Again, no answer as to how long you've been diving.
Some of the folks on this thread may not realize how truly inexperienced you are.
Have you hit the 3 year (total diving experience) mark yet?
WW
Point-for-point on what's missing from OW Classes
- Thread starter MikeFerrara
- Start date
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Again, no answer as to how long you've been diving.
Some of the folks on this thread may not realize how truly inexperienced you are.
Have you hit the 3 year (total diving experience) mark yet?
WW
sillygrendel
Contributor
cwb - I'm sorry. You are correct. In this case I mean training.
DiverBuoy I don't believe I ever said that you did produce poor students. I certainly don't believe that MikeF does.
Apparantly somebody is producing a whole hell of a lot of them. Saying that because you and Mike don't, nobody else does is a specious argument.
All I want to know is how this is happening and what needs to be done to fix it. (see my first post, okay second.)
DiverBuoy I don't believe I ever said that you did produce poor students. I certainly don't believe that MikeF does.
Apparantly somebody is producing a whole hell of a lot of them. Saying that because you and Mike don't, nobody else does is a specious argument.
All I want to know is how this is happening and what needs to be done to fix it. (see my first post, okay second.)
wb416
Contributor
Well.... I offered up a hypothesis, but I don't seem to have any takers... emphasis needs to be added on weak areas like trim.
Obviously enough emphasis is being made to the things listed below because due to my unscientific sampling, divers in general seem capable of doing them. So if they can accomplish this, they can achieve other things.
- breath air from regulator
- kick fins to move forward
- remove water from mask to enable you to see UW
I disagree with the continued assertion that there isn't enough time. Think outside the box. Time is the variable here, not the constraint (withing reasonable limits, of course). The performance objectives are the constraints. Emphasize weak points or inconsistent behaviour as necessary in order to get desired behaviours from the students.
wb
ScubaDan
Guest
All I know is that I had 8 pool sessions and 5 ow dives and not once did I hear about trim. As Mike said it is a simple thing to understand and should be taught in BOW. I agree with the majority, trim and bouncy should be taught in BOW not on another class.
Question for you DiverBuoy what do you charge for PPB class and how many pool sessions and OW dives do you get for that.
Question for you DiverBuoy what do you charge for PPB class and how many pool sessions and OW dives do you get for that.
sillygrendel
Contributor
Good points cwb. I got distracted by DiverBouy, whose position I don't understand. Unfortunately I'm beginning to think neither does he. At least he isn't presenting a cogent argument. (from my point of view) Which is frustrating to me and, I feel is distracting to the discussion. I'm not a SCUBA instructor but I don't need to be to argue the points I've been making.
I completely agree with you that more practical emphasis should be placed on trim. I also agree with you that more time time probably isn't as much of an isssue as some might suggest - I think it is more that the industry is stuck in that particular paradigm of instruction. Some can't see beyond it.
I agree with you that demonstrations of proper trim & bouyancy are critical. I also agree with MikeF that before a student reaches OW most skills should be able to be performed neutral (off the bottom).
I completely agree with you that more practical emphasis should be placed on trim. I also agree with you that more time time probably isn't as much of an isssue as some might suggest - I think it is more that the industry is stuck in that particular paradigm of instruction. Some can't see beyond it.
I agree with you that demonstrations of proper trim & bouyancy are critical. I also agree with MikeF that before a student reaches OW most skills should be able to be performed neutral (off the bottom).
detroit diver
Contributor
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CWB-Sorry you don't like my delivery. I never claimed to be a spokesperson for anyone. I can't sit by while someone claims that an inferior course is near perfection and shouldn't be improved.
DB-Troll? Hardly. I post under my own board name, and mean everything I say.
Money? I don't have a problem with people or organizations making huge amounts of money. I do however, have a problem with the WAY that they might make their money (Enron made a bundle too). Yours is one of them. Their intent is to shove as many students thru as possible, and the end result is that the quality at the other end is very poor. Do the least possible, but make it up in volume.
Suggestions? Sure:
1. Spend enough time with a student so that bouyancy skills are achieved. I mean real bouyancy skills, not fin pivot stuff. Incorporate the Peak Performance Bouyancy class into BOW. It belongs there. Charge more for BOW if you have to. The skills are too important.
2. Spend enough time with a student so that they know and feel what it is like to be trimmed out while diving. Let them expeience things that change trim before you turn them loose on the environment to practice. For if they don't know what is right in the first place, they'll only practice what is wrong and reinforce this behavior.
3. Spend enough time with a student so that they learn all types of fin kicks, and are proficient at them. Get rid of the flutter kick completely. Just 'cause it's easy doesn't make it right.
4. Don't certify every Tom, Dick and Harry as an instructor. Most don't know what trim and bouyancy are to even teach it. Require those instructors that you do pass to actually dive other than class work. They might actually see what they are producing.
5. Realize that not everyone that wants to dive has the ability to do so, and weed these people out. I'm talking beyond the swim tests. Some just don't get it, even though they can pass the written test. The instructor gets paid if the student finishes the class, yes? My read is that there is a driving force other than skill completion here.
6. You keep harping on experience being the answer to skill improvement. If the skill is not reinforced correctly before the experience portion, then experience will just reinforce poor habits. You almost got it right: "Time, time, time - not more knowledge." I submit that the answer is time, time, time with the instructor, AND more knowledge. You're trying to shove too much info and experience into too small of a time period. Quit making excuses that busy execs and the like don't have the time. Too bad. If they want to learn, they'll make the time. If not, then this sport is not for them. It takes a commitment to do something right. Your organizations commitment should be to produce well trained, qualified divers. They're not doing that now. Charge a price that will attract qualified instructors to teach, and teach a class that will produce good quality divers. It breaks down to a quality vs. volume equation.
DB-Troll? Hardly. I post under my own board name, and mean everything I say.
Money? I don't have a problem with people or organizations making huge amounts of money. I do however, have a problem with the WAY that they might make their money (Enron made a bundle too). Yours is one of them. Their intent is to shove as many students thru as possible, and the end result is that the quality at the other end is very poor. Do the least possible, but make it up in volume.
Suggestions? Sure:
1. Spend enough time with a student so that bouyancy skills are achieved. I mean real bouyancy skills, not fin pivot stuff. Incorporate the Peak Performance Bouyancy class into BOW. It belongs there. Charge more for BOW if you have to. The skills are too important.
2. Spend enough time with a student so that they know and feel what it is like to be trimmed out while diving. Let them expeience things that change trim before you turn them loose on the environment to practice. For if they don't know what is right in the first place, they'll only practice what is wrong and reinforce this behavior.
3. Spend enough time with a student so that they learn all types of fin kicks, and are proficient at them. Get rid of the flutter kick completely. Just 'cause it's easy doesn't make it right.
4. Don't certify every Tom, Dick and Harry as an instructor. Most don't know what trim and bouyancy are to even teach it. Require those instructors that you do pass to actually dive other than class work. They might actually see what they are producing.
5. Realize that not everyone that wants to dive has the ability to do so, and weed these people out. I'm talking beyond the swim tests. Some just don't get it, even though they can pass the written test. The instructor gets paid if the student finishes the class, yes? My read is that there is a driving force other than skill completion here.
6. You keep harping on experience being the answer to skill improvement. If the skill is not reinforced correctly before the experience portion, then experience will just reinforce poor habits. You almost got it right: "Time, time, time - not more knowledge." I submit that the answer is time, time, time with the instructor, AND more knowledge. You're trying to shove too much info and experience into too small of a time period. Quit making excuses that busy execs and the like don't have the time. Too bad. If they want to learn, they'll make the time. If not, then this sport is not for them. It takes a commitment to do something right. Your organizations commitment should be to produce well trained, qualified divers. They're not doing that now. Charge a price that will attract qualified instructors to teach, and teach a class that will produce good quality divers. It breaks down to a quality vs. volume equation.
Popeye
Contributor
Maybe we should only let the taller, blond haired, blue eyed individuals dive.
Ja, that's it.
wb416
Contributor
Perhaps not explicitly, but certainly implicitly by the associations you have and refer to.
detroit diver once bubbled...
1. Spend enough time with a student so that bouyancy skills are achieved. I mean real bouyancy skills, not fin pivot stuff. Incorporate the Peak Performance Bouyancy class into BOW. It belongs there. Charge more for BOW if you have to. The skills are too important.
You don't really think that agencies teach the fin-pivot as the end-all-be-all of buoyancy do you? All students are doing on the fin tips is to provide real-world proof that fine tuning is done using their lungs not air in the BC. They are expected to arrest their descents by adding a little air to their BC's before they touch down on the bottom and to stay off the bottom for the duration of their dive.
2. Spend enough time with a student so that they know and feel what it is like to be trimmed out while diving. Let them expeience things that change trim before you turn them loose on the environment to practice. For if they don't know what is right in the first place, they'll only practice what is wrong and reinforce this behavior.
I still don't think BOW's can appreciate this during their checkout dives while being evaluated on all of their other skills.
3. Spend enough time with a student so that they learn all types of fin kicks, and are proficient at them. Get rid of the flutter kick completely. Just 'cause it's easy doesn't make it right.
Sure it sounds perfect for a new module. We'll call it Peak Trim and Motor Skills <lol>
4. Don't certify every Tom, Dick and Harry as an instructor. Most don't know what trim and bouyancy are to even teach it. Require those instructors that you do pass to actually dive other than class work. They might actually see what they are producing.
I assure you that you won't pass the IE without complete mastery over buoyancy. In my IE the examiner placed us in 10 feet of water and made us stay stationary in the center of the water column without touching the bottom or surfacing for 5 MINUTES. If you finned, floated, or bounced you failed. IME stories of PADI leniency have been greatly exaggerated.
5. Realize that not everyone that wants to dive has the ability to do so, and weed these people out. I'm talking beyond the swim tests. Some just don't get it, even though they can pass the written test. The instructor gets paid if the student finishes the class, yes? My read is that there is a driving force other than skill completion here.
Not where I work. The instructor gets paid either way. And believe me it's a labor of love for what we make. I want everyone to enjoy the sport, the joys are boundless. I only wish I had the power to remove whatever obstacle a person faces to taking the plunge.
6. You keep harping on experience being the answer to skill improvement. If the skill is not reinforced correctly before the experience portion, then experience will just reinforce poor habits. You almost got it right: "Time, time, time - not more knowledge." I submit that the answer is time, time, time with the instructor, AND more knowledge. You're trying to shove too much info and experience into too small of a time period. Quit making excuses that busy execs and the like don't have the time. Too bad. If they want to learn, they'll make the time. If not, then this sport is not for them. It takes a commitment to do something right. Your organizations commitment should be to produce well trained, qualified divers. They're not doing that now. Charge a price that will attract qualified instructors to teach, and teach a class that will produce good quality divers. It breaks down to a quality vs. volume equation.
12 week courses aren't practical. Their schedules require breaks in-between. Which the PADI curriculum accomodates - dividing it into OW / AOW / EFR / Rescue etc. As well into increments they can afford, many of them living paycheck to paycheck. I'd love to sell a $500 class make it 12 weeks long and require 20 dives before letting them out of my sight. No one would enroll. I think the OW course could be stretched out further, but not by adding any content, perhaps adding another OW dive to give students time to perfect what's already in the course or spread out the existing skill set over an additional pool session.
It's up to us instructors to make it clear to students they are not done because they got their c-card. At the very minimum they need to go all the way through rescue training - before they are a reliable buddy and before they are environmentally aware. Our future depends on environmental awareness.
Honestly, if all this thread has found wrong with OW is that PADI has left out trim, then the program is far more bulletproof than even I imagined. Why with all the noise everyone is making and with all of the woes everyone claims to be seeing surely more must be wrong.
I see bad divers too. But you know what really gets up my craw is when I hear these divers are beyond Open Water certification! What I think would be far more useful for this thread would be to discuss what is missing from the advanced course from AOW. Now that course is chalk full of holes - IMO.
So I'll pose the question: What essential things aren't covered in AOW?
I'll start - no class room, no quizzes, no exam, and no pool sessions. According to PADI it can be taught without any of these. No joke. Students can study at home and bring knowledge reviews to orally discuss and hand-in at the dive site.
1. Spend enough time with a student so that bouyancy skills are achieved. I mean real bouyancy skills, not fin pivot stuff. Incorporate the Peak Performance Bouyancy class into BOW. It belongs there. Charge more for BOW if you have to. The skills are too important.
You don't really think that agencies teach the fin-pivot as the end-all-be-all of buoyancy do you? All students are doing on the fin tips is to provide real-world proof that fine tuning is done using their lungs not air in the BC. They are expected to arrest their descents by adding a little air to their BC's before they touch down on the bottom and to stay off the bottom for the duration of their dive.
2. Spend enough time with a student so that they know and feel what it is like to be trimmed out while diving. Let them expeience things that change trim before you turn them loose on the environment to practice. For if they don't know what is right in the first place, they'll only practice what is wrong and reinforce this behavior.
I still don't think BOW's can appreciate this during their checkout dives while being evaluated on all of their other skills.
3. Spend enough time with a student so that they learn all types of fin kicks, and are proficient at them. Get rid of the flutter kick completely. Just 'cause it's easy doesn't make it right.
Sure it sounds perfect for a new module. We'll call it Peak Trim and Motor Skills <lol>
4. Don't certify every Tom, Dick and Harry as an instructor. Most don't know what trim and bouyancy are to even teach it. Require those instructors that you do pass to actually dive other than class work. They might actually see what they are producing.
I assure you that you won't pass the IE without complete mastery over buoyancy. In my IE the examiner placed us in 10 feet of water and made us stay stationary in the center of the water column without touching the bottom or surfacing for 5 MINUTES. If you finned, floated, or bounced you failed. IME stories of PADI leniency have been greatly exaggerated.
5. Realize that not everyone that wants to dive has the ability to do so, and weed these people out. I'm talking beyond the swim tests. Some just don't get it, even though they can pass the written test. The instructor gets paid if the student finishes the class, yes? My read is that there is a driving force other than skill completion here.
Not where I work. The instructor gets paid either way. And believe me it's a labor of love for what we make. I want everyone to enjoy the sport, the joys are boundless. I only wish I had the power to remove whatever obstacle a person faces to taking the plunge.
6. You keep harping on experience being the answer to skill improvement. If the skill is not reinforced correctly before the experience portion, then experience will just reinforce poor habits. You almost got it right: "Time, time, time - not more knowledge." I submit that the answer is time, time, time with the instructor, AND more knowledge. You're trying to shove too much info and experience into too small of a time period. Quit making excuses that busy execs and the like don't have the time. Too bad. If they want to learn, they'll make the time. If not, then this sport is not for them. It takes a commitment to do something right. Your organizations commitment should be to produce well trained, qualified divers. They're not doing that now. Charge a price that will attract qualified instructors to teach, and teach a class that will produce good quality divers. It breaks down to a quality vs. volume equation.
12 week courses aren't practical. Their schedules require breaks in-between. Which the PADI curriculum accomodates - dividing it into OW / AOW / EFR / Rescue etc. As well into increments they can afford, many of them living paycheck to paycheck. I'd love to sell a $500 class make it 12 weeks long and require 20 dives before letting them out of my sight. No one would enroll. I think the OW course could be stretched out further, but not by adding any content, perhaps adding another OW dive to give students time to perfect what's already in the course or spread out the existing skill set over an additional pool session.
It's up to us instructors to make it clear to students they are not done because they got their c-card. At the very minimum they need to go all the way through rescue training - before they are a reliable buddy and before they are environmentally aware. Our future depends on environmental awareness.
Honestly, if all this thread has found wrong with OW is that PADI has left out trim, then the program is far more bulletproof than even I imagined. Why with all the noise everyone is making and with all of the woes everyone claims to be seeing surely more must be wrong.
I see bad divers too. But you know what really gets up my craw is when I hear these divers are beyond Open Water certification! What I think would be far more useful for this thread would be to discuss what is missing from the advanced course from AOW. Now that course is chalk full of holes - IMO.
So I'll pose the question: What essential things aren't covered in AOW?
I'll start - no class room, no quizzes, no exam, and no pool sessions. According to PADI it can be taught without any of these. No joke. Students can study at home and bring knowledge reviews to orally discuss and hand-in at the dive site.
Ah, there's the rub... It is my opionion that you will not attract the reef basher with a higher quality, higher priced course. Ours is longer, more intense - and I can say with confidence produces a better diver - than the weekend wonders down the road, but we lose a lot of business to the cheaper guys. Indeed, because we are higher priced we only attract those who have the interest to find out why - and even then there are those who want the cheapest - in money, time and effort - C card. If the money price is the same, these folks will choose the course that requires the least time, the least effort and has the lowest standards. There is no easy way to teach these folks the value of anything. But do try... "Of course the game is rigged... don't let that stop you; if you don't bet you can't win."
Agree 100%.
Disagree. The flutter kick is the most efficient kick to get from point "A" to point "B" and is also the most powerful and fastest. Getting rid of it because it isn't the kick to use in all circumstances is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Too true. I have a mental picture that astounded me at the time, an instructor in Vortex, PADI slates (sorry, PADI guys, but they were PADI) hanging for all to see, overweighted, negatively buoyant, verticle, kicking vigorously to maintain her depth, the bottom below billowing clouds of silt like a Space Shuttle launch...
Difficult... difficult... but I agree.
See item "1." above.
Rick
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