My thought is the curriculum must accomodate beginners with no addition dive experience beyond 4 open water checkout dives.
Point-for-point on what's missing from OW Classes
- Thread starter MikeFerrara
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At which point it immediately becomes something quite different from what you proposed (a way of turning out true advanced divers) because nobody with 4 dives has the experience to become an advanced diver in anything other than a paper fashion.
Hey, come to think of it, it becomes exactly what it already is: a cash cow marketing ploy that serves nobody but the person selling it!
WW
OP
If we only use home study that doesn't leave much time to reinforce ideas like this. It certainly leavs no time to prove it.
You mean make more of their decisions for them rather than train them to make their own? What about the diver who has their own boat or beachfron property, where do we put the sign?
Not everyone takes an advanced class but every diver does take an OW class. Changes in the OW class will do far more.
Well Mike, i can only speak for this first class since another instructor taught the classroom portion to the second one. We are team teaching that one.
Anyway i pretty much did the same thing, showed some video of well trimmed divers and not so well trimmed. It really shows up at the safety stops and i had some good stuff i shot in Chuuk to show this, eg vertical vs horizontal while motionless at the stops. As a lead in to the CW training we discuss resistance in water and streamlining. How vertical induces more resistance and therefore more effort for the diver.
Next, after we were done with CW# one, i had two rigs ready to dive, jacket with no integrated weights or trim weights and BP & wing with no weight belt just trim weights. Before they start CW two , i demonstrated hovering with both. Basically horizontal vs vertical positioning. I point out that as long as one can hover basically motionless, either setup works fine but based on earlier discussions horizontal is easier on the diver. This can also be done easily with a certified assistant that is set up differently than you.
IMO its important to not raise the bar too high, so early by telling them horizontal is the only way. On this i agree with DB, at this point we are task loading the crap out of the students. Horizontal is the goal, vertical will work and thats what i tell and show them.
Lastly i showed them how a jacket type BC can be trimmed out better if some of the weights are removed from the belt. This is where is gets difficult to have enough equipment to get everyone weighted for good trim unless i provide the equipment on my own. The LDS won't and i only have so many ankle weights and weights that will thread through tank straps.
Anyway, at some point, i trim each student out with the weights i do have and let them play with the horizontal trim it affords. For four students, i estimate it added about four hours total to the class through CW.
Both classes, i was trying to pay attention to how much better or worse things were going but honestly did not notice any difference in the pool. As you know every class is different but similar problems seem to occur in most such as discomfort with water against the nose exercises.
Teaching hovering has always been a challange for some students but IMO it is much easier to teach than helping someone get over not being able to deal with water against their nose.
That has to be the single most common reason i haven't certified most of the people who didn't meet standards. IME, most do get hovering very well by CW five.
I'll keep you posted on how OW goes for these classes in June.
Jarhead
Contributor
This is the manual we used:
Jeppesen's Advanced Sport Diver Manual
NASE has since published their own manual (last fall) and it is not as extensive as this one. This one is an easy read and available from Amazon as you can see.
Jarhead
OP
My biggest problem with the advanced class is that I'm not taking a student deep if they can't stay horizontal and sink everytime they stop kicking. or if they can't keep track of their buddy. It's darned hard to do complex navigation when your bumping into the bottom or shooting to the surface everytime you look at the compass. Alot of sense it make to learn lift bags before good buddy skills and trim.
The nut and bolts of diving that should be used by every diver on everydive should be tought in the class everyone takes...OW.
OW IS a prerequisite for the AOW course. To get the AOW certification you must complete the AOW course. What part of this don't you understand?
Mike so put the PPB part of my proposal first, evaluate over the next 4 dives, and take them deep on the 5th dive? Or whatever as long as the Advanced class doesn't certify someone who can't meet the performance requirements you listed here.
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Gee, really? So you believe that you can create a truly advanced diver from a diver with 4 dives plus the 4 or 5 in your "new" AOW course?
WW
I probably wasn't clear. The manual we used had NONE of those topics. Because I have yet to get out of any of the PADI course I've taken to date, I downloaded the Navy Manual. Much of my origianl course was based on that, and I've been looking to try to get a bit refreshed on the subjects.
Need to see the curriculum t be sure, but maybe IANTD Adv. Nitrox & Deco may have what I'm after.
I think the topics covered in your AOW ought to be, to some degree, covered in the basic OW. But that concept seems to be met with much resistance by the "establishment".
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