PADI a pain?!?

[Scuba_Steve]

Mislav hasn't been in the dive world very long. It will be interesting to see how the opinions change after he has more experience under his belt.

No harm, no foul!

lol.

Well that would have been a kinder way of me stating what I did, but that being said I was of course thinking the same thing.

I recall when Padi could do no wrong in my books.

I was a real dumb-arse looking back at it. Totally wrong in almost every aspect. I was had, a victim of my own ignorance, and that's how they like it.

It actually took going out and diving with actual divers with a real command of what they were doing to see the difference.

Oh I fought it all the way.......but eventually succumed to the obvious

 

[MikeFerrara]

So what are you saying here? That agencies are useless compared to a rich uncle? I'm a bit confused. You tell us that the standards and training are no good, but now tell us that you didn't have any yourself for 10 years...and then only to get "increased access"!!! Sorry - I'd have to think PADI does a better job than that. Compare the record of deaths from PADI trained divers and among people who learnt like you did, and I think PADI wins hands down.
Are you sure this isn't just a case of "Do what I say, not what I do!" ?

Those are reasonable questions. I think my last post, which I made before seeing this answeres some of them but I'll try here too.

My certification didn't do anything for me other than provide a card. Dive shops want to see one and I wanted greater access to diving. So...I purchased a card.

Do you need formal training to dive? Some people do and some don't. If we go out and sell diving, dive training and certification to people I think we have a responsibility to teach it well. I don't think they do.

As far as a comparisson of deaths between people who learned like I did and PADI trained divers...feel free. All I know is that I never came close to getting killed. Of course, no one promissed me anything either. See the difference? If you tell someone that you are training them, then you should train them. I never even saw a close call let alone a death until I got involved with the "industry"...and then I saw a bunch of stuff in a hurry.

I think the accident stats we look at today are agency created...how many of those divers who are bent in the Caribbean would be there if it weren't for the agencies? We didn't get bent hunting cat fish in Arkansas but no one was telling us that we were ok to do a drift dive at 100 ft either.

I didn't go to 100 ft until I started taking classes and then I did so without learning anything about gas management. After all that diving I did without the agencies, they could have gotten me killed. LOL BTW, on that dive the instructor swam off and left me.

 

[mislav]

lol.

Well that would have been a kinder way of me stating what I did, but that being said I was of course thinking the same thing.

I recall when Padi could do no wrong in my books.

I was a real dumb-arse looking back at it. Totally wrong in almost every aspect. I was had, a victim of my own ignorance, and that's how they like it.

It actually took going out and diving with actual divers with a real command of what they were doing to see the difference.

Oh I fought it all the way.......but eventually succumed to the obvious

The people I dive with are mostly CMAS, SSI, cave divers and tek divers. I do very well in their world. That's why I go beyond the limits of my certification. PADI to me is a necessary evil. One has to start somewhere and for me it was PADI. I'm sticking with it, since all I have are minor complaints.

Besides, most of the stuff people accuse PADI of doing wrong is not at all PADI's fault. It's covered in the books, it's taught during courses.

What you experienced was most likely not being ready to take so much knowledge in - in such a little timeframe.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I think the accident stats we look at today are agency created...how many of those divers who are bent in the Caribbean would be there if it weren't for the agencies? We didn't get bent hunting cat fish in Arkansas but no one was telling us that we were ok to do a drift dive at 100 ft either........

..........On your 9th lifetime dive to boot.

Left to their own most people would see that as a dangerous activity, better left until one is more skilled by diving under less extreme conditions.

Whereas the agency tells them this is quite acceptable procedure and does more than that by actively encouraging such activities.

The new, uneducated diver assumes the instructor will keep them safe and it must in fact be safe or they would not do it in the first place..........ergo Padi's largest body count is the AOW course, specifically the deep dive........

And every moron out there is left stunned as to how such incomprehesible 'accidents' happen.

The 'best' is when the instructor, insurance slip in hand rightly hides behind the 'standard' and Padi backs them up 100%, sweeps it under the rug as an unforseeable 'accident' and moves on to the next victim.

They know this is how it is, it's been like that forever and they don't care.

 

[TSandM]

To make an attempt to answer the OP (on the theory that the OP wasn't just sticking a twig in an anthill), there are a lot of people on this board who feel that the training of open water divers is, in general, unsatisfactory. PADI becomes the symbol for rapid-fire, cursory training because it is a huge agency and trains a LOT of divers, has made a point of creating shorter, easier training courses, and has a tendency to present its material in a very simple fashion with lots of little stories and bright colors. It's big, it's visible, and it's definitely part of the problem that some people perceive.

 

[Hemlon]

To make an attempt to answer the OP (on the theory that the OP wasn't just sticking a twig in an anthill), there are a lot of people on this board who feel that the training of open water divers is, in general, unsatisfactory. PADI becomes the symbol for rapid-fire, cursory training because it is a huge agency and trains a LOT of divers, has made a point of creating shorter, easier training courses, and has a tendency to present its material in a very simple fashion with lots of little stories and bright colors. It's big, it's visible, and it's definitely part of the problem that some people perceive.

Well said!

:luxhello:

 

[MikeFerrara]

..........On your 9th lifetime dive to boot.

Left to their own most people with an IQ greater than 50 would see that as a dangerous activity, better left until one is more skilled by diving under less extreme conditions.

Whereas the agency tells them this is quite acceptable procedure and does more than that by actively encouraging such activities.

The new, uneducated diver assumes the instructor will keep them safe and it must in fact be safe or they would not do it in the first place..........ergo Padi's largest body count is the AOW course, specifically the deep dive........

And every moron out there is left stunned as to how such incomprehesible 'accidents' happen.

The 'best' is when the instructor, insurance slip in hand rightly hides behind the 'standard' and Padi backs them up 100%, sweeps it under the rug as an unforseeable 'accident' and moves on to the next victim.

They know this is how it is, it's been like that forever and they don't care.

Yes. the AOW deep dive is my all time least favorite thing in all the dive industry. There have been many people hurt and almost countless close calls.

In a nut shell it's because these students are sold this dive before they can do a good job of diving shallow. Worse, the instructors aren't "deep divers".

I've stated this many times but it is within PADI standards for an instructor and a student to do their very first dive to 100 ft together! Anyone who doesn't believe it can read it for themselves...oops no you can't because PADI doesn't make their standards available to the public!

But really, you can become an instructor only having done one "deep dive" youself. That deep dive being your own AOW deep dive which might have been to only 60 ft. During instructor training and testing you are mostly tested on standards and teaching entry level skills (you need knee pads for this). Once you pass, you can take AOW student to 100 ft.

 

[Web Monkey]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scuba Brian
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.

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

Who gets an ascent line for a CESA? The E is for Emergency.

Isn't that like training pilots how to ditch their aircraft only when there's a huge field full of comfy-pillows and beanbag chairs nearby?

Terry

 

[jon m]

i just don't see it!
PADI (and my instructor) does not encourage diving beyond your personal limit... as a matter of fact, that is one thing stressed in training. if someone goes out and decides to do a deep dive after diving only a few times and gets bent, how is that PADI's fault? more the fault of the instructor(imo). did these people read the warnings printed all over PADI books? did they just ignore them? maybe these newbies(like me) never ASKED the questions? that's just stupid in my book.i asked enough questions for 1/2 the people on this board , and if i didn't understand, i asked again! if it's not clear to anyone that diving is dangerous, even if you don't push limits, then i don't know what PADI can do about that.
but i'm just a newbie, and i don't know anything about anything... pretty disapointing to see divers "smacking" on other divers because they have more dives. all the folks i've met so far have been very kind, and i hope to meet none with attitudes like that. remember, you had a first dive , too. i just want to experience some of the underwater things that ( it seems) are boring and mundane to some of you.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Besides, most of the stuff people accuse PADI of doing wrong is not at all PADI's fault. It's covered in the books, it's taught during courses.

I can't speak for anyone else but the things I blame PADI for are the things they don't teach or teach poorly.

What you experienced was most likely not being ready to take so much knowledge in - in such a little timeframe.

Maybe, but maybe certs are handed out too easily. My first rescue was bringing a lady in total ful blown panic up from about 65 ft. She shouldn't have been there at all and I shouldn't have been supervising her!

In my case it wasn't getting too much information too fast. It was being in diving and teaching situations that I didn't have the knowledge or skill to be in...my cards said I was ready though. the missing information was the problem.