OW and AOW

[jbd]

Good thread ... and already some good thoughts covered. Would like to add my 20 psi ...



Mark ... I would say it all depends on what you want to get out of an AOW class. If all you want is more bottom time with an instructor's supervision, then I'd say it's OK to go straight into the AOW class from OW. However, I counsel my students to work on basic skills and acquire a modest level of comfort in the water before taking the AOW class.

I try to focus my time and attention in AOW class on teaching new skills, rather than just reinforcing the ones you learned in OW.

I start with how to plan a dive. From there we go into gas management ... how to determine your SAC and RMV rates, how to use them to figure out how much air you would need for a given dive plan, and how to calculate turnaround pressure and rock bottom pressure. After gas management we cover buddy skills, and techniques for not just keeping track of your buddy but also working together to plan and execute a dive. From there we go into buoyancy control, trim, and weighting. Next comes navigation techniques and skills, then techniques for diving in limited visibility, and finally search and recovery techniques. This is all taught workshop style, so we're going through actual diving scenarios while we're covering the material ... planning dives, calculating air consumption, role-playing, and constantly looking at "what if" situations where things might not go according to plan.

And that's just the classroom stuff.

Our first dive starts out with a weight check, followed by a series of navigation patterns that require you and your buddy to both work together ... you can't achieve the goals of the dive unless you constantly communicate and share information during the dive ... all while maintaining a depth of 20 feet for the entire dive. This is followed by a second weight check with your cylinder nearly empty. Then we do a second navigation dive, using both natural and compass techniques. Since you're learning how to be self-sufficient, I lead you around for a while, then when I give the signal you lead us back ... using the techniques you learned in the classroom.

Before we do our deep dive, you'll do a dive that requires you to record your air consumption while swimming hard (for 5 minutes) and while hovering (for 10 minutes) ... and during the surface interval you'll use those measurements to calculate your air consumption rates and tell me how much gas you'll need for your deep dive. You'd be surprised how many divers discover they can't safely go to 100 feet on the cylinder they're diving. While doing your deep dive, you'll practice OOA drills while hovering ... at 90 to 100 feet. On the way in you will shoot a surface marker buoy and do a free ascent to 15 feet, do your safety stop mid-water, then ascend. This is a very useful skill if you plan to dive off a boat. Your night dive will also include navigation skills ... just to see if you've retained the stuff you learned during the first couple of dives and could really get yourself back to shore under less than optimal conditions ... I lead you out, you lead me back. Finally, the search and rescue dive ... you'll find an object I manage to "lose" ... planning the search pattern with your dive buddy and executing the plan. Once you locate the object, you'll use a lift back to rig it and bring it to the surface.

So ... think you could manage all that with just the experience of your OW dives? Most people couldn't. But with 20 dives worth of practice first, you'd not just manage it but you'd come away from it with a great deal more skill and confidence.

The moral of the story is, whether or not you should pursue AOW straight out of OW depends on what you want to take away from it. If all you want is six more supervised dives, then go with the shop that encourages you to go straight from OW to AOW ... but don't expect to take a lot of new skills out of the class. But if you want a real education, then find an instructor who wants you to get some practice with your basic skills first. Take their advice and work on adding some proficiency to the skills you learned in OW. Then you'll have something we can work with to teach you some real skills that you were never introduced to in OW. We'll also have the opportunity to answer "why" you were taught certain things in OW that were never adequately explained ... because at the time you lacked the experiential context to understand the explanation.

When you walk away from that kind of class, you will have actually learned something worthwhile ... something that will make you competent to feel you've actually earned the "A" on the AOW card.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Nicely said Bob! This is what an AOW course should be about. If you weren't so far away I'd take your AOW course.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Nicely said Bob! This is what an AOW course should be about. If you weren't so far away I'd take your AOW course.

LOL - if you weren't so far away, you'd help me teach it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[medic_diver45]

A pet peeve I have is that some people who complete AOW immediately after OW think they are now "advanced divers". That they are "qualified" to dive deep, hazardous wrecks or walls, yet they don't have the practical dive experience they really need to safely do it. We want practical experience before and after our AOW class so that we have the ability to fully understand our limitations and can make educated decisions about where and what we should be diving.

As a firefighter (I've been doing it for about 6 years now) and EMT (8 years), I've learned two important things that can apply here:
1. The "basics" can never be overlooked- "simple sh-- gets people killed every day," to quote one of my instructors. Experience is what counts and you don't get experience by glossing over the basics in pursuit of what is more interesting. Pure and simple....we don't send probationary firefighters (no matter how much they whine) into burning buildings until they proven themselves by working outside the fire learning those skills; same is true for divers: learn what you need to know on shallow easy dives- then gradually test your limits one at a time.

The open water skills are not simply the first step to becoming a diver, but things that must be MASTERED before trying to learn anything else. Wait until you can control your buoyancy almost without thinking (when it becomes second nature- like being able to walk without having to go "LEFT FOOT, RIGHT FOOT"), etc....some people master this right away, some take a couple of dives (my instructor told me I had a good enough grasp on it after my first open water checkout dive that he felt I could handle AOW sooner than most- but I will still wait at least 15 dives before I get my AOW), some take 30+ dives before they catch the drift (NO PUN INTENDED), and sadly some never do....


2. The truly experienced people are the ones who point out their own limits before pointing their own strengths. Nuf said. By the way, deep dives (>120ft), the idea of cave diving, and anything "technical" scares the living sh-- out of me. I'm not an experienced diver at all (I have to retake my OW class since I missed the last checkout dive), but I am sure enough to admit where I won't go, because my ego is secure enough as is.

JMHO

 

[Daryl Morse]

Wow. Surprising comment. Most folks take the OW class using rented equipment. When you're done with your OW, you're either using different rented equipment or have bought new equipment. Buoyancy and trim will likely change. And the OW instruction, in my experience, isn't intended to optimize your buoyancy, it's intended to plant folks firmly on the bottom so they can do their skills. When I got done with my OW, I ended up dropping 4 lbs of weight right off the bat.

I sense that some folks on this board feel that if you come out of the OW class without being an expert diver then you blew it. Hmm....

I think you misunderstood my comment so let me qualify it, and please note that I'm a new diver. (I did OW in April and AOW in June, as is indicated in my profile.) Contrary to what you may have read in my post, I don't feel I'm anywhere near being an expert and I wasn't trying to imply that anyone should be out of an OW or AOW class. (My very first post to this forum was about the buoyancy and drysuit issues I experienced during my OW dives.)

Some of the people in my OW class were really into it and others less so. One person was quite proud to say that she was only taking the course because she had to in order to go on a diving vacation. So it follows that not everyone will get the same out of the course. Someone who is more interested will get more out of it. Less interested people will get less out of it. Usually it shows who's interested and who's not.

My OW experience wasn't just about dragging on the bottom so we could practise skills. We demonstrated the skills, but we also just "dived" after the skills were done. I won't say that my weight was "optimal" after the course, but I wasn't so overweighted that it prevented me from being neutral and reasonably well trimmed in the water.

I used rental gear for both OW and AOW. I changed shops in between so I had to get used to switching from a neoprene drysuit to a shellsuit and from a weight-belt to an integrated weight BCD. It wasn't really a big deal. Knowing that it was the first time for most of us in that equipment, the LDS arranged a pool dive prior to the AOW dives so we could work out the bugs before we got in the ocean. That was a big help.

Since I finished AOW, I signed up in a "rental package" so I can use the same gear for a while. I've shed 4 lbs from the original configuration. It's working pretty well, but I plan to try dropping a couple more lbs next time I get a chance at the end of a dive.

Also since I did AOW, I had some issues with the dump valve on my drysuit, so I arranged to spend some pool time with an instructor. I posted about that on this forum as well.

What I was trying to say in my post is that not everyone comes out of OW with the same level of skill. I'm serious about learning to dive so I'm quite willing to seek help whenever I'm not sure about something.

This weekend, I dove with a mixed group of people. Some were right out of OW and others had been around for a while. One of the guys did really well and another just struggled. His BCD wasn't done up properly, his octo was dragging and he was kicking around on the bottom. [Don't ask me who did his buddy check. I noticed it when we were in the water and tried to fix things up as much as I could.] For the first guy, he could benefit from taking AOW. For the other guy, he should spend some additional time with a DM or instructor and get his issues under control first.

Sorry for the long rambling reply, but I wanted to clarify my point and also address the points you raised in your post.

 

[Daryl Morse]

Good thread ... and already some good thoughts covered. Would like to add my 20 psi ...

[lots of good stuff deleted]

When you walk away from that kind of class, you will have actually learned something worthwhile ... something that will make you competent to feel you've actually earned the "A" on the AOW card.

Until I heard about your AOW class, I was pretty happy with my AOW class. I still am, but I didn't get that level of instruction and I'll be the first to admit the skills I had going into AOW would not have prepared me to get the most out of your course.

I guess this is one of those examples of how it's the instructor, not the organization, that makes a course good or bad.

Do you ever teach in Vancouver?

 

[lee08]

There is nothing wrong with taking an advance course right after you are done with your o/w course. Just remember experience and knowledge from actually diving makes you an advance diver not the plastic card.

 

[jbd]

LOL - if you weren't so far away, you'd help me teach it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

That would be fun!! I guess we both need to pack up and move half way between here and there

 

[mweitz]

Well, the course doesn't look too promising so far. We have a guy that feels the need to tell a story every 5 minutes. It helps that they are not relevant to the subject matter and he isn't that sharp...

I was a little disappointed that 90% of the students hadn't read the coursework, so a large portion of navigation was how to use the compass. I mean, come on!

So, here is the course outline.

Day 1 – 3 hours
-Review the answers to the test while we take it for the first three “classes”
--Navigation
--Night / Limited Vis
--Boat Diving

Day 2 – 3 hours
-Review the dry suit book
-Pool work in dry suits

Day 3 – 6 to 8 hours
-afternoon low vis dive
-evening night dive

Day 4 – 6 to 8 hours
-2 shore dives

Day 5
-2 boat dives

I’ll post again after the class is over. Maybe it will get better.

Our current feeling is that it was a waste of money ....

Mark

 

[jbd]

I was a little disappointed that 90% of the students hadn't read the coursework

Mark,
This is pretty common which is one reason I don't like the home study course approach.

Day 1 – 3 hours
-Review the answers to the test while we take it for the first three “classes”

I'm confused. Are you taking a test or exam or are the answers just being more or less provided to you :06: I don't see how you could be taking a real exam since most of the people in the class came unprepared.




[QUOTE-mweitz]Our current feeling is that it was a waste of money ....

Mark[/QUOTE]

This is how good students feel about watered down worthless classes.

Those that feel good about the class are probably watered down worthless divers.

People who take challenging demanding classes similar to what NW Grateful puts on always feel good about their accomplishments and they know they got their money's worth.

 

[mweitz]

Mark,
This is pretty common which is one reason I don't like the home study course approach.




I'm confused. Are you taking a test or exam or are the answers just being more or less provided to you :06: I don't see how you could be taking a real exam since most of the people in the class came unprepared.




QUOTE-mweitz - Our current feeling is that it was a waste of money ....

Mark - End Quote

This is how good students feel about watered down worthless classes.

Those that feel good about the class are probably watered down worthless divers.

People who take challenging demanding classes similar to what NW Grateful puts on always feel good about their accomplishments and they know they got their money's worth.

More or less provided for us ...

Yeah, I really want to fight for it. The books are very dumbed down and the instruction doesn't really build on them. I, unfortunately feel that most students probably like this. Everyone else seemed pretty happy at the end. It was more of a social event I thought.

My buddy and I are already discussing a trip up North to take a real class next year. He seems up for it, the wife seems up for it. Anyone in the Bay Area want to take care of our house, dog, 2 kids, 2 birds and 100 gallon reef for a week next summer

Mark