PADI a pain?!?

[Kim]

I have deleted some off topic posts. As the member in question seems to have turned off their PMs I cannot inform them privately.

 

[wallacm]

I'm doing my AOW course with PADI this October holiday almost right after having completed my OW last month. My parents organized this with our instructor and I really wish we could dive a bit more before doing this. Am I overreacting? Should I only worry about this when considering Rescue Diver?

To me AOW is what it is advanced. I do not think someone just certified with very few dives under their belt should continue on AOW. If you have a concern, that means you should probably wait. AOW is not hard, i found it to be very similiar to OW. But always waiting and getting more dives under the belt before taking more training is good.

 

[jbd]

A CD candidate i knew was nervous and forgot to wrap his leg around the accent rope during CESA and was dismissed from the class with no chance to redo.

What a waste of time, effort and money on such a trivial point. Without knowing this person I still feel as though there may have been a loss of a good CD in light of a really trivial mistake. This kind of stuff doesn't serve to make for better CD's or instructors. It only creates an unnecessary level of high stress based on silly minutia. This in turn produces people who are so focused on minute details that they can no longer see the bigger picture.

Maybe there were other issues and this was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

FWIW I don't wrap my leg around the ascent line during CESA's.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The application process for CD's and how candidates are chosen is interesting. Check into it, I think you'll learn a few things.

I am pretty open about my dislike for PADI. As a former PADI instructor and someone who is familiar with their standards I just flat out disagree with them on just about every single aspect about their approach to teaching diving. I base this opinion directly on what is written in their training standards, how they administer those standards and the resultant skill level of divers who purchase PADI training.

I don't hold the other agencies in much higher regard than PADI but I have only been an instructor with one other agency (IANTD) so I pick on the standards that I know. I can't say too much about standards that I haven't read.

I've written dozens of pages (or more) on this board explaining exactly what it is about the standards that I don't agree with so I won't go into that here. The point is that my dislike is based directly on those standards. I don't care how big they are, what their market share is or how much money they make.

 

[MikeFerrara]

What a waste of time, effort and money on such a trivial point. Without knowing this person I still feel as though there may have been a loss of a good CD in light of a really trivial mistake. This kind of stuff doesn't serve to make for better CD's or instructors. It only creates an unnecessary level of high stress based on silly minutia. This in turn produces people who are so focused on minute details that they can no longer see the bigger picture.

Maybe there were other issues and this was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

FWIW I don't wrap my leg around the ascent line during CESA's.

I don't know the details of the CD testing but in the IE, at least it used to be, that failure to catch a student mistake that they consider dangerous or a mistake of your own that would be considered dangerous was grounds for immediate failure.

Failure to take what they would consider adequate steps to control ascent rate during an ESA would certainly be considered dangerous.

PADI doesn't require the instructor to use a leg wrap but it is required that they maintain contact with the line and the student at all times. The conduct of the ESA is specified in detail in the standards and they allow for very little leeway.

Any CD candidate should be very familiar with the conduct of that skill and have already done it many times. At that level there really isn't any axcuse. This is someone who arguable shouldn't even be an instructor let alone an instructor trainer...per PADI standards.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Does anyone (DAN, PADI?) keep data regarding accident/death rate per dive as a function of certifying agency? In other words, is there any evidence that one type of training produces "safer" divers?

 

[mislav]

If it weren't for PADI - I probably wouldn't be diving today, but personally I don't have to agree with everything they say.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Does anyone (DAN, PADI?) keep data regarding accident/death rate per dive as a function of certifying agency? In other words, is there any evidence that one type of training produces "safer" divers?

Not that I know of.

I can tell you what I see though. I don't see a big difference in the skill level of divers trained by different agencies. PADI has sort of taken the lead but other agencies do things mnuch the same way...to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the agency.

The one exception might be GUE but they don't have an entry level class yet as far as I know.

The other thing that I've pointed out before is that being a lousy diver doesn't necessarily mean that you will get hurt or die especially since so many divers dive under some level of supervision. Sometimes it just means that you will make an awful mess of the dive site and as far as I know no one is measuring that at all...though it keeps me away from popular dive spots on the weekends.

What we need is silt data rather than death data. LOL

 

[Wayfarer2]

If it weren't for PADI - I probably wouldn't be diving today, but personally I don't have to agree with everything they say.

That’s the most concise statement about this issue I have ever seen posted and is exactly how I feel about it. Well said!

I agree with the idea that AOW is best done soon after OW and I took it a step further and got Rescue soon after AOW, I would rather get as much instruction as possible so that I have the basic skills and information to handle new situations in the water. To me it’s all about learning to be a better diver so that I can have more fun and see more things, not collecting C cards. The rescue course in particular taught me a lot about awareness of my surroundings before during and after a dive as well as giving me a realistic assessment of my capabilities, it has shown me what I need to work on most. Also I have a great group instructors and DM’s that haven’t stopped giving me pointers once I finished the courses, Every time I dive with them I learn something new.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

If it weren't for PADI - I probably wouldn't be diving today, but personally I don't have to agree with everything they say.

If it wasn't Padi it would have been another organization.

One day I decided to try diving so I walked into a dive shop. If it was SDI I would have become an SDI OW diver. Big deal, the statement means very little at all. If Padi closed up shop today the other agencies would fill their spot instantly as most shops and a lot of instructors teach through various agencies.