PADI vs NAUI

[Hawkwood]

I...
@DCBC you won't find PADI OW divers trained in sub-surface rescue, gas management or a huge focus on buoyancy, it's not part of the course. ....

On what basis do you make this statement?

 

[261311]

The same basis that you can find in any distributed OW manual. Right now the course currently focuses on surface tows/ swims for exhausted divers, very low gas management skills (maybe this is a difference in semantics*) and the basics of buoyancy and how to achieve it. I wouldn't call those focused topics because it wouldn't be in PADI's best interest to do so given they have PPB, Nitrox, Tech and Rescue courses available to teach you these things. I won't refer to what is in the NAUI manual, if anything because I have not read through it so I wouldn't know. I'm only speaking of PADI through the experience of myself and others.

I agree with you all, I'm not saying there aren't instructors who don't teach extended diving as parts of the course. I'm respectfully disagreeing with you by discussing what the standard course contains. Every course has its limits and time, that's why I think personally NAUI is more successful at allowing instructors to feasibly test revised limits with authority rather than a stern finger. That doesn't at all mean I don't agree with Quero that the limits and standards can be broken or grossly missed by instructors from other certifying bodies- I'd have to be clinically insane to think that. That's a topic for individuals imo, not the certifying body.

*I don't feel telling students to keep an eye on your SPG and return at 500PSI as 'gas planning'. I define it as learning about SAC's and being able to semi-accurately map out a single profile dive.

 

[lowviz]

...//... PADI is finite in its time and cost, it's run as a business. NAUI is run as an organization for dive safety.

You should give this opinion some serious research. Absolutes tend to dissolve a bit when wet.

 

[boulderjohn]

The same basis that you can find in any distributed OW manual. Right now the course currently focuses on surface tows/ swims for exhausted divers, very low gas management skills (maybe this is a difference in semantics*) and the basics of buoyancy and how to achieve it. I wouldn't call those focused topics because it wouldn't be in PADI's best interest to do so given they have PPB, Nitrox, Tech and Rescue courses available to teach you these things. I won't refer to what is in the NAUI manual, if anything because I have not read through it so I wouldn't know. I'm only speaking of PADI through the experience of myself and others.

I agree with you all, I'm not saying there aren't instructors who don't teach extended diving as parts of the course. I'm respectfully disagreeing with you by discussing what the standard course contains. Every course has its limits and time, that's why I think personally NAUI is more successful at allowing instructors to feasibly test revised limits with authority rather than a stern finger. That doesn't at all mean I don't agree with Quero that the limits and standards can be broken or grossly missed by instructors from other certifying bodies- I'd have to be clinically insane to think that. That's a topic for individuals imo, not the certifying body.

*I don't feel telling students to keep an eye on your SPG and return at 500PSI as 'gas planning'. I define it as learning about SAC's and being able to semi-accurately map out a single profile dive.

You have apparently accepted limitations that others do not. I am sorry to hear that.

 

[Quero]

...only one will back you up if you're outside those standards in denying someone a certification for something extremely important based on local conditions.

This statement indicates that you lack an understanding of PADI standards. PADI has both general standards and specific performance requirements. When people decry PADI "standards" as some in this thread do, they're generally referring only to specific performance requirements for individual courses. In fact, however, according to the general standards, PADI instructors are required to consider local conditions and prepare students accordingly. If students are unable to cope with these conditions, they will not pass the course, meaning, of course, that certification will be denied.

For example, in a location where local diving is at high altitude, the necessary information/skills regarding altitude diving must be developed despite the fact that there is no performance requirement stating that all OW divers must be able to demonstrate the use of special tables for high altitude diving (among other things characteristic of these areas) for their open water dives. If a diver cannot cope with the local conditions, the local instructor will withhold certification. The instructor's decision will be backed up by PADI since the standards under which the instructor has denied certification are the general ones, regardless of the fact that altitude adjustments are not part of the "standard course" performance requirements. Now, the student diver may request referral documentation so that s/he can go complete his/her training at a sea-level open water destination and receive a certification, but the student also signs a statement upon certification that s/he understands that s/he is certified to dive in conditions similar to those under which s/he was trained. You are clearly uninformed in regard to PADI standards and your categorical statements are inaccurate, so perhaps you should be asking questions about standards instead of making pronouncements about them based on an incomplete understanding.

I think the same terrible PADI divers would be those same bad divers through NAUI- the only difference being the ability to deny certification

...you won't find PADI OW divers trained in sub-surface rescue, gas management or a huge focus on buoyancy, it's not part of the course.

Again, you display a lack of understanding of PADI standards. We PADI instructors are not required to certify "bad divers." If a student diver is bad, s/he will not demonstrate performance requirements as outlined in the standards and certification can justifiably be denied. You have specifically mentioned a) subsurface rescue, b) gas management, and c) buoyancy as areas where PADI divers will by definition be deficient (and by implication NAUI divers more likely to be better prepared).

a) In fact, PADI divers are trained in sub-surface rescue; what do you think the OOA drills are all about if they are not sub-surface rescue? It's true that PADI divers are not required to learn to surface an unresponsive diver. This is part of the less-than-teaspoonful of difference between the two agencies' performance requirements.

b) As far as gas management goes, in fact PADI students can be required to calculate SACs as part of a PADI OW course and the instructor may deny certification if they are unable to do this; the denial would be based on a failure to perform the requirement of dive planning, which is explicit in the standards for OW training. What PADI instructors cannot do is change the written test, but that really doesn't matter if the performance requirement for dive planning isn't met. In some locales such as the Pacific Northwest, how to do SAC calculations is critical information in regard to local diving circumstances, and as such it would fall under the domain of the general standards; in other areas, working out SACs is overkill and planning for thirds is more appropriate; it's up to the PADI instructor to decide what makes the most sense given the local circumstances (and FWIW, nowhere in PADI standards does it say "keep an eye on your SPG and return at 500PSI"--this was YOUR instructor's interpretation of the dive planning performance requirement).

c) And finally, in regard to buoyancy training, beginning in the confined water dives of the Open Water course, student divers are required to swim neutrally buoyant--it's up to the instructor to decide how to bring students up to standard. In fact, there's a thread in our Instructor-to-Instructor forum where a PADI pro describes passing a weight block to student divers as a buoyancy training strategy and another PADI pro mentions giving student divers a bottle filled with air as a training strategy. Handling lead weights and bottles filled with air are not spelled out in the performance requirements, but neutral buoyancy is, so an instructor is fully within standards when asking students to maintain their buoyancy when presented with these challenges. If a diver is unable to control his/her buoyancy, an instructor is justified in denying certification and this failure will most definitely be upheld by PADI HQ if the student were to complain.

The intent of this rather involved explanation is to demonstrate that PADI instructors do indeed have a great deal of latitude in fine-tuning standards to meet the demands of their local diving conditions, and while we are restrained in adding specific performance requirements (such as swimming a mile as a watermanship requirement), and we cannot add test questions to the quizzes or exams (such as requiring students to calculate a series of hypothetical SAC rates and plan hypothetical dives using the result), just about everything in terms of information and training that critics point to as areas where NAUI instructors typicially "beef up" their minimum curriculum can be incorporated into PADI courses entirely within the standards set out by our agency.

PADI is finite in its time and cost, it's run as a business. NAUI is run as an organization for dive safety.

This actually made me laugh, and since it's early morning here, thanks for getting my day started right! But getting back to the topic, leaving aside the implications behind this statement that PADI is uninterested in diver safety and NAUI is uninterested in profit (because neither of these points is true and simply don't merit serious consideration) this bit of your post may actually illustrate where you're continually going wrong in your analysis. Diver training is not simply agency standards as interpreted by instructors--there's a critical entity between those two that comes into play, and that is the dive shop. Yes, Virginia, even NAUI dive shops are run as businesses! In the end diver training by both NAUI and PADI instructors is driven in part by time and cost.

The same basis that you can find in any distributed OW manual. Right now the course currently focuses on surface tows/ swims for exhausted divers, very low gas management skills (maybe this is a difference in semantics*) and the basics of buoyancy and how to achieve it.... I'm respectfully disagreeing with you by discussing what the standard course contains.

Just because it's not in the manual doesn't mean it's outside of standards. Looking at a PADI student manual will only give you performance requirements.

That doesn't at all mean I don't agree with Quero that the limits and standards can be broken or grossly missed by instructors from other certifying bodies- I'd have to be clinically insane to think that. That's a topic for individuals imo, not the certifying body.

My main point in that regard really doesn't have much to do with the fact that there are poor instructors in all agencies. What I'm saying is twofold: firstly that agency affiliation doesn't promise a great instructor--a student diver under the tutelage of a NAUI instructor can just as easily be certified with poor gas planning, buoyancy, and rescue skills as can a diver certified by a PADI instructor. In my experience leading tons of fun divers, both resort-trained and LDS-trained, NAUI divers run out of air just as frequently as PADI divers do, just as many of them swim like seahorses at a 45° angle, and just as many bolt for the surface or stare dumbly at their buddy when a problem occurs; and secondly that agency affiliation does not indicate a low-quality instructor--a PADI instructor (like most of those who are posting in this thread) can be every bit as excellent as a NAUI instructor with a vaunted self-image (as some participating in this thread hold).

 

[supergaijin]

Phew!

 

[Peter Guy]

261311 wrote

PADI is finite in its time and cost, it's run as a business. NAUI is run as an organization for dive safety.

Others, in particular Quero, have responded to this BS -- but I feel a need to pile on.

a. NAUI, even though it is incorporated as a not-for-profit entity, still is interested in "making a proft." If it doesn't make a profit it can't pay its salaried employees or create new materials, do research, etc.

b. Neither NAUI nor PADI teach anybody (at least in any serious numbers). The teaching of classes is left to individual instructors who may, or may not (their choice) get paid for that privilege -- whether they are "blessed" by PADI or NAUI to do so. I know many NAUI instructors and I know (having paid them) that they do this for money (not much money mind you, but they aren't free). I also know many PADI instructors and the same it true for them too.

c. Don't believe what DCBC writes about how much better NAUI is than PADI or how PADI instructors can't do anything that isn't expressly written in the IM.

 

[261311]

This seems to be a constant rate of replies of fire-backs because you all feel insulted, and I can see that its because I'm riding PADI's arse. That's not my intention and I do recognize that there are good and bad instructors on both sides of the fence. I do recognize as well that on both sides instructors, being the evaluators/ final say have the leniency to deny certifications in most circumstances. I'm however trying to illustrate the potential for that 1% of self-entitled diver who wants their certification, but can't achieve it based on slightly heightened instructor-based expectations and the issues they might have between the two organizations. I may have been more successful in my posts if I first mentioned this. At a certain point you have to step back and see that the term "minimum standards" is a much more powerful term legally than "standards". I'll label this as the court based "yeah, but" term. Based on that alone an agency can stand behind their instructors easier and keep unsafe divers who have even a sliver of evidence out of the water and in the classroom learning whereas we might be letting certified baseline incompetence hurt themselves or the environment (largest issue).

A few things (which I'm sure will become quite an extended list):

-I was assured by the divemaster, instructors and assistant instructor at the start of my courses that anything I couldn't find in my books or log, wouldn't be on the test, and could not be tested on lest the shop be subject to legal issues lobbied by students. This was verified when I inquired about the video we sat through and the varied information in it. It was again repeated how irregular PADI material can be at times pending the date of it and to again, follow the most current thing available (the literature). It was a funny moment for the dive shop because at the beginning of training they had outdated tests, and had to explain some of the irrelevant questions and which to ignore but by the end, received the appropriate up to date tests which we ended up writing. Seeing the old testing material, I understand why closely following the current written literature is legally more satisfying and a must via PADI.

-Meeting any standards doesn't make you a good diver, that just makes you a diver who didn't screw up at the time when it happened to matter.

-Call it semantics but I judge rescue based on someone's inability to help themselves. If you're OOA and swim to someone after signaling, that's you helping yourself, same department as CESA or full blow ascent- rescue is serious entanglement, physical danger or unconsciousness. A situation where you require... rescue.

-Regarding gas management, what you're describing (SAC rates) is not listed in the PADI OW Manual. It's very vague in that it explains in detail about the compression that occurs with air, no doubt an important part of gas management, but it stops there. There's merely a focus on planning bottom time, start, bottom and turn PSI rates but reiterates not to run out or pass 500PSI (a-derp, but how?? [a question that was written many a time until I had to take it upon myself to learn privately]). It focuses on very little pre-dive gas planning and preparation and more on reactive abilities. To the credit of the organization it does focus on dive planning including locations, conditions and buddies. To clarify, I count gas planning and management of understanding the air you use, having realistic expectations of what you will use at what depth and how to plan a dive for what you would use based on intellectual math. Given most beginner OW divers run out of air before they hit NDL I'd have to count this as a pretty big deal. It's a good thing much focus is put on OOA response by that merit.

-The requirements for a PADI course is neutral buoyancy but as an instructor I'm sure you know the difference between a student who can achieve reasonable neutral buoyancy, and someone who has been diving for years with experience. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to adjust in buoyancy when handed a light or heavier load under water and to adjust. At a certain point the instructor is satisfied, but that doesn't mean the changing depths of 50-100ft can't bring out the worst in a new certified diver who thought they had the issue nipped. So again, good buoyancy, or just 'acceptable' buoyancy? I don't feel this is at all the instructors fault, but the fault of depth and time restrictions. Frankly however, this feels like an issue from both agencies. I think a reasonable amount of training is to maintain neutral buoyancy 10 feet from the bottom (say 60ft, or diver comfort pending) performing a variety of tasks to pass. Depth still seems to represent a very real mental hurdle in many a divers mind.

-I don't think I need to really explain any further what I meant about NAUI vs. PADI in the way they run their organizations. Maybe it's the frequent corny messages about dive regularly, meet people and keep learning all while inserting the opportunity for PADI diver expansion. Yes it's marketing, but I don't think the frequent placement of such blatant ads are appropriate, I'm not the first to find that cheesy. It's pretty bad when your instructor rolls his eyes at it and wants to continue with the actual class.

-I have never thought it fair to judge someone based on standards or policies that aren't in black and white. If a student signs up and everything they'll be evaluated by with one agency is outlined and the other agency has "oops, we forgot" evaluation surprises that's not only unethical to deny someone by, but probably good cause for a refund. You buy a product based on knowledge, if that critical knowledge is not presented at the time of purchase a refund is expected. In the most basic of examples: I don't go car shopping at an auto dealership for a new car, drop $16, 000 on it, sign the papers and go to drive away and nothing happens because the dealership "forgot" to say the engine was missing. You buy a new car based on the understanding the thing runs and is under warranty. The dealership holding you for an extra $4, 000 ransom for an engine for you to use that car isn't appropriate and in fact is illegal unless stated that it was in some form, a junker.

So again: I don't believe agencies encourage low quality instruction with intent, I just believe one supports its instructors and their judgment calls more than the other. Call if loopholes if you must but if I were an attorney I'd rather fight PADI because their standards are so cut and dry while NAUI's are not always. Does that mean even with those extended judgment calls students of both agencies can suck? Of course. There are bad instructors everywhere. One can even go as far to question why NAUI doesn't have higher quality students given they have more room for evaluation based class and topic expansion.

I'm sure this reply will get me in more trouble with everyone but that's cool. Hashing stuff out in the opening is the best avenue for all to learn and learning is why we're here.

 

[DCBC]

Even a NAUI trained Bonaire diver on her sixth dive is likely to have significant issues diving in DCBC's back yard.

Not if he's trained here Peter. If he does, it's because the Instructor didn't use common sense and didn't modify the Standard accordingly. If he put a weak swimmer into the water (following the 'Minimum Standard') he'd likely be fried by NAUI in the case of an accident.

---------- Post added April 21st, 2013 at 10:38 AM ----------

Do you think all the PADI instructors who have said over and over and over again that they teach gas management and focus on buoyancy are lying?

No I don't John, but this is to the credit of the Instructor not the Agency. Can you require a diver to do anything that's not in the Standards and withhold certification? No. Can you add one length to the swim test because of conditions and make this a requirement? No. You can teach extra stuff, but wither the Student learns it or not doesn't matter. You have to certify them if they learn the minimum. That's the difference. Personally I think it's great that you and Peter add extra stuff. My point is that as far as PADI is concerned, you can't make this a criteria for certification. There's always a chance that you can run into the PADI Police for not conforming to PADI Standards (like I did for including sub-surface rescue)....

 

[boulderjohn]

No I don't John, but this is to the credit of the Instructor not the Agency. Can you require a diver to do anything that's not in the Standards and withhold certification?

This must be the 50th time I and other instructors have responded to this exact same nonsense, so my response is for the intelligent readers who have not encountered it before.

You seem to think that if during instruction a student does not do a skill well, we fail them and send them home. Maybe that's how you do it, but the rest of us keep teaching the skill until the student gets it right. So, technically we cannot "fail" a student for not performing that additional skill right, but we don't fail a student for not doing the required skill right, either. We keep going until they get it. There is no difference.

The same is true of additional material in the academic portion of the course. I don't give give the final written exam until my observation of student understanding tells me they are ready for it. In education terms, that is called formative assessment. The same is true about any additional academic material I provide. I can tell when a student has understood the material. Apparently you don't have that ability, but I am pretty confident that I can do it.