Questions on becoming a Dive Instructor (Plan sanity check)

[100days-a-year]

TBH, your skills and drive would be wasted as a DM or Instructor.
I have a number of other ex military buddies and quite a few of us gave it consideration but decided to pursue careers that allowed us to dive a lot. In my case I spearfished commercially and was able to dive a lot.
Now if you are really just driven to the teaching aspect then kudos to you.

 

[USdiver1]

Part of the reason people complain about ****** instructors it that many instructor are beginners that rushed through classes and got an instructor ticket early. Many people are super excited early on and quit diving a couple of years later.
I don't know how you can say that diving is your life's passion after 40 dives... but either way, my advice to anyone in your position is to keep diving for a few years and do at least a couple hundered dives before buying an instructor ticket.

^
This!
Diving is one of my life passions [been doing it since 1977]. I must be a slow learner because it took me 32 years and several thousands of dives to become a DM.

Teaching SCUBA is a different skill set than diving, you will know when you are ready to teach. Some of us just take a little longer.

 

[rongoodman]

I'll repeat a point already made. You can have 1000 dives, if it is 1000 times the same dive, that's not enough experience.

On a liveaboard a few years back there was an instructor celebrating his 1000th dive who couldn't orient himself in the water without waving his hands around.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Be aware that, in many agencies, DM is considered less than Instructor.
In my experience it is the opposite.
My progression was Assistant Instructor after roughly 100 dives, Instructor after 150 dives, Full Instructor (3 stars Cmas) around 250 dives:
Then I operated as an instructor for 5 years, and only after that experience I became a DM.
A DM leads a group of certified divers (often tech divers with more experience and capabilities than the DM) at significant depth and in hostile environments, and is responsible for their safety. An Instructor works mostly in a pool or in a benign "open water "environment, at limited depth and with the help of several assistant instructor.
So being a DM, in my opinion, requires much more experience and responsability than teaching novices in a pool.

 

[scubaozy]

In my view, pre professional dive experience is not that relevant for a professional instructor, it does not prepare one for what is coming. Only place you can learn about teaching from others is when you work as an assistant with more experienced instructors or did team teaching. If you did not do this, your only role model are the few instructors who were teaching your owd through dm. Real learning on how to become a great instructor starts with professional experience.

 

[tursiops]

Real learning on how to become a great instructor starts with professional experience.

Yes, but that professional experience can also very much come as a DM to an instructor. You do not completely need to co-teach....

 

[Vitesse2l]

Personally I get a lot of satisfaction from leading dives (two person buddy teams, not groups). Generally UK viz will be around 5m, often less, and temps 10-17c in the sea. Working out the plan, navigation (particularly for a shore dive), gas monitoring, boat procedures, buddy checks, underwater communication and generally executing a dive well is my thing.

Taking students in for training is fine as well but means my dive might be shallower and shorter than normal. It's part of the give and take of being a BSAC club member so I am happy to instruct.

All this is on a voluntary basis, so different to the OP's world. I know I would get fed up if the majority of my diving was spent working through mask clearance drills.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Yes, but that professional experience can also very much come as a DM to an instructor. You do not completely need to co-teach....

Perhaps you mean working as an AI to an instructor.
A DM does not work with instructors, he is responsible for a group of open water divers (which possibly can have an instructor certification, but the DM will command over them during the dive - he is the MASTER)...
But perhaps in some agencies the role of a DM and of an AI can get confused?

 

[tursiops]

Perhaps you mean working as an AI to an instructor.
A DM does not work with instructors, he is responsible for a group of open water divers (which possibly can have an instructor certification, but the DM will command over them during the dive - he is the MASTER)...
But perhaps in some agencies the role of a DM and of an AI can get confused?

I do mean DM, but I'm thinking of a PADI DM working as an instructional assistant during a class. You see all that goes on, and learn from it...both the good and the bad. the more instructors you work with, the better.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I do mean DM, but I'm thinking of a PADI DM working as an instructional assistant during a class. You see all that goes on, and learn from it...both the good and the bad. the more instructors you work with, the better.

So in PADI DMs are employed as assistant instructors? I come from a world where these are two entirely different professionals, with different training and skills...
As already said, I first escalated all the training path of CMAS, up to 3-stars instructor, way before being ready to become a DM...
And I must say that working as a real DM in wonderful holiday resorts is much more satisfying (but also much more dangerous) than training novices.