ScubyDoo:
I went back and read some of your previous posts on this thread, and you do make some good points about buoyancy and finning skills which are lacking in the PADI OW program, at least in so far as the standards are concerned. Most beginning divers have absolutely horrible buoyancy and finning skills. I think most divers skills in these areas slowly improve as they gain more experience. I suppose the question is....Do you make it a standard and mandate a specific skill level prior to certification? In my opinion good buoyancy skills are something that require time and experience to master, which makes requiring them in an OW course somewhat unfeasible. Call it a PADI marketing ploy, but my LDS always highly recommends the Peak Performance Buoyancy class to its OW students. Should PPB be incorporated into OW courses? Its certainly something to consider.
We've seen the same thing over and over so many times that we think that's how it has to be. New divers often have lousy buoyancy control because no one makes any real attempt to teach them. It's not a required part of the class.
So yest, I would absolutely add to the standards on the subject including a specific level of procidiency on the OW dives. It can be done by the average student but there in information missing from the text that would help, exceprsizes missing from CW and nothing required in OW.
It does require a little practice but a students can get pretty good in the pool before ever going to OW. It doesn't take nearly as long as some would think when it's taught rather than making the student go out and invent it on their own.
Obviosly those training agencies teach at more advanced levels than does PADI's OW program. Attempting to compare them is like comparing apples to oranges. PADI's OW program is designed to instruct basic level recreational diving, whereas the agencies you have certified with are designed to instruct at the technical level. I don't know any basic OW divers who plan to dive the Andria Doria or go cave diving, and thus do not need that level of training.
I wasn't camparing the agencies. I only braught them up because it was suggested that those of us who are down on PADI are jealous.
However some of those other agencies also have OW classes. Most agencies seem to perform at about the same level but there are major differences in the standards. One thing that I really like about the IANTD standards is the skill evaluation form that must be completed for every student on every dive. You can read it on their web site yourself but all the basic dive skills must be graded on every dive and a minimum score is required to pass the coursqe...including their OW course. They actually require the student to dive...how's that for a novel idea?
I agree that freshly certified PADI divers are very green and inexperienced...but everyone has to start somewhere. PADI offers continuing diver education to more advanced levels which every diver has the option of pursuing.
Yes they do offer continueing education and the skills that are left out of OW are not taught in any other class either. If I could only count the number of times I've seen AOW students doing wallowing just like OW students. My favorite was an AOW S&R class that I saw. The instructor had the students sitting on a training platfor to tie their knots. And that serves what purpose? BTW, it is allowed by standards. Standards require them to tie the knots underwater but they are not required to be doing anything that resembles diving when they tie them.
No I dont think your jealous, but you do seem unusually irritated with PADI. I can understand disagreeing with thier standards, but you seemed somewhat obsessed with it. Have you ever made any attempts to work with them and express your concerns? Im not an instructor, but I do believe that PADI accepts feedback and comments from its instructors and course directors on how PADI standards are structured, and when deemed appropriate revises them.
I am very irritated with PADI. Being the biggest they are in aposition of leadership. They should know all about roll model behavior. In large part, they are the inventors of our current system. I see that same problems and even accidents over and over and it seems easy enough to me to see how they relate to what is or isn't in the training standards. Of course I discussed some of these points with PADI when I was a PADI instructor. I even discussed some of the accidents that have happened on AOW deep dives. They of course happen becuase we take students deep before they learn to use basic skills shallow. Per standards a divers 5th lifetime dive could be to 100 ft with an instructor who has only done one dive past 60 ft (the one they had to do in their own AOW class)...Standards permit them to do their first 100 ft dive togehter and some one would wonder why divers get hurt on these dives? PADI wasn't interested in hearing any of this from me. They know exactly what's in their standards, what it allows shops and instructors to do and that's why it's written the way it is.
They do, in theory, ask the opinions of master instructors and up which would include course directors. However, I'd point out that no one has learned to take advantage of the PADI standards in order to pump out huge numbers of students the way some of the course directors I've known can. They are masters of knowing just exactly what they MUST do and doing no more.
As I said the other agencies aren't doing any better for the most part. Most are racing to compete with PADI so they're playing the same game. It's like going to McDonalds, Burgerking or any other fast food place. You know what they have, there's lots of it but do any of us kid ourselves into thinking that any of it is very good? The majority of the time, walking into a local dive shop gets you the Mcdonalds version of dive training. No one said it was any good but it's convenient and inexpensive. PADI is no more interested in hearing how to make their dive training better than McDonalds is in hearing how to make their food better. It is what it was designed to be.
