PADI Rocks!!!

[amitsi]

Why not? PADI teaches diving and certifies divers. On what grounds do they do so? Why shouldn't they share a measure of responsibility?

Can you give me one system/agency which is perfect and has no flaws? Does someone have any statistics of people getting certified from PADI have more of a chance of getting DCI or have more accidents?

I guess you don't?

PADI has made scuba more accessible and more popular then any other agency very simple but there is more to the story to what they end up doing as a collateral effect.....they make more people aware of scuba and certify more people then anyone else does which makes Scuba diving more popular

Making it popular helps the "scuba economy" It makes..equipments cheaper, options of so many dive charters and dive trips which in turn compete makes them cheaper....!

Them being so popular makes NAUI and SSI and whatever else compete better which makes it better for people on all sides

 

[shekes]

Just so it does not seem to anybody that I am trying as hard as possible to shove PADI's name into the ground - PADI is the only certification organization I ever dealt with. So it is just MHO.

Theory:

PADI's manuals are made up mainly of useless tiering texts containing virtually no useful information.
Their best print is the "Encyclopedia" which is still a condescending load of trivialities, a waste of ink and paper to the extent of being a crime against environment and an insult to reader's intelligence.
All their other books/manuals are even worse. They wasted many hours of my life, that I value, teaching me the basics of decent human behavior, telling me how to be polite, have a sense of humor etc and promoting themselves to a cost for my family life and vacations.

For this alone I resent this organization.

The above is not only my opinion, but that of all of my friends, who are no instructors, just educated and intelligent people.

scubatoys.com website has more interesting and useful info on diving that does PADI's.

Not being able to compare PADI's manuals to any other, I dug up my old PPL study book. In 350 pages it teaches you 350 times more about Physics, Mechanics, Navigation, Meteorology, Geography, Human Physiology and Behavior, Communications and Law than all of the PADI books combined. And it is not because this book is so outstanding. It is because PADI really sucks.

MarkFerrara and others have already commented on the applied part. So I'll spare you that.

If a person wouldn't have discovered diving without PADI,
well,
then maybe he shouldn't have.

 

[Walter]

An open water dive after the first confined water dive? Don't make me laugh. I hardly see how any instructor is going to have someone go into the ocean without even having all of their skills taught and practiced first.

Sorry, but PADI standards do allow it and some instructors do it. Why do so many people want to blame instructors for the short comings of their agencies?

 

[KOMPRESSOR]

Just so it does not seem to anybody that I am trying as hard as possible to shove PADI's name into the ground - PADI is the only certification organization I ever dealt with. So it is just MHO.

Theory:

PADI's manuals are made up mainly of useless tiering texts containing virtually no useful information.
Their best print is the "Encyclopedia" which is still a condescending load of trivialities, a waste of ink and paper to the extent of being a crime against environment and an insult to reader's intelligence.
All their other books/manuals are even worse. They wasted many hours of my life, that I value, teaching me the basics of decent human behavior, telling me how to be polite, have a sense of humor etc and promoting themselves to a cost for my family life and vacations.

For this alone I resent this organization.

The above is not only my opinion, but that of all of my friends, who are no instructors, just educated and intelligent people.

scubatoys.com website has more interesting and useful info on diving that does PADI's.

Not being able to compare PADI's manuals to any other, I dug up my old PPL study book. In 350 pages it teaches you 350 times more about Physics, Mechanics, Navigation, Meteorology, Geography, Human Physiology and Behavior, Communications and Law than all of the PADI books combined. And it is not because this book is so outstanding. It is because PADI really sucks.

MarkFerrara and others have already commented on the applied part. So I'll spare you that.

If a person wouldn't have discovered diving without PADI,
well,
then maybe he shouldn't have.

We had the "battle" between club oriented CMAS and dive centre oriented PADI some 20 years ago. It's all behind us now, but the claims from CMAS divers were into those that PADI made dangerous divers, and that if anyone with a PADI license would want admission to their club they'd have to take the CMAS* before they could participate in club activities. It was a mess... And it resultet in clubs isolating themselves from reality with their attitude, and clubs were put down due to lack of NEW members! I mean, who would want to go through a 4-6 months rigorous training period just to get a license to dive in the first place. Let alone when you could visit the nearest dive centre and get the internationally accepted PADI OWD in two weeks? After many years CMAS came to sences and reduced on their rigorous ways of training, but it was to late. So now "everyone" goes through PADI.

OK, so it made some people rich. One could argue it looks kind of like a pyramide game sucking money upwards. It took me a 6 months period trying to decide which organization to join when we wanted to expand our shop into being a dive centre. But it was pretty clear all the way that none of the others had anything more to offer than PADI. So a PADI Dive Centre we are, and will be. I find nothing to complain about so far with their service for us. And remember, PADI is there for the DIVE CENTRES and INSTRUCTORS! Not directly for the divers. You come to see me if you want to talk PADI in our district, and if I do a lousy job with you, it sure ain't PADI's fault, is it?!

Scubatoys may have an excellent website about diving. But what's your point? Should we teach diving through internet?

 

[shekes]

KOMPRESSOR,

whether diving should be taught more thoroughly or more simplified is a matter of personal preference and depends mainly on how risk tolerant/avert a poster is. I have and will remain neutral on the subject. In my experience risk tolerance depends on the background of the person and often has to do with standard of life. Driving licenses are given away in many poor countries but in some rich ones even professional drivers wanting their foreign licenses recognized often fail the basic exams. That is not my point, I will abstain from discussing it and it should actually be clear because I haven't written a word about that.

My point is, that be it a little or a lot of time, or money, or printed paper an organization requires from a student to be certified, these resources should be used rationally and conscientiously.

Transport Canada charged me thousands of $$$ to get the basic PPL. But I am fine with that because I have in fact learned enough to get an instrument rating in some countries. And had they given me the PPL after having me taxi a plane to the runway without swerving into a hangar and charging me $100, I'd be just as happy. In both cases the result is/would be proportionate to the time/means invested.

The point is that PADI takes a lot of time and gives nothing but a few pieces of plastic and idiotic manuals in return.

By asking me whether diving should be taught online you are misinterpreting me even more and completely digressing from the subject.

What scubatoys example was meant to illustrate is: that even a gear retailer that supplements his website with information only as a means to promote his business, develops better educational content that the biggest and allegedly best Professional Association that is in the business of supposedly teaching us diving but is in fact totally focused on increasing its market share plausibly aiming to monopolize the industry.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I'm not going to respond to everything here, but honestly you seem to be trying as hard as possible to shove PADI's name into the ground, and the more people who disagree with you just causes you to become more desperate in your argument.

I don't care anything about PADI's name one way or the other.

Concerning your claims that PADI doesn't enforce any sort of buddy system...uh, yeah my OW instructor assigned everyone buddies and we strictly stuck to buddy teams.

I don't care what "your instructor did". The issue is what PADI requires your instructor to do.

An open water dive after the first confined water dive? Don't make me laugh. I hardly see how any instructor is going to have someone go into the ocean without even having all of their skills taught and practiced first.

Reference the PADI instructors manual and you will see that IS the way PADI recommends conducting the course. I agree that it's ridiculous..

You're trying to blame an agency for the actions of some ****ty instructors, and honestly, it doesn't exactly paint a reputable picture of yourself in the process.

On the contrary, everything I say about PADI training is based on what is written in the PADI training standards. You might want to get a copy, read it and understand it before you worry about what picture is being painted of me.

If you have an issue with PADI, or any other agency for that matter, you're not really going to accomplish anything other than making yourself look like a whiner by talking **** non-stop about them on an internet message board.

The subject here is PADI, not me.

Speaking of how we make ourselves look, if you have issue with something I say, why not back it up with something other than emotion and insults.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Can you give me one system/agency which is perfect and has no flaws? Does someone have any statistics of people getting certified from PADI have more of a chance of getting DCI or have more accidents?

I guess you don't?

No but I also don't know of any data showing that self taught divers have a greater chance of getting hurt either. I dived for several years with no formal training at all. I didn't get hurt. It's just swimming (or kneeling) and breathing, why should you get hurt?

PADI has made scuba more accessible and more popular then any other agency very simple but there is more to the story to what they end up doing as a collateral effect.....they make more people aware of scuba and certify more people then anyone else does which makes Scuba diving more popular

Making it popular helps the "scuba economy" It makes..equipments cheaper, options of so many dive charters and dive trips which in turn compete makes them cheaper....!

Them being so popular makes NAUI and SSI and whatever else compete better which makes it better for people on all sides

Are you saying that since the product is readily available that the quality of the product is irrelevant?

It reminds me of that old joke...I have some good news and some bad news for you. The bad news is that all we have for dinner is horse chit. The good news is that there's plenty of it. LOL

 

[MikeFerrara]

It took me a 6 months period trying to decide which organization to join when we wanted to expand our shop into being a dive centre. But it was pretty clear all the way that none of the others had anything more to offer than PADI. So a PADI Dive Centre we are, and will be. I find nothing to complain about so far with their service for us. And remember, PADI is there for the DIVE CENTRES and INSTRUCTORS! Not directly for the divers.

You make a veyr important point here that many of those reading this thread should pay special attention to. That is that the dive shop and instructor is the first tier customer of the agency...NOT the diver.

Potential divers don't go out looking for a PADI class. They just go to a dive shop and take whatever classes are offered. The agencies compete for shops and instructors...NOT divers. Of course around here, there isn't anything but PADI shops so there isn't any choice. When I took my entry level training I didn't even know who PADI was. I picked one of the two dive shops that were in driving distance. They were both PADI shops.

PADI (and other agencies have followed) makes it faster and easier to get divers in the water and certified). That allows for an inexpensive and competative class. High availability, low cost, convenient scheduling...then comes the subject of quality. To get a feel for the quality of the product all one need to do is get in the water and watch.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Scubatoys may have an excellent website about diving. But what's your point? Should we teach diving through internet?

Isn't that the direction things are going? As classes get shorter and performance requirements get lighter, aren't we getting closer to a non-class?

How important do you think an in-water instructor is?

I've seen many AOW training dives conducted with the instructor on shore while the students dived. This completely within standards. For all but the deep dive, night dive and wreck dive students may complete the dive with NO in-water supervision. Only the deep dive requires the instructor to be in the water directly supervising.

Access is what's being sold...not dive training.

 

[Scubakevdm]

The point is that PADI takes a lot of time and gives nothing but a few pieces of plastic and idiotic manuals in return.

So, you didn't learn to dive then?

PADI provides a framework within which instructors can operate. This framework of standards ensures, in theory, that every student receives at least a minimum level of instruction, as set forth by the RTSC and offers instructors teaching within the standards protection in the event of an accident. This part of what PADI does is paid for by the instructor, or shop. They probably pass on some portion of this cost to the student. It would pro-rate to about $5.00 of the course fee or so for my students. Anyway it makes your instruction possible.

The other thing that PADI does is publish materials. They have elected, I'm pretty sure, to cater to as large a market as is possible, including 10 year old kids. This may cause the books to seem a little dumb to the Mensa crowd. The student pays for this, about $40.00- 85.00 depending on the crew pack they get and includes at least one of the pieces of plastic.

If you are interested in a better book, I recommend Bruce Wienke's "Decompression Theory". If you enjoy it there are several more of his books that will interest you as well.

As for your displeasure with the agency, I'm afraid that they're mostly all alike. IANTD is more college levelish and offers recreational certifications.