Poll: Were you OW trained to standards?

[rsingler]

What do you do when your instructor isn't savvy enough to know what he's teaching?
Tech instructor, teaching me both PADI Altitude and Deep specialties at Lake Tahoe (6000 ft) over a weekend. Made incorrect statements about computer performance at altitude in fresh water. Didn't make sense to me, but didn't know enough to question it until after.
Did my Deep to 132 feet, which as I learned later was the actual depth, not the theoretical depth, as he had suggested. The theoretical depth was 160 feet, and obviously not within standards. NDL went to 1 min in a heartbeat, and we went up before doing the "look how stupid I am" games to show subtle narcosis at depth.

Later started work for him as an AI. Nothing teaches you theory more than having to teach it. Learned the extent of what had happened before, and tried to discuss it with him. He fired me. (He later got into a lawsuit with his business partner and was forced out, only to take over another shop.)

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

What do you do when your instructor isn't savvy enough to know what he's teaching?
Tech instructor, teaching me both PADI Altitude and Deep specialties at Lake Tahoe (6000 ft) over a weekend. Made incorrect statements about computer performance at altitude in fresh water. Didn't make sense to me, but didn't know enough to question it until after.
Did my Deep to 132 feet, which as I learned later was the actual depth, not the theoretical depth, as he had suggested. The theoretical depth was 160 feet, and obviously not within standards. NDL went to 1 min in a heartbeat, and we went up before doing the "look how stupid I am" games to show subtle narcosis at depth.

Later started work for him as an AI. Nothing teaches you theory more than having to teach it. Learned the extent of what had happened before, and tried to discuss it with him. He fired me. (He later got into a lawsuit with his business partner and was forced out, only to take over another shop.)

Wow!
What do you do?
Well, for a start, after I understood the error if his ways and factoring in his arrogance knowing there was no talking to this guy, I would have went above his head and reported him straight to agency headquarters. At that point I would figure everyone in the shop is dirty and in on it, and I would prepare myself for the possibility of being blacklisted. After reporting him to agency headquarters with specifics it’s their problem. If somebody got hurt or killed on his watch it’s off you and at least you could rest knowing you did what you could and didn’t perpetuate some ridiculous code of silence.

 

[rsingler]

Well, actually, that's just what I did. I made a formal report to PADI. Personally, I never even received an acknowledgement of my report, much less a formal response. That was the beginning of my growing mistrust of the PADI QA process, culminating (as I'm sure it has for many instructors) in their failure to suspend Debbie Snow for a year following that incident. But it seems likely that PADI followed up with the instructor in question, since I was fired as an AI from his shop, and received a letter from him threatening to blacklist me throughout the area for "poor instruction" around the same time. I replied roughly, "Bring it on!" It was obviously an empty threat, since after the lawsuit alluded to above, the remaining shop owner hired me back and all has been well since. I'm still part of the PADI system, since their instruction materials are good, and I can teach independently, if I desire.
But he's still a PADI Instructor too, and still owns his new shop, so nothing really changes. Except we now receive more emails about the importance of standards in the PADI system. Which is improvement of a sort, I guess.
It all proves the old ScubaBoard saw, "It's all about the Instructor, not the agency."

 

[divingdayz]

I was definitely trained to standards in St. Helena. Again, it's different between a club set-up and a resort set-up. I currently work in a resort set-up, and although we certainly teach to standards, and often certify people as 'scuba divers', unless the student is good, prepared, or willing to do long days, then it can feel a bit rushed sometimes.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I was trained above them partly because I insisted on it. And I asked a lot of questions and did not accept only the book answers.

 

[Klopo]

I was certified last year in September.
My OWD instructor far exceeded the SSI requirements. All skills had to work perfectly in the pool before we went into the water. Since the OWD took place in November and the water here in Switzerland was very cold, the OWD was also done with the dry suit. I was taught this without having to do the special course. I'm currently doing the SSI Deco Diver, and the owner is taking over the "technical" courses. She normally dives CCR, caves and mines. She does a wonderful job and also exceeds the requirements by far.

 

[FeudalGooch]

I did SDI open water, central Florida. I feel like it was beyond standards. All that were in the class did well, learned quick, so there were times for some extra skills/practice/discussion. It also helped we trained in a busy warm water training lake with poor visibility. Really makes you appreciate good visibility dives, let's you focus on skills instead of looking around at reefs.

 

[Waterwulf]

My first official diving course was in Southern Germany in 1972. I was trained to European Standards at the time. It was pretty easy and fun because I had already been diving for a few years unlicensed. Then in 1974, I came back to the States, settled in Florida on the coast and and took another diving course. This was a NAUI course offered by some "nice gentlemen" who lived and worked on the Hurlburt Special Operations Field. In reality, they were vicious, psychotic sadists who trained us with an enthusiasm that was probably criminal and I loved every one of them for it because their training made staying alive easier a few times in the years since.

One of their favorite drills in the pool, was the Buddy Breathing Marathon. They would drop a tank with a single regulator on it every twenty yards or so around the perimeter of the pool. Then the class was divided up and we all got into the water over one of the tanks. We had to submerge and swim from one tank to the next taking a breath at each. If anybody surfaced before all of the tanks were empty, we all had to do it again. It taught teamwork and self control.

At the end of the pool class work, we had to do the Hell Dive. We had to carry all of our gear to the top of the high dive, jump off and get dressed underwater on the bottom of the pool while the instructors swam around you yanking stuff back off, turning off your air, turning on your j valve reserve, etc. and do it all with a blacked out mask. I found out later that the only thing that would fail you, was surfacing without permission but forgetting to check your J Valve got you forty pushups. It taught us not to panic and to think it thru.

Out in the Gulf for the open water part of the class, we had to descend to sixty feet, drop the regulator and surface with no air. We were all attached with dog leashes to an instructor and told by him: "I want to see air bubbles coming out of you on the way up. No air bubbles means you get punched in the guts as hard as I can. Understand"? We did and everybody blew bubbles! Then we had to do three dives to a hundred foot plus over the next few days and we graduated!

Their training was above and beyond the NAUI standards in my opinion but they trained us the way they had been trained and they were all some kind of Special Forces Soldier. The training was hard but nobody died!

 

[undefined]

This is such an interesting topic. I've come to the conclusion that diving instruction is like real estate, the best time to buy is always at some point in the past.

My wife and I have a pile of PADI certification cards thicker than a deck of playing cards. At every step of the journey I felt like we were getting good instruction, but I had nothing to compare it to.

I will say this.... our rescue instructor was a sadistic SOB cave and wreck diving maniac that took great pleasure in making the course as hard as can be. It was the best training or educational experience of my life, and I look back at that as the moment when we rose to some level of competence that might have been respected by those that certified in the years before us.

We're now parents and are working on getting our son up to snuff with his diving. He certified the modern PADI way. He has since been diving every weekend, completing his 23rd dive today. As a dad, I'll say he can do everything PADI says he should be able to, but I won't let him out of my sight underwater for another hundred or so more dives.

The only way to get good at diving is to dive. Practice. Repetition. Training. Sure, grueling training is awesome and can help a lot, but logged hours and experience is the key.

Had I been born a decade or two earlier I'd have probably gotten better training, but either way it is time and dedication that matter. Those silly cards just let you get on the boat, they don't mean you know what you're doing.

 

[Germie]

I think I was teached below and above standards.

Maybe not exactly below, but there were some things that were not teached, but at the end I had a better course than average due to more in water time than normal:
-We dive in cold fresh water here. I was teached the ow course without gloves. This means you cannot go deeper than 5-6 m. And that for a whole course. It was that I wanted to go 'deep' and absolutely wanted to reach the maximum depth that we did a dive with gloves and went to 17m. (that is the max we can reach here in my backyard). But normally the course was done without gloves
-Navigation was not teached.

Above standards:
-I absolutely did not want to do poolsessions. So I called a lot of instructors till I found one that agreed with doing the poolsessions in open water. (that is allowed of course, but most people here start in a chlorinated pool which I hate and I also try to avoid when teaching myself because I really hate it). I had already done some dives, so was waterfree and knew some things about diving. But never did a course. The dive experience was about saying I had a cert in Asia and nobody found out I did not have. Also as a kid in the swimmingclub some parents took cylinders with them and we have done competitions of underwater swimming in the pool with cylinders. So I was not afraid of doing it and absolutely did not want to waist time with others or in a pool.
So the poolsessions and the normal dives where all normal dives. So I got 12 dives instead of only 5. It was a 1:1 course, this is quite normal here. Only commercial divecenters do it in groups of 4 with short dives, but there are a lot of independent instructors here that teach courses on demand.

I was not an average student. The skills were easy and mastered in 10 minutes. So I really got normal dives.
The dives were done in a 7mm wetsuit with a hood, but without gloves. Before the 12 dives where done I had my own equipment and had done some dives with a friend, also with gloves of course (we went to 22m then, really great, 4 degrees water, dark, we needed a light, etc).

The point I did not like was that the instructor told me every time that deep was boring. But I was already interested in technical diving. On 1 of the first dives of the course I saw people with a twinset and asked what that was and the answer of the instructor was: 'That are divers that go deep and that is boring'. So then I was interested in going 'deep'.

So my open water was ok. But on some points it could have done better. I don't have contact with the instructor anymore. I saw him a few times, and he told me again that deep is boring. Why? That is an opinion. But don't tell it as the only way to do diving.

My advanced open water was a course I did not learn anything. I had already 55 dives, so 'too much' for a padi advanced course. The instructor followed exactly the standards, we had a lot of fun and accepted each other. I had to show him 24m for the deep dive as he did not know where to find in a lake. The navigation dive was easy as I already learned myself how to use a compass. But we had a lot of fun. I still have contact with him. In my eyes he was a great instructor. We both accepted each other as we were. And he liked my plans for technical diving. If we see each other again, we talk about diving, but are really interested in each other about the dives. He still only does recreational sportsdiving, but he accepts my way into tech and finds it interesting.