OW failure, advice?

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Our local diving courses include five times in the pool and that means about five hours pool time. And people learn to dive in dry suits as a result.

Perhaps the dive industry pushes people to dive who might not be that interested in it after all?
Eight students per instructor? That is a lot!

ps. pool time = time in the water; so yeah, we spend 5 hrs in the water, 10hrs in the building, but it is still not nearly 28 hrs.
 
Perhaps the dive industry pushes people to dive who might not be that interested in it after all?
I wouldn't say not interested, but not necessarily prepared. Such as people who cannot really swim. Those are the main failures I've had while teaching (another one was someone with a fear of dark water - Puget Sound was not appropriate). While these individuals were later certified by other instructors, I could not personally overlook that deficiency and say "oh, they'll be fine." Those minimum standards cannot be violated (but sometimes are for the sake of business).
 
I wouldn't say not interested, but not necessarily prepared. Such as people who cannot really swim. Those are the main failures I've had while teaching (another one was someone with a fear of dark water - Puget Sound was not appropriate). While these individuals were later certified by other instructors, I could not personally overlook that deficiency and say "oh, they'll be fine." Those minimum standards cannot be violated (but sometimes are for the sake of business).
People who cannot swim??? That explains a lot! Where I live every child is taught to swim in school already. And the flutter kicks still look like cycling and the frog kicks look like flutter kicks...
 
People who cannot swim??? That explains a lot! Where I live every child is taught to swim in school already. And the flutter kicks still look like cycling and the frog kicks look like flutter kicks...
The phrase that was used was "cannot really swim." This is a favorite argument of people who criticize RSTC standards. They argue that, "sure, the student met the RSTC standards for swimming, but that's not really swimming. When I talk about really being able to swim, I mean...."

So when they say students are being certified without being able to swim, you have to find out what they really mean by that. We had one frequent poster on this topic years ago. He no longer participates here, but he and I are still friends on FaceBook. He once proposed swimming skill requirements for scuba that were essentially basic lifeguard training requirements. I called him on it, and he agreed that requirements like that might be a bit over the top. A bit.

On another thread he said, seriously, that scuba instruction should be based on US Navy Seal training.
 
I know I am about to use vague terms but I think people will get the idea. I think that passing the swim test involves not being exhausted and struggling over a long period of time to swim 200 yd continuously. If a student swims continuously slowly and comfortably, I'm good with that. I don't expect Olympians
 
The phrase that was used was "cannot really swim." This is a favorite argument of people who criticize RSTC standards. They argue that, "sure, the student met the RSTC standards for swimming, but that's not really swimming. When I talk about really being able to swim, I mean...."

So when they say students are being certified without being able to swim, you have to find out what they really mean by that. We had one frequent poster on this topic years ago. He no longer participates here, but he and I are still friends on FaceBook. He once proposed swimming skill requirements for scuba that were essentially basic lifeguard training requirements. I called him on it, and he agreed that requirements like that might be a bit over the top. A bit.

On another thread he said, seriously, that scuba instruction should be based on US Navy Seal training.
Good points!

I believe though that a divers most important skill is to sink.
Can't dive without sinking. We have seen that on courses, haven't we?
Sorry, I had to :D

ps. my own post said that swimming is a key skill. Jokes are just too fun to make.
 
25 - 28 hours in confined water/pool over 9 sessions is a HUGE amount. What do you tech these people? Buoyancy control to the nearest 10cm of depth? Three ways of reversing? Seven ways of swimming forward? The dolphin kick? Free diving for 30--35m?

First three sessions are swimming skills evaluation/drown proofing training and free diving. The free diving training includes buddy assists and rescue (rescue of an unconscious non-breathing buddy on surface and submerged). Students can choose to get the NAUI "Free Diver" certification with additional fees and extra pool and half day of openwater work.

The remainder of the confined water work is intensive training on all required scuba skills including rescue of an unconscious non-breathing on surface and submerged buddy. The student must perform all skills at "mastery" level and are able to do them all with a "smile on their face" without any undue stress. They also do some "compounded" skills (octopus breathing without a mask for example). Strong emphasis on neutral buoyancy during all sessions of the confined water training (as well as during the openwater part). They do learn and master different fin kicks including dolphin kick. The final confined water/pool session is an intensive evaluation/testing session for all skin diving and scuba skills including a 1km skin diving swim (with surface dives and some surface skills) as well as performing buddy rescue (including unconscious non-breathing buddy rescue on surface and submerged for both skin and scuba diving).

It doesn't always take 28 hours, it maybe 20 but I gave you average time. I look for performance and comfort in students' performance first. I also also look for new ways and improvements in the program to be more efficient in time use to make the course shorter without sacrificing quality.


Nothing wrong with it, just less income.

I charge almost twice as much as what my most expensive competitor does for their course and usually 3 times more than what most others charge but I give much more training (including 8 - 10 openwater dives). If you divide what I charge for the whole course by the training time vs. the others, I am substantially less cost per contact hour than the other instructors.


My entry level program was recognized by NAUI and I received a letter of commendation from NAUI training manager a while back. Some of my students who were fortunate to be able to afford dive trips outside Libya, received complements on their training when they dove in the Red Sea. The dive operators there thought that these newly certified divers were actually "Special Forces" in the Libyan navy not newly certified entry level sport divers because they had their stuff together and how they dove compared with the other tourists they had there.

I have become known in my locale as the top instructor with the most challenging program and instruction. A c-card from NAUI with my name on it as the instructor has become something prestigious to have among divers in my area. People wait and save money until they can afford to take the course with me rather than go to the much cheaper competition here.

I do NOT teach swimming at all. If somebody needs swimming training, I refer them to an associate for swim lessons. My friend is a top swim instructor in the country who trains others to become swim instructors and who actually teaches Libyan Olympic swimmers to improve their technique. He knows what I want from my students and he does an excellent job and is a very humble person and easy to work with.

I teach based on how I want a loved one to be taught and trained and how I would teach my own precious little only daughter or one of my sons to dive.
 
I teach based on how I want a loved one to be taught and trained and how I would teach my own precious little only daughter or one of my sons.
First of all, that is awesome. Your class sounds like what a lot of people need. And probably what more instructors should offer, and more students should experience. Though, I don’t see that becoming the norm any time soon.

My second OW course had a similar level of instruction. First was just the opposite. My second course was at a University and taken over the summer. It was over 6 weeks. On Monday, the students met in a lecture hall with the professor to go over the academics. I think this was a 2 hour session, but not positive.

On Tuesday & Thursday or Wednesday & Friday (depending on which labs you were assigned to, the students met in smaller groups for 3 hours. Generally, the first 30-45 minutes was in a classroom going over tables, and doing example dives on paper. After that, the rest of the session was spent in the pool. Pool was fairly deep as it was also used for the athletic diving team. Before even touching gear, each of the students needed to pass the swim test, and go over some snorkeling and free diving as well. So a minimum of 24 hours spent in the water before doing any checkout dives in the ocean.
 
Again, huge thanks to everyone for their advice. I'm still healing and will see an ENT soon to decide how much this is going to cost me.

I did have another question about something that I forgot earlier.

On the first dive (our first time in open water), which was a tour around some landmarks, the instructor stopped at the bottom and intentionally silted the hell out of the area before having us follow him. I felt this was not appropriate for my first time, and while nothing bad happened it was already low vis to begin with, about 10 feet which was already enough challenge in my opinion.

Is this something that is normal? My hunch is that it's not.

I talked to the dive shop owner (who was not at the OW class) about my experience and he offered to let me come to as many pool sessions as I wanted once the ear heals up. I think I'll take advantage of that until I feel ready for OW.
 
Again, huge thanks to everyone for their advice. I'm still healing and will see an ENT soon to decide how much this is going to cost me.

I did have another question about something that I forgot earlier.

On the first dive (our first time in open water), which was a tour around some landmarks, the instructor stopped at the bottom and intentionally silted the hell out of the area before having us follow him. I felt this was not appropriate for my first time, and while nothing bad happened it was already low vis to begin with, about 10 feet which was already enough challenge in my opinion.

Is this something that is normal? My hunch is that it's not.

I talked to the dive shop owner (who was not at the OW class) about my experience and he offered to let me come to as many pool sessions as I wanted once the ear heals up. I think I'll take advantage of that until I feel ready for OW.
NO! Intentionally creating a no/low vis situation with new OW divers is asking to get someone killed. I'd stay away from that instructor at all costs. I've had students take my night low vis course where we went into very silty conditions and in some tech classes I've done this, but we always had a guideline to the entry point or were in constant touch contact. And even with tech students, I've made sure in the pool using blacked out masks, that they were ok with not being able to see.
 
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