PADI vs NAUI

[Bogtrotter]

Unless one intends to engage in specialty diving, like ice diving, cave etc or some more tech oriented diving all one needs is a good solid initial training to get your license. If the c-card is just a 'learner's permit' then what the heck is the real license? AOW, Master diver..? They help of course but have little to do with being a good or experienced diver. No, the C-card IS the license to dive on air- I've never been required to produce anything else. The only thing that gets you real experience is logging dive time. And I might add that since most of the diving I've done has been with DM's, instructors and other experienced divers one can easily say that most dives I have done are a form of training and learning. Again, the only way to truly gauge how good a diver is really to ask them how long they have been diving and when they last dove. That's the principle reason we keep dive logs afterall- otherwise why keep one? As for risk, heck it's not THAT risky- a teenager heading out on the road with a driver's license is a far riskier endeavor.

 

[The Chairman]

If the c-card is just a 'learner's permit' then what the heck is the real license? AOW, Master diver..?

When I was a NAUI instructor, this was actually one of the questions on their test. The philosophy that the cert is JUST THE BEGINNING of your learning is a noble concept and one that I agree with. NAUI's ideal has always been "Dive Safety through Education!" and in my Instructor Training Class we were required to mention continuing education with every presentation. Now I teach through SDI, TDI and NASE. They harbor the same attitude.

As a disclaimer, my answer back in 2003 (when this thread was started) would have been far different than what I typed today. I was just as hung up on "it's the agency" as Walter is. The instructor is and will be the most important cog in dive instruction. The right one will leave you with a fun hobby and a thirst to learn more and they can be found working for any agencies. The actual differences are mostly political in nature and are greatly exaggerated by those who have the "if I don't sell or teach it, it must be crap!" mentality. You can even see that in this thread.

 

[endurodog]

Net doc not sure if I should ask here or PM or where but this thread continues to wander around so what the heck. Why did you switch agencies your training for? As I have stated I started as NAUI and I liked it but could not find any local NAUI shops where I live now so was forced to switch for continuing training.

 

[The Chairman]

PM sent.

 

[Walter]

For clarifying. When I did my OW course with NAUI in 1983 PADI was all ready making a move towards shorter and easier courses.

By 1983, PADI's classes were almost the same as those of today. The only major change is they required swimming in 1983, today it's swimming or snorkeling. By the way, shorter classes are not easier, they are just faster.

Diving instruction should not be difficult either.

I totally agree which is one reason I advocate longer, more comprehensive classes.

 

[flots am]

Where I disagree is that (again if I'm reading you correctly) you seem to be saying that without a 100-hour instruction program, I should not be diving. I agree with NetDoc that given the quality of today's gear, a proper attitude contributes more to safety than additional training, and that with a proper attitude and the kind of diving I do, a dive vacation is as safe as staying home, or as near as makes insignificant difference.

Having performed a number of actual rescues and having watched all sorts underwater embarrassments and potential emergencies, I can tell you that this is completely false.

The only difference between a 60' dive in warm crystal clear water and a 60' dive in the Great Lakes is colder water and less visibility. You can die just as easily somewhere warm and happy as someplace cold and murky.

In fact, the warm water dive could conceivably be more dangerous, since it typically comes with a DM that the divers trust with their safety. The Great-Lakes dive comes with nothing but your buddy and the knowledge that if you screw up you could die. This is identical to the risk in Warm Water, however people tend to not perceive it as such.

 

[Thalassamania]

There is a BIG difference between disagreeing with your analysis of data, and calling you a liar. I am not calling you a liar. I consider you an honest and honorable person. But I disagree with your characterization of the relative safety of various activities. For example, far more people engage in recreational diving than engage in race-car driving.

You have documentation that there are far more divers than there are people engaged in motor sports?

Really, our positions are not that far apart: I agree with you that more training is better. And if I read your post correctly, you agree with me that I'm about 100 times more likely to be killed in a car crash than diving.

Where I disagree is that (again if I'm reading you correctly) you seem to be saying that without a 100-hour instruction program, I should not be diving. I agree with NetDoc that given the quality of today's gear, a proper attitude contributes more to safety than additional training, and that with a proper attitude and the kind of diving I do, a dive vacation is as safe as staying home, or as near as makes insignificant difference.

No, what I am saying is that it is profit driven cynicism on that part of training agencies to be advancing the entry level course that most currently do. I was unaware that the gear we used to dive with was of low quality, thanks for telling us. No really, what about today's gear is lower risk than the gear we used to use? Good attitudes come from good training. Good attitudes are not inculcated into students in quickie classes. Witness the highly restrictive rules and regulations that traveling divers are subjected to, clearly the managers of dive vacation facilities feel that people are so poorly prepared for it that the activity of diving needs to have its risks so tightly controlled that I will not engage in it on their basis.

The question for me is not whether more training is better. That goes without saying. Of course it is. The question for me is whether I should quit diving, since I don't have opportunity for the level of training you advocate. And the answer to that, for me, is no. Because diving is roughly as safe as staying home, and a lot more fun.

That's up to you, but had your training been more complete you would not be asking it. The sort of training that we are advocating is not onerous and once was the norm and was easily available.

Very well put. No one is against training... heck I'm an instructor. Every diver must make the decision to dive or not based on their experience and training. Elevating the bar so high that we stop people from even trying to dive does not seem like a good solution to me. Diving should be available to the masses and not just an elite few. What some call "dumbing down" I see as normal evolution. The more we teach diving, the more efficient we can make it. Or, we can succumb to unsupported fears and push dive instruction out of reach of mere mortals.

Diving isn't difficult. If it is, you're doing something wrong. Diving instruction should not be difficult either. It should be as fun as diving itself. These, are of course, my opinions. If you don't want a fun instructor, then don't choose me.

The problem is not that diving is particularly difficult, the problem is that diving is like a high wire act, as long as everything goes fine it's a walk in the part, but when it goes wrong ... well, you tend to have something happen that is much more serious than a bruise or even a broken bone. I am highly risk adverse an attitude that was tempered by years of responsibility to: first, a committee of my colleagues, second to my Dean or Director and finally to the institution I worked for; and my responsibility was not to, lower the risk to some acceptable accident rate, or tho "do the best I could," it was to run a "zero defect" operation.

The agencies appear to have a very different view, a view that many instructors appear to buy into: there is no demand for "zero defects," but rather there is an optimized equation balancing the cost of defects (e.g., the price of insurance that results from the injuries and deaths that occur and the graft that is required) against the income from numbers of new divers certified and the books and materials that they buy. I will not work that way.

When I was a NAUI instructor, this was actually one of the questions on their test. The philosophy that the cert is JUST THE BEGINNING of your learning is a noble concept and one that I agree with. NAUI's ideal has always been "Dive Safety through Education!" and in my Instructor Training Class we were required to mention continuing education with every presentation. Now I teach through SDI, TDI and NASE. They harbor the same attitude.

As a disclaimer, my answer back in 2003 (when this thread was started) would have been far different than what I typed today. I was just as hung up on "it's the agency" as Walter is. The instructor is and will be the most important cog in dive instruction. The right one will leave you with a fun hobby and a thirst to learn more and they can be found working for any agencies. The actual differences are mostly political in nature and are greatly exaggerated by those who have the "if I don't sell or teach it, it must be crap!" mentality. You can even see that in this thread.

Pete, you continue to insist on on oversimplified one dimensional view of the, "it's the agency not the instructor (or vice versa) discussion. I have numerous time in the past suggested that it is not that simple:

What you are missing is that it is an apples and oranges comparison. PADI programs, by design, and by policy, can be idealized by a rather steep bell curve (small standard deviation) if you measure "quality" on the X-axis and frequency on the Y-axis. Other agencies (again idealized) have no left hand tail, that is cut off by minimum standards, but have a right hand tail that extends way out since the only limit (with minor exception) to what may be added is the instructors' creativity and judgment. So, while the standard deviation is much higher, the average "quality" is also slightly higher, both because of the right shift due to the tail length as well as the requirement that for certain items like rescue.

If you were to apply an ANOVA approach to the problem I suspect that what you would see significant variation due to agency. In the old days, when most non-PADI instructors greatly exceeded minimum requirements to properly meet local needs, I suspect that the between agency variance greatly exceeded the between instructor variance, however, today, with many non-PADI instructors teaching what is basically a PADI course with a few additional items tossed in the between instructor variance appears more important, and I'd posit that the between agency variance, while still significant, has dropped but only as a proportion of the whole with concomitant growth in the instructor*agency interactive term.

I'd suggest that the actual differences between your students and mine have nothing to with politics, the differences have to our different views on acceptable risk as I outlined earlier. Since we are not competing for the same pool of students the idea that there is an element of a, "'if I don't sell or teach it, it must be crap!' mentality." is an unsupportable base canard. But perhaps you were not addressing me, but you meant Walter? Who were you referring to anyway?

Having performed a number of actual rescues and having watched all sorts underwater embarrassments and potential emergencies, I can tell you that this is completely false.

The only difference between a 60' dive in warm crystal clear water and a 60' dive in the Great Lakes is colder water and less visibility. You can die just as easily somewhere warm and happy as someplace cold and murky.

In fact, the warm water dive could conceivable be more dangerous, since it typically comes with a DM that the divers trust with their safety. The Great-Lakes dive comes with nothing but your buddy and the knowledge that if you screw up you could die. This is identical to the risk in Warm Water, however people tend to not perceive it as such.

The biggest danger of the warm water is the unreasoning complacency of many of the instructors who teach in it.

 

[The Chairman]

That's up to you, but had your training been more complete you would not be asking it.

:gans:

Training should never seek to answer all questions, but rather open your mind to the endless supply of questions that exist. It should also expose you to a regimen where questions are not only answered but encouraged. No matter how long the training, people forget or get confused. Why belittle them for showing enough courage to speak up?

The sort of training that we are advocating is not onerous and once was the norm and was easily available.

One wonders why it fell out of favor then? Your kind of fun kept me from getting certified for YEARS. Perhaps your concept of "onerous" needs to be revised?

I am highly risk adverse an attitude that was tempered by years of responsibility to: first, a committee of my colleagues, second to my Dean or Director and finally to the institution I worked for; and my responsibility was not to, lower the risk to some acceptable accident rate, or tho "do the best I could," it was to run a "zero defect" operation.

Thal, we know where your paranoia came from. It appears that many in the diving industry feel that you sacrificed the FUN of Scuba to the Gods of Paranoia.

The agencies appear to have a very different view, a view that many instructors appear to buy into: there is no demand for "zero defects," but rather there is an optimized equation balancing the cost of defects (e.g., the price of insurance that results from the injuries and deaths that occur and the graft that is required) against the income from numbers of new divers certified and the books and materials that they buy. I will not work that way.

Welcome to an alternate reality, Thal! I completely disagree with your analysis of WHY we do what we do. We just want to have fun and don't want to earn a doctorate in diving while doing so. If that offends your sense of pervasive paranoia, then so be it. BTW, what are you really afraid of? Could it be that we will find your program a bit over the top for beginning students? Too late. We've already come to that conclusion en masse.

Pete, you continue to insist on on oversimplified one dimensional view of the, "it's the agency not the instructor (or vice versa) discussion. I have numerous time in the past suggested that it is not that simple:

I continue to insist on it, because it fits all the data I have at hand. Your theory fails on many of those facts. Just because you suggested it several times, does not make it a fact.

I'd suggest that the actual differences between your students and mine have nothing to with politics, the differences have to our different views on acceptable risk as I outlined earlier.

I feel like I am in the scene outside the bar in Star Wars. You're Obe One Kenobe "suggesting" to the Star Trooper that "These aren't the Droids you're looking for."

Since we are not competing for the same pool of students the idea that there is an element of a, "'if I don't sell or teach it, it must be crap!' mentality." is an unsupportable base canard.

So, you don't think the training agencies are "crap"? I'm getting a mixed set of signals from you here.

But perhaps you were not addressing me, but you meant Walter? Who were you referring to anyway?

I'm addressing anyone who thinks that their way to teach is the only acceptable way to teach. Its elitism, pure and simple.

The biggest danger of the warm water is the unreasoning complacency of many of the instructors who teach in it.

That's a broad brush you are using. Paranoia causes that.

 

[Crush]

The biggest danger of the warm water is the unreasoning complacency of many of the instructors who teach in it.

+1. I guess by NetDoc's criteria I am paranoid...

That's a broad brush you are using. Paranoia causes that.

 

[Thalassamania]

:gans:

Training should never seek to answer all questions, but rather open your mind to the endless supply of questions that exist. It should also expose you to a regimen where questions are not only answered but encouraged. No matter how long the training, people forget or get confused.

Talk about :gans:
I never suggested that training should or could answer all questions (to attempt to do so is as foolish as trying to stop the tide. What I suggested was Daniel's question concerning his own capabilities and whether they were sufficient for him to keep diving would have been answered if his training was more complete. The mere fact that he has such worries is proof positive that something in his training was lacking.

Why belittle them for showing enough courage to speak up?

No one is belittling anyone, except perhaps you attempting to belittle me, and I really don't mind, I can afford to absorb your disdain without injury.

One wonders why it fell out of favor then?

There is no need to wonder, when DEMA engaged several of us to experiment with short course formats they were quite clear as to why they wanted the longer courses replaced with shorter ones, to produce more customers.

Your kind of fun kept me from gettinng certified for YEARS.

Perhaps that was for your own good, you might not have been ready.

Perhaps your concept of "onerous" needs to be revised?

I tend to use the dictionary definition:
on·er·ous/ˈōnərəs/Adjective
1. (of a task, duty, or responsibility) Involving a burdensome amount of effort and difficulty.
2. Involving heavy obligations.

I suppose that the sort of training I conducted might be found to be burdensome by you, it was never considered burdensome by any who actually took it though. l Like most things in life, you get what you put into it and it sounds like you cheated yourself, too bad.

Thal, we know where your paranoia came from.

Paranoia
Definition
Paranoia is an unfounded or exaggerated distrust of others, sometimes reaching delusional proportions. Paranoid individuals constantly suspect the motives of those around them, and believe that certain individuals, or people in general, are "out to get them."
[/quote]
Nope, doesn't work.

It appears that many in the diving industry feel that you sacrificed the FUN of Scuba to the Gods of Paranoia.

There you make an assumption without any information of data. I could as easily suggest that most of the authorities in the diving world feel that you have sacrificed the FUN of scuba because your students are either delusional and will eventually suffer a panic attack or lack confidence in their diving (ala Daniel) that prevents them from having fun. Such an attack by me, on you and your approaches than the one you have loosed upon me.

Welcome to an alternate reality, Thal! I completely disagree with your analysis of WHY we do what we do. We just want to have fun and don't want to earn a doctorate in diving while doing so.

If you just want to have fun, according to your analysis, you should just go dive. Training, of any sort, is (after all) onerous and not fun. I maintain that there is a minimum level of training that is necessary for someone with an honest appraisal of their skills to be able to enjoy diving as a potentially life long pursuit and that falls somewhere between sixty and 120 hours of training with ten or more dives. Now you can quibble about the exact number and have a difference of opinion with someone else without, perhaps, suggesting that what the do does not fun as an integral part of it.

If that offends your sense of pervasive paranoia, then so be it. BTW, what are you really afraid of? Could it be that we will find your program a bit over the top for beginning students? Too late. We've already come to that conclusion en masse.

You neither know what my program was like, nor have you talked about to anyone who does. A graduate of my program StevePaulet is on this board on occasion and Burhan is very familiar with it, ask them if there was sufficient fun or if was over the top for someone who knew how to swim.

I continue to insist on it, because it fits all the data I have at hand.

When you have no data, then anything fits. Please reference your data.

Your theory fails on many of those facts. Just because you suggested it several times, does not make it a fact.

Man, is that ever the pot suggesting that the kettle might be black.

I feel like I am in the scene outside the bar in Star Wars. You're Obe One Kenobe "suggesting" to the Star Trooper that "These aren't the Droids you're looking for."

You may suffer from the delusion of your choice. You have that right.

So, you don't think the training agencies are "crap"? I'm getting a mixed set of signals from you here.

I think that the courses promulgated by most of the agencies fail to meet some critical criteria that I described earlier.

I'm addressing anyone who thinks that their way to teach is the only acceptable way to teach. Its elitism, pure and simple. That's a broad brush you are using. Paranoia causes that.

Mine is not the only acceptable way, I have never said that. My way in an end point that assures Competent performance from all participants, others have different approaches that reach the same target, from what I can tell, yours does not, and that is not a concern for you. Talk about shenanigans, whew!

Here's a great example of how one diver came out of a short course raring to go, confident and well prepared:

Hi, thought I would post this helpful hint following a bad experience with my OW dives. Let me begin with my bad learning experience, which led to a cure

Just a short 2 months ago, I took a local 2 day PADI class, which included 2 pool sessions each day. My instructors name was Sarah, who had over 400 dives under her belt. Well on my 2nd dive, we had to remove our mask for 1 minute, then replace it...WHAT? take my mask off, swim across the pool, then replace it? YIKES!! well, i got as far as filling the mask 1/2 full before panic set in, and water was in my nose, I went to the top (15 feet) after choking a second, my young instructor said to me, relax and try again. With heart racing, and everone (10 people) watching on the bottom, I tried again,... and again...finally, she said to come 1 hour early for class the second day, and we'd practice.

I showed up the next day, and went into the pool, after working in the shallow end with a new, better fitting mask, I was able to clear, remove mask, and then join the others and complete the task without any problems.

2 weeks later was the ow checkoffs in 55 degree water, wearing a 7mm wet suit at 20 feet, with 5 foot, yes, 5 foot visibility in a quarry in Kentucky. We got to the 20 foot platform, barely able to see each other, and we went for a "fun dive" that's what padi calls the first dive...well, my buddy went in front of me, and after about 10 seconds, all I could see was his white fin dissapear into the ozone, GONE! I became disoriented and for a second, couldn't tell up from down, it was soooo weird. Anyway, I decided to go to the surfacve instead of risking getting caught in something.

After rejoining my group at the surface, we again desended to then 20 foot platform, where we all kneeled down for the dreaded mask removal. I was already freaked out, so when that really cold water hit my nose...I immediately shot for the surface, choking on water, thought I was going to drown!!! My instructor told me to come the next day and practice with the divemaster before doing the skill.

The next day it was raining and colder, but I was certain I was going to do this! Before I ever went into the water, my Instructor walked up to me and said "you have to get this, if you don't get it today, you might consider not becoming a scuba diver"....Yes, she actually said that, there, in the rain, first thing in the morning. At that moment, I failed, in my head, I failed....so...when I went into 8 foot of water with the divemaster, with bluegills biting at my mask, and tried to clear, all I could hear were those words, and I could not go on........why did I tell you all this before getting to the point???!!!!

...

Now that took guts to write, thanks for sharing cookenup.

My point being, I have never heard of such a thing occurring in a 100 hr course, anywhere. We make sure that every diver is well prepared, to have fun ... or do whatever it is that they want to do.