Point-for-point on what's missing from OW Classes

[MikeFerrara]

I was kind of saving gas management for later but now is ok too. The book of course tells them to watch their air gauge but it doesn't tell them anything about what to do with the numbers beyong ending the dive with three to six hundred PSI remaining.
While this may be a viable plan on a 30 ft dive divers are being led on 100 ft dives by resort DM's on their very first dives after certification. This is a trouble area for me. I talk about air management in class but I can't test them on a bunch of math. I do two things. I stress "diving withing your training an limits". Yes that is in the book but what isn't in the book is the fact that some DM will give them the oportunity to do a 100 ft dive or penetrate a wreck their first time out. They may believe that because it is a guided dive that it's ok. I can give countless accounts of new divers getting back to the surface just in time. I also show the video "A Deceptively Easy Way to Die" so they know how clueless some people even DM's are.

I also show them the equipment and gas management that I use for a 100+ ft dive. Since I have started doing some of these things in class instead of comming home and scaring the hell out of me with stories of dives where they were totally dependant on a DM for survival they come back and tell me of the dives that they said NO to.

I had an advanced student recently who was proud of the fact he had done 100 ft dives in the Caribbean and wasn't concerned about the dives he had to do for his class. After questioning him about his dives and finding out how close they cut things as far as gas management I asked if he would have had enough gas to get him and his buddy back. He had no answer other than to say he didn't think so. I strongly feel that I need to give students a heads-up about the subject.

 

[Rick Murchison]

jbd once bubbled...
point Rick. In my OW class in '94 the instrcutor turned off our air and then we breathed until the regulator quit providing air. At that point we gave the OOA signal and he turned it back on. Of course this means we weren't the ones to turn the air back on but it might be a good one to add now that I'm teaching.

Yes... this is the "air depletion" demonstration to give the student an idea of what it feels like to suddenly run out of air. That is distinctly different from what I feel is a training point we need to include, which is the ability to manipulate the valve for yourself. Hardly a year goes by that we don't have at least one fatality because someone jumped in with the air off, or nearly off - none would have been a fatality had the diver simply reached back and turned on their own air.
Which brings up the question... "Do each of you know that you can turn on your own air in the water should you have to do so?" I know that most new divers I see can't.
Rick

 

[MikeFerrara]

Most divers I see wear their tanks so low on their back there isn't any way they could reach their valve. A side benefit of having worked on their trim would be that one of the first things they would have done is move the tank up.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Rick Murchison once bubbled...

We have long pool sessions - typically we complete the "drills" part of the pool session in an hour and a half, and the other hour and a half is "play" time, where we work on trim and buoyancy - in a fun way - games and somersaults and "who can stay in the lotus (horizontal, verticle, upside down... leader picks) position the longest without touching the bottom or breaking the surface" and such. It's real easy to spot our divers among the others at the springs when they go for their first dives.

Yes! There is a big difference between doing a skill once and spending time practicing putting it to use. We set up a buoyancy control course and play all sorts of games. My two favorites are ONE we scatter pennies all over the bottom. The students stuff them into their mask one at a time (without touching the bottom of course) and whoever gets the most coins wins. The other game I like is a mask swap. TWOThe students get in a circle and everyone tears off their mask and passes it to the person on their left. They grab the mask from the person on their right put it on and clear it. As soon as it's on the tear it off and pass it. The game is over when everyone has their own mask again. Of course the idea is to stay off the bottom while playing the game also.

 

[Lead_carrier]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...

Scubadan you weren't taught the way I teach, or your buoyancy and trim wouldn't suck. Your instructor obviously failed however.

Are you absolutely sure the instructor failed. I try to teach proper weight distribution and bouyancy, and week after week I get the same questions. I had 4 of those lead weights, are they all the same size, why do I need to put the weights there. You mean I'll float more if I use a thicker wetsuit?

Yes, I probably failed, I only gave them the information, I didn't tatoo it on their for arms.

 

[Lead_carrier]

jbd once bubbled...
point Rick. In my OW class in '94 the instrcutor turned off our air and then we breathed until the regulator quit providing air. At that point we gave the OOA signal and he turned it back on. Of course this means we weren't the ones to turn the air back on but it might be a good one to add now that I'm teaching.

Turning off the air and then turning it back on is still a standard with SSI, but it is done by the instructor not the student. I don't totally disagree with you on this jbd, but IMHO you should be careful with it, it could open a can or worms if someone, God forbid, was to get hurt doing it.

 

[DiverBuoy]

Lead_carrier once bubbled...
Are you absolutely sure the instructor failed. I try to teach proper weight distribution and bouyancy, and week after week I get the same questions. I had 4 of those lead weights, are they all the same size, why do I need to put the weights there. You mean I'll float more if I use a thicker wetsuit?

Yes, I probably failed, I only gave them the information, I didn't tatoo it on their for arms.

Students need practice time. They don't retain all that you teach. We all encourage them to continue their education and to keep diving. The point is PADI's OW course has the info contained within it to produce competent beginning divers - if the instructor teaches everything contained within the course and if the diver retains everything they are taught and if they keep diving and building on their training with actual real-world experience.

When I read some of the comments directed at inadequate training, bad agencies, missing concepts, I just can't help to wonder to what end. What would be utterly impossible would be to expect any beginning course to produce master divers. Now THAT would be truely ridiculous. Once divers have "mastered" fundamentals - then they can grasp the point of peak performance in their buoyancy and finning techniques. I've taught students who were using fins in OW class for their very first time. My goodness they can barely figure out how to put them on just past the surf zone - with the stress of the next big breaker looming over them with relentless persistence. Doing this without out assistance, swimming as PADI instructs efficiently conservatively in a streamlined fashion from the hip. Doing all this while managing their Air supply, staying off the bottom, watching and signaling with their buddy, avoiding kelp entaglements (or silting up the bottom in a quarry), etc etc. All without assistance. Can you imagine asking them to do helicopter in place movements or move backwards in the water - sheesh!

 

[detroit diver]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...

The PADI OW course isn't the target here ... instructors may fail to teach what is available. The material covers everything required to be a competent diver.

The instructors are teaching exactly what's available. And that's the problem.
________

Length of class doesn't mean quality. Just like price doesn't mean quality. Requirements are stringent for instructors. The requirements are "cover everything in the course". Perhaps the problem is that instructors who fail to do this aren't caught and pummeled often enough. Perhaps PADI could put the quality assurance survey in the mail and require it be filled out in order for the student to receive their card. If more instructors found out what there students were being asked to regurgitate post instruction, they'd be all over their weaknesses. I mean what value is there in filling out an instructor comment card while the instructor stands there looking over your shoulder.

We might actually agree on part of something here. Yes, length does not necessarily mean quality. What it does do, though, is give the student more in-water time to be comfortable, and to perfect his/her skills. As for the quality assurance survey, I would argue that most students wouldn't know the difference to critisize anyway.
_______

Take this up with the recreational scuba training council. PADI does the best job of including everything they require - with elaboration, and illustration, and videos, and charts, and graphs, and books, and cds, and dvds, and on-line materials. As the Ragu commercial says "it's in there". If it's not taught I wholeheartedly disagree with your viewpoint - the instructor is the point of failure.


And who makes up this scuba council? Would there be any influence from the major players???
________

If EVERYTHING covered in their literature is taught you'd always get a competent diver. Problem is instructors don't. Perhaps they spend too much time elaborating on something useless and fail to deliver course.

No you wouldn't. Not if the minimums were so lacking that needed skills were not covered adequately and student did not have the time to practice those skills that were covered and be proficient in them. What does your comment say about instructor training, qualification, and certification?
________

We've already told you - it's too much for the students. When they are done with Open Water they are beginners. If they want to move beyond that they must take more classes. If you feel differently take it up with the agency that sets the standards for all recreational training agencies - not PADI.

Garbage. It's too much for the dollars paid and the time taken to teach them. Give them quality instruction, emphasis on critical skills and time to practice and you will have a higher caliber of diver. Period. PADI could easily do this just by setting the bar higher than the minimum. But it's about money. (By the way, I use PADI throughout here as an example. The other big agencies are equally as guilty. But PADI has the numbers).


I fear that you have in fact not been exposed to enough PADI students (100s) in your lifetime to judge the results. Avoid comparing resort course divers. And the sensational stories you read here on scubaboard. I invite you (sincerely) to come down here to Southern California and dive off any boat in the channel islands with me. Off these boats students carry responsibility for putting into practice the things they were taught.

Wrong. I dive almost every week when we're not totally frozen (like right now). I see students with instructors in lakes, ponds, and quarries. To put it bluntly, it's a disgrace. These aren't resort courses-we don't have resorts around here! The quarry (Gilboa) becomes a surreal scene when warm weather shows up. Tanks down around people's butts, crap dangling from every point on the diver's body, diver's flopping around on the bottom. It's disgusting, and it really makes for a lousy dive later in the day with all of the silt stirred up. Viz at 7 am is around 60-80 feet. By noon it might be 10 feet. And most of these divers are students in class.


For all new divers it comes down to experience. They need time to develop their skills. This is true of every sport - save none. BOW lays the foundation - it's all there.

Of course experience makes a difference. I dont' believe though that they are receiving the proper educational base to build upon. If you're not corrected in class when doing something wrong (because the standards don't require it, or because the instructor doesn't know the difference), then you build upon faulty skills the rest of your life.

____


I just got back from back to back caribbean whirl-wind tour - (including BVI's, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel). I never once saw anything you're describing. Every boat was 100% PADI folks. I know because I introduced myself to every diver and I asked. I met over 40 people. For 5 of them, the first time we met it was their first tropical dive trip and only their 5th dive - if you include their OW checkout dives. And the vast majority of the 40 were beginning OW averaging between 10 and 20 dives. They all did just fine I never saw anything like your describing.

I don't even know how to respond to this. The corals are not being destroyed by careful, competent divers.

The card tells divers they are beginners and have only to get better from here.

PADI shoots for excellence. They have a great program. It's why they continue to stay on top. In a highly competitive price first society, they'd never survive motivated solely by money. They survive because they are excellent. They put out the best quality program for recreational diving. When you train a million divers a year - you can always find someone to bad mouth you. And it is a fact of life you'll have a few bad seeds in your midst.

Sorry, PADI shoots for numbers. The more students they issue C-cards to, the more money they make. The more classes they offer, the more C-cards they issue. They survive because they have an incredible marketing department, and nothing more. You want to talk about shooting for excellence? Let's discuss GUE sometime. They'll have their open water course this year I think. It probably won't be cheap, but it'll put the rest to shame in terms of instruction. But that's another thread...

 

[ScubaDan]

DD you have to realize by now that DiverBuoy would never say anything against or admit that there is anything wrong with PADI. He is so proud of PADI and being part of them he even has his location as Near PADI headquarters.

 

[detroit diver]

I realized that a while back, but the issue is too important to ignore.