes
• Diagnosing problems
• Designing alternative strategies
• Deployment of resources
• Delegation and coordination of responsibilities and devolution to obsolete training standards
• Dissemination of information
• Defining solutions to accomplish objectives
• Delivering results

 

[TrimixToo]

Some years back, I stopped by the TDI/SDI booth at BTS specifically to complain about the quality of the course manuals. They told me they were due to be revised. A few years later, one of my former instructors had extras of the new books. They were *much* better. This was not too long after Steve Lewis became the training director there. I don't know who did the rewrites or whether he was involved, but that was the approximate timeframe.

However, any course material for any evolving topic is a snapshot in time no matter how well written. It's an instructor's job to keep up with changes and teach them, insofar as they are allowed by the agency, and to recommend additional reading when appropriate. It's a diver's job to keep up after the courses. New rules get written in blood just as old ones were, and some of the new ones will differ from the old ones.

 

[SmashMonkey]

I just completed TDI AN/DP/Helitrox a few weeks ago and the out of date eLearning course material probably was my biggest annoyance with the TDI program. I was a STEM undergrad and I've been interested in decompression science for years. So I was a bit dismayed to find the outdated eLearning over emphasis on bubble models and VPM without much, if any, mention of the subsequent developments, in particular the 2011 NEDU deep stop study. V-Planner is the recommended dive planning software - huh?

I contacted TDI support for a recommendation for more up to date software and they suggested MultiDeco. At the time I didn't want to pay $ until I had taken the class to get more information. I was told diveplanner.net was a good free option for completing the eLearning. The rep said TDI is aware their material is out of date and in the process of updating its eLearning with no ETA. TDI really should at the very least provide some kind of disclosure that their material is at least 10 years out of date and recommend software that provides better alternatives than just VPM - after all, MultiDeco and V-Planner are both by the SAME company and MultiDeco has a VPM option.

In person classroom the instructor was much more up to date and did briefly reference the NEDU deep stop study and how bubble models are probably not consistent with modern decompression science. Although I did note a reluctance to engage in any debate or controversy re: gas content vs. bubble model. His response to my GF setting of 55/80 was, "I can live with that" without much further discussion. Dive Planning was taught using MultiDeco, although it was not required for students to use any particular brand of planner. I noted another student in the class was not familiar with recent decompression science outside of the TDI materials, and he seemed a bit lost during my questions of choices of GF and differences between ZHL-16, VPM, RGBM, DSAT etc..

Knowing what I know now, if I were to advise a friend about to embark on technical training I would tell them the TDI eLearning is about 10 years out of date and incomplete. And to get the most out of the courses I would recommend they supplement the eLearning on their own with things like:

Thoughtful management of decompression stress - Dr Neal Pollock at BSAC’s Diving Conference 2016


Under Pressure: Diving Deeper with Human Factors (2019) - Lock, Gareth

There's obviously a ton more scientific material out there. I really liked @boulderjohn's summary (reviewed by Dr Simon Mitchell) with links to most, if not all, the recent relevant scientific materials.

Evolving Thought on Deep Decompression Stops - PADI Pros

The decision to no longer require teaching deep stop strategies in the Tec Trimix Diver course may have surprised some instructors.

pros-blog.padi.com

 

[ofg-1]

Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that my copy of "The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving" is outdated???

 

[boulderjohn]

There's obviously a ton more scientific material out there. I really liked @boulderjohn's summary (reviewed by Dr Simon Mitchell) with links to most, if not all, the recent relevant scientific materials.

Thanks!

The reason I wrote that is that it is so very hard to know what constitutes current thinking on things like this. I was diving with one of my former students, well after all the deep stop debates had taken their courses on the various forums. He told me that he had dived with a tech instructor the day before who had essentially told him that diving with a GF-Lo higher than 20 was nearly suicidal. The guy, an active instructor, had no idea how out of date his thinking was. Out of curiosity, I then googled "Deep stops," in the first 10 pages (100 hits), I found exactly two articles that weren't saying deep stops were the latest and greatest practices in diving. One of them even had a title announcing the latest research, even though its latest stuff was nearly 20 years old. That's when I contacted both Simon Mitchell and Karl Shreeves to get started on the article.

The full post I quoted here talks about outdated TDI material. I used to teach that material, so I am familiar with it. Another post in this thread tells the OP to go to Mark Powell's Deco for Divers for more up to date information, apparently not realizing that the outdated TDI materials come from that book; i.e., the book is older than the outdated teaching materials.

So you can go to the GUE website and find a relatively new article intriguingly titled "Digging Deeper: A Fresh Case for Deep Stops." It opens with a promise of new support for deep decompression stops. The article then summarizes studies from long ago on doing deep stops in NDL dives (note--NOT decompression stops), both of which were part of the old thinking on deep stops, and both of which are generally not well regarded today because of methodological flaws. So the article with a title promising "fresh" support for deep decompression stops in fact has no no new evidence in support of deep decompression stops.

I just repeated my Google search from years ago, and it sure looks like deep stops are simply the latest and greatest things in scuba.

 

[TrimixToo]

Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that my copy of "The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving" is outdated???

Hmmm...what edition is that? The cover on mine is different, so I need to know whether there's a newer one. Gotta keep up to date, after all!