I started diving quite a few years before I had any formal training or certification. That worked just fine. I baught a PADI card for increased access.
Training can be quite a bit better than what you see on the average without being as long as you might think. It's more a matter of what is taught and how than it is, how long. Teach someone to kneel and they kneel. Teach them to dive and they dive.
Teaching the OW student skills in a very rudimentary or contrived fashion, such as while kneeling, really only amounts to a pre-Darwin screening process.
But that's sufficient, IMHO. :11:
This is probably the gist of our disagreement.
I'd say, if the diver does some diving soon after certification, he will quickly move beyond his somewhat meaningless contrived skill level and learn "to dive", as you say. In the meantime, he will be safe enough.
To standardize and document the more natural experiential skill training required to "teach them to dive" would not only be a huge burden on the agency and instructor, I'd suggest it would be a waste of time for many of the students for a variety of reasons.
Most students won't need it, some won't be able to absorb it, etc.
Only a few would benefit, IMHO.
However, it's fine for a superb instructor to add it on his own, but that's different than wanting to institutionalize it or railing against the current methods to the likely
unfair detriment to PADI's reputation. The sky is
not falling....
By the way, when you say, "teach them to dive and they dive", to what specific improved skills are you referring? Buoyancy control? Handling stress and task loading?
Won't most new divers get a decent handle on those skills in their first few dives?
I think so.
It would be a shame to put them through unnecessary additional training for the sake of a few who
might need it.
That kind of thing, however well-intentioned, rankles some people....
Dave C
