PADI responded to their OW swim requirement...

[freediver]

Minimum standards just don't require that a diver be able to dive or that they are even shown how. That's my point. I have no good thoughts at all about PADI standards.

And yes, I suppose most of this is pretty futile.

Mike, just to further this futile discussion a bit longer.... ......can you give an example of how/where minimum standards don't require that a diver be able to dive or that they are even shown how.

 

[ams511]

When Fred Garth started Sport Diver he created his own issues and the magazine suffered because of those problems. The magazine still has issues, but PADI doesn't run it. I agree, without PADI's support the magazine would be a dead issue.

I've always said that it takes about 3 days of two-tank dives to get people back into the swing of things. How about a Scuba Review every couple of years?

The five stars are not signifying a restaurant, although that's the connotation that people assume incorrectly. It is different aspects of good customer service. In regard to marketing, nobody does it better than PADI. Everybody wins with whatever they market. Franchising however is not where PADI has any intention of going. It wouldn't fly for most Dive Stores either.

You're right about PADI's market share, but SSI rivals NAUI. Good competition begats more good competition.

People get into it because it's a passion. Not everyone is looking at moving. There are numerous people living in landlocked states who have no desire to move.

World Publications took over the rights to Sport Diver in the early 90's. I am not sure if the magazine was still being published before they bought the name. The original concept of the magazine from what I remember was to be more of an advanced diver magazine. Maybe not as intense as an Aquacorps, but better than Peterson's Skin Diver. I am not sure when the PADI tie in began because I was no longer doing business with World Publications at that time. In my opinion, neither Sport Diver nor Scuba Diving is any better than Skin Diver was. In fact sometimes I feel they are a worse.

I agree 5-6 diver over a short period of time will get most people confortable in the water again.

I think you take my use of the word franchise too literally, I accept responsibility for the miscommunication. However, I still beleive in my analogy. Does a 5-star dive shop pay fees to PADI? Do instructors pay fees to PADI? Does PADI provide marketing assistance to 5-star facilities? Are PADI instructors forced to purchase and sell only PADI supplied materials. If the answer to these questions are yes, then it sounds like a franchise to me. If the answers are no, then I am wrong and thank you for the correction.

I don't remember, does SSI require the shop tie in?

My dissatisfaction with PADI comes from three reasons:
1) They ignored the tech market completely until it bacame a big enough market for them to profit from.

2) In some international markets they require the student to submit a sticker from the course pack in order to be certified, so as to prevent the borrowing of books (more money for PADI)

3) They promote vacation diving, which a) Does not maintain diver competency b) Causes destruction of virgin reefs. Most lakes are far less environmentally sensitive then a coral reef C) Promotes the decline of dive shops in landlocked and northern states.

 

[O2BBubbleFree]

If you don't want PADI certification or don't believe it is strenuous enough, DON'T GET PADI certified and DON'T DIVE WITH PADI CERTIFIED DIVERS! Easy enough!

You forgot the most important step:

Make up a derogatory name to call them.

Um, Spokes? no, already in use. Smokes? also already in use. ....

Just havin' a little fun.

 

[Divedoggie]

It's because they aren't taught how not to. When I mention it, and I mention it often, it's being used to demonstrate the effectiveness of training.

No one said anything about being an expert. But if we're going to discuss this, lets look at what PADI requires in the way of buoyancy control, trim and propulsion techniques in the actual standards.

People keep telling me what's unrealistic to expect but after all the teaching I did, I disagree.
Minimum standards just don't require that a diver be able to dive or that they are even shown how. That's my point. I have no good thoughts at all about PADI standards.
And yes, I suppose most of this is pretty futile.

I will have to concede because I have a strict policy of never "getting into it" with a farrier! One, because I'm a horseman, and I deeply respect my farrier.(Pay him a lot, too. 5 horses.) Two, because the farriers I know are, pound for pound, the strongest human beings on the planet.:14:

So, before I resign back to talking with my buddies on the local threads, and giving some occassional advice on drysuits, here is where I come from:

Even though I am relatively new to teaching diving, I am not new to teaching. For 20 years, I coached Downhill Ski Racing at many levels, including World Cup and Olympic athletes. Before that, I was one of those athletes. The consequences for a mistake on a 45 degree slope of solid ice, at 90+ mph, were grevious. I have witnessed horrific accidents. Some were purely operator failure, others were due to athletes being in way over their heads, which is a lack of training/experience.

There are many parallels between the sports of diving and skiing. The one thing that recreational skiing has, is a rated trail system. Bunny slopes, Green, Blue, Black, and Double diamond trails. A skier can take instruction, develope to a certain level, and then choose to ski green trails. More lessons will lead to a quicker ability to ski Blue trails, and so on. The skier may get the basics down and then choose to never take a lesson again. Are they safe? Not on the wrong slopes, yet they strive to go there.

In diving, a newly certified OW diver is given recommendations on diving parameters. They are also given the option of continuing education and/or finding additional resources for becoming better divers, and thus engaging in more demanding dives.

In both scenarios, there are prudent skiers and divers and reckless skiers and divers.

Here is the reason that I oppose the 4 or 5 individuals who are always finding a tread that could possibly lead toward their agenda of criticising agencies, esp. PADI.

How many skier days do I have? Well over 10,000. My training in Alpine racing is very extensive, more similar to tech and cave diving. I teach and develop professional coaches, give lectures on safety systems, teaching methods, course setting, hill preparation. I've travelled the world over the last 20 years doing this, and I've seen bizarre things out there.

Do I take my experience and go onto skiing chat boards to defame the Professional Ski Instructors of America, The National Ski Patrol, beginner and intermediate skiers, young coaches, ski resorts, etc? NO!

I have observed many problems over the last 40 years in that sport, but I don't focus on those problems. For example, the latest and greatest at ski areas is the terrain park, which is influenced by the X-games, and X-treme sports crowd. They are incredibly dangerous because there is no standard of expertise required to enter the park.

A 17 year old boy that I have known since the day he was born, and coached until he decided to quit racing and become an extreme skier, was killed in a park at Copper Mountain a few weeks ago. He was an expert, expert, and athletic skier. It is impossible to accept his early passing. His parents are great friends of mine. It would be easier to come to terms with if his passing meant something. If his accident could change policy that would save another child's life. But, there has been no change in policy. Everything is the same. The machine keeps turning.

So what can we do? (diving and skiing) I can have direct influence on the students that I teach. I have minimum standards that MUST be taught and that students MUST meet. I can also incorporate anything else into my class which I believe will help those students be safer and better.

Once those students are certified and out in the real world, it is impossible to say how they will react to real life situations. There are 70,000 plus members of Scubaboard. How on earth did we all survive and grow to love this sport? There must be adequate training going on.

Agency bashing will not solve problems. Individual Instructors and dive centers can choose to conduct themselves and their programs to the highest standards instead of the lowest. There is not a person on our LDS staff who would ever say, "thats good enough." We want the job to be done right.

I feel that the PADI DM program, and the IDC was tough, unbending in the requirements to meet and exceed standards, and demanding in the quest for perfect demonstration and presentation. For example, our rescues had to be absolutely perfect. If a Instructor candidate missed ANY problem that a student was having, we failed that segment. Our course director was not happy until we achieved 4.7 to 5.0 on everything.

I am proud of my accomplishment of becoming a PADI instructor, and I don't appreciate blanket statements, writing me or fellow instructors off. It especially irks me when I see the posts influence a young and inexperienced guy like Sparticlebrain, who was certified by another agency and with no PADI experience turns around jumps on the bandwagon, and starts badmouthing PADI.

I am confident that the instructors and owner/instructor of my LDS all teach at a very high level, they all care about the students, and none of us is making enough money to justify doing it for money! We teach because we are passionate about scuba diving and we want to share it with as many people as possible.

If the people who hate PADI want to start a blog, and have those who are interested, tune into it, go for it! Just restrain from ruining someone's thread, who innocently asks a question about furthuring their education, etc.

'Nuff said.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I will have to concede because I have a strict policy of never "getting into it" with a farrier! One, because I'm a horseman, and I deeply respect my farrier.(Pay him a lot, too. 5 horses.) Two, because the farriers I know are, pound for pound, the strongest human beings on the planet.:14:

I doubt I'm the strongest pound for pound but I don't think we'll end up out behind the barn over this anyway. LOL

So what can we do? (diving and skiing) I can have direct influence on the students that I teach. I have minimum standards that MUST be taught and that students MUST meet. I can also incorporate anything else into my class which I believe will help those students be safer and better.

you raise some good point. Lets see if I can do a better job of making mine in the next couple of posts.

Once those students are certified and out in the real world, it is impossible to say how they will react to real life situations. There are 70,000 plus members of Scubaboard. How on earth did we all survive and grow to love this sport? There must be adequate training going on.

Note there are some empty profiles here on the board. We aren't all still here. Yes there is some good training out there but it isn't easy to find unless you already know what you're looking for and where to look.

Agency bashing will not solve problems. Individual Instructors and dive centers can choose to conduct themselves and their programs to the highest standards instead of the lowest. There is not a person on our LDS staff who would ever say, "thats good enough." We want the job to be done right.

The instructor can't do that unless they know what the "highest standards" are. If you are brought up in your diving learning just what's in the outline that's all you'll know and that's all you'll be able to teach. I'm talking from personal experience there.

I feel that the PADI DM program, and the IDC was tough, unbending in the requirements to meet and exceed standards, and demanding in the quest for perfect demonstration and presentation. For example, our rescues had to be absolutely perfect. If a Instructor candidate missed ANY problem that a student was having, we failed that segment. Our course director was not happy until we achieved 4.7 to 5.0 on everything.

I am proud of my accomplishment of becoming a PADI instructor, and I don't appreciate blanket statements, writing me or fellow instructors off. It especially irks me when I see the posts influence a young and inexperienced guy like Sparticlebrain, who was certified by another agency and with no PADI experience turns around jumps on the bandwagon, and starts badmouthing PADI.

I know exactly what you mean. I have been through PADI DM and instructor training and the IE. I also owned a PADI dive shop for about 4 years. I trained a fairly large number of divers including quit a few DM's.

At the time of my instructor training and IE I thought it was challenging and it was in some respects. I also thought I knew something about teaching diving at the time. I was wrong. I know very well all the demonstration quality skills that we all had to demonstrate. That was just the way we had to perform those skills when we were OW students only as instructors we had to do it prettier. Do you teach those skills that way? I did for a while until I realized how counter productive it is.

I put up a post, yesterday I think it was outlining some of what I think is wrong with the way we teach diving and what we started doing different. Ít was in the "considering master diver" thread. When I finish here I'll try to post a link to it.

I am confident that the instructors and owner/instructor of my LDS all teach at a very high level, they all care about the students, and none of us is making enough money to justify doing it for money! We teach because we are passionate about scuba diving and we want to share it with as many people as possible.

I have met very few instructors who did a poor job intentionally. I do feel that many of us do a poor job because that's how we're taught to do it.

 

[friscuba]

I don't remember, does SSI require the shop tie in?

My dissatisfaction with PADI comes from three reasons:
1) They ignored the tech market completely until it bacame a big enough market for them to profit from.

2) In some international markets they require the student to submit a sticker from the course pack in order to be certified, so as to prevent the borrowing of books (more money for PADI)

3) They promote vacation diving, which a) Does not maintain diver competency b) Causes destruction of virgin reefs. Most lakes are far less environmentally sensitive then a coral reef C) Promotes the decline of dive shops in landlocked and northern states.

SSI does require a shop tie in.

As for your dissatisfaction with PADI....

1) hmmm, Tech diving was a specialty field. I guess you've wanted PADI to be everything to everybody all along.

2)That's a legit beef, however it also proves they've at least picked up the books and weren't given the tavern course (I've met people who've earned their certifications simply by doing an intro dive or two and buying the instructor a few beers afterwards)

3) Now that one ought to stir up a few comments. You basically are saying all vacation divers are incompetant and contributing to reef destruction... there are lots of them on this board. Also, how can vacation diving promote the decline of stores in landlocked and northern states? Ask any store owner, if they had to soley rely on clientele that dove locally they'd be out of business in a heartbeat... better to blame LeisurePro and the like for the demise of the non-destination LDS, much more realistic.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

3) Now that one ought to stir up a few comments.

... haven't seen that one before!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike, just to further this futile discussion a bit longer.... ......can you give an example of how/where minimum standards don't require that a diver be able to dive or that they are even shown how.

Certainly.

Descents and ascents....I talk a little about the technique in the link below I think.
The most important aspects of technique aren't taught but maybe more importantly students are not requires to demonstrate that they can descend with a buddy and stay aware of that buddy and respond if there are problems. Descents and ascents are dynamic parts of the dive where problems are most likely and when a diver needs to be most aware and prepared to respond.

Trim...
The word is never mentioned in the text. The mechanics behind it aren't taught at all and divers aren't required to demonstrate that they are even on the right track. The result is that we have a bunch of head up divers. The problem with that is when you are trimmed head up and you kick, you go up and forward. So, they dump air so they can go forward without going up. Now if they stop kicking, they sink. they wo't ever get control of things this way. They can't learn any of the other skills right if they don't get this under control.

All the other skills...mask skills, free flow management and all the rest. A diver, any diver, even a new diver, needs to be able to do that midwater. That's just where we are supposed to be diving and if our mask gets knocked off, it's going to happen when we are midwater.

Buddy skills aside from the ascents and descents. Positioning. the lousy text doesn't even tell divers how to position themselves so they can be seen by one another or that they should be doing it.

Gas management...watch your gauge. Great watch it for what? When do I turn. When do I start my ascent?

What about the tour portion of the OW dives? What level are divers required to perform to? Can they crawl and bounce through the dive? Check the standards, I think you'll see that crawling is acceptable. What about the length of the tour? Are we even talking about a real dive here? Do we have classes out there that the 20 minutes is up about the time they get done doing skills on their knees so they get a 3 minute swim back to the exit point? YES we do and if you don't do that, you get a free pat on the back from me but if you don't believe me that it's being done, come visit and I'll show you.

One more quicky. Doesn't the book say something to the effect of...an OW cert qualifies a diver to independantly conduct OW dives with a buddy in conditions as good or better than those they were trained in? Well do standards require a diver to plan a dive with a buddy and conduct that dive to demonstrate that they can do it? Standards do not require that and following an instructor in a pack doesn't demonstrate that they can.

Lot of instructors see to all these things and more. However, standards don't require any of it. If an instructor comes up being trained by these same standards, there is no reason to expect that they could demonstrate these things themselves. I came by some of this the hard way and stole a bunch from other instructors but no agency contributed a damn thing and that's a fact. This and the post linked below is a good portion of what I feel represent minimums and I would never again even take a diver to OW dive one without having them successfully do all this in the pool. Been there, done that and never again.

Please take a quick look at the linked post for a few more details. Over the years I've posted a lot on the same general topin so there's lots more scattered around the board too. By all means, let me know what you think.

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=2652517&postcount=142

 

[Divedoggie]

Mike,
Good Post. Makes sense.

Hopefully, by the time people choose to become instructors, they will have been diving in a variety of places and conditions, and have seen inadequately trained divers.
Lord knows that I have. ie. A woman stuck in the roof of a swim thru in Coz because she couldn't figure out how to operate the buttons on the end of that hose thingy. :11: People terrified of their first OW dives without a DiveMamma, Rototillers, buoyant ascenders, etc.

Hopefully, Instructors will draw educated conclusions as to their definition of highest standards. The instructors will then incorporate these standards into practice.

SO the million dollar point of contention:
The theory is, get people diving and then get them to continue ed, become skilled, get their friends and family doing it, and give them the skills that they need to enjoy their experience and live to tell about it.

I'm not convinced that the absolute highest standards should be dictated from the agencies. Acceptible standards need to be in place.

Are the standards that I have in my manual acceptible? Well, I'll exceed them based on my experience, and the experience of others.

A healthy sport needs to grow in order to support the industry. Dive vacations, going back year after year to the same Ops, getting air and mixed gas, R/D for cutting edge equipment, available RC chambers, etc depend on numbers.

The post that Walter gave awhile back with a list of questions to ask your prospective instructor is a good place for an OW candidate to start.

 

[ams511]

SSI does require a shop tie in.

As for your dissatisfaction with PADI....

1) hmmm, Tech diving was a specialty field. I guess you've wanted PADI to be everything to everybody all along.

2)That's a legit beef, however it also proves they've at least picked up the books and weren't given the tavern course (I've met people who've earned their certifications simply by doing an intro dive or two and buying the instructor a few beers afterwards)

3) Now that one ought to stir up a few comments. You basically are saying all vacation divers are incompetant and contributing to reef destruction... there are lots of them on this board. Also, how can vacation diving promote the decline of stores in landlocked and northern states? Ask any store owner, if they had to soley rely on clientele that dove locally they'd be out of business in a heartbeat... better to blame LeisurePro and the like for the demise of the non-destination LDS, much more realistic.

1. PADI condemed tech diving until they could profit from it, pure hippocracy

2. That is a poor (yet profitable) method of ensuring diving standards are being met.

3. Not a troll comment. Look at any dive spot that is dived a lot and you can see the damage. I never said all vacation divers are incompetent, however I do question the skills of someone that only dives once a year. How does vacation diving led to a decline? You can get certified at a destination (often for less money). Why buy gear if you can rent at the destination (or buy online), they don't need fills (not that it is a big profit center anyway). In other words they do not need an LDS at all. You can trash Leisurepro if you want but authorized dive shops can sell online. Mares and Oceanic allow online sales while Scubapro, Atomic and Aqualung do not. I am not sure about Sherwood or some of the other brands.