Recreational Pony Bottles, completely unnecessary? Why or why not?

[VikingDives]

You should be part of the vanguard trying to work with your fellow instructors around the world to help improve dive training and reduce the number of poorly trained divers, rather than throwing up your hands in despair and saying just take a pony.

There's no vanguard though. There's a few instructors here and there, but there's no way to really push agencies into something they don't want to do. Unless the market (i.e. students) demand better training, they aren't going to get it from the average instructor.

But students entering training don't know what they don't know. I make a point of showing mine the difference in how they dive vs how other students dive, because I charge them more than other shops. I also have fewer entry level scuba students just want the cheapest route to certification.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

And you're an instructor, right? You should be part of the vanguard trying to work with your fellow instructors around the world to help improve dive training and reduce the number of poorly trained divers, rather than throwing up your hands in despair and saying just take a pony.

I try to do my small part in sharing training materials that other instructors can use. I do believe my dive planning doc has been a success (which can be found in my documents link in my signature) as a number of instructors and divers in my area use it, and I've had discussions with instructors in different parts of the world have contacted me about it.

Not long ago, SDI published a 3-part series on how I teach neutral buoyancy and trim.

While all of this is all nice, it isn't significant. I've maybe had positive impact on a few dozen people at most. And how many thousands and thousands of divers are created each month?

I think my cynicism about the industry is not a secret. Easier money streams are the priority. Not quality. Not safety.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I try to do my small part in sharing training materials that other instructors can use. I do believe my dive planning doc has been a success (which can be found in my documents link in my signature) as a number of instructors and divers in my area use it, and I've had discussions with instructors in different parts of the world have contacted me about it.

Not long ago, SDI published a 3-part series on how I teach neutral buoyancy and trim.

While all of this is all nice, it isn't significant. I've maybe had positive impact on a few dozen people at most. And how many thousands and thousands of divers are created each month?

Everyone doing their bit will help. Just by participating in discussions on SB, you may be influencing an instructor here and there. And your students and @VikingDives ' students and students of other conscientious instructors may go out in the real world and influence others. Who knows. Keep up the good work.

 

[boulderjohn]

There's no vanguard though. There's a few instructors here and there, but there's no way to really push agencies into something they don't want to do. Unless the market (i.e. students) demand better training, they aren't going to get it from the average instructor.

But students entering training don't know what they don't know. I make a point of showing mine the difference in how they dive vs how other students dive, because I charge them more than other shops. I also have fewer entry level scuba students just want the cheapest route to certification.

An analysis of this post shows the real problem. You say you charge more and teach more, yet you are using the same agency and standards as the others who are looking at the cheapest route to certification.

• A quarter century ago I was certified in a course that I later realized skipped a whole bunch of standards in order to make the training cheap and efficient. I later taught for a shop with the same agency, and no standards were ever skipped.
• My niece is a certified NAUI diver, but she got that certification with one 2-hour pool session and one OW dive to 10 feet. NAUI standards demand much more than that.

A student fully taught according to WRSTC standards will be a competent beginning diver. The problem is that many, many dive operations around the world regularly ignore those standards.

 

[grf88]

Everyone doing their bit will help. Just by participating in discussions on SB, you may be influencing an instructor here and there. And your students and @VikingDives ' students and students of other conscientious instructors may go out in the real world and influence others. Who knows. Keep up the good work.

I have to confess that I had probably been diving for a few of years before I saw anyone demonstrating neutral buoyancy. I was holding the line doing my safety stop while somebody else was just hanging in the water holding a perfect stop in perfect trim. After that I worked to accomplish the same now that I knew what it should look like. I wonder how many divers have never seen true neutral buoyancy.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

• My niece is a certified NAUI diver, but she got that certification with one 2-hour pool session and one OW dive to 10 feet. NAUI standards demand much more than that.

Hey, at least she got in the water! A friend of mine worked at a dive center and reported a number of standards and safety violations to the agency (which did nothing). This included certifying people without ever getting into open water. Just some pool time.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I have to confess that I had probably been diving for a few of years before I saw anyone demonstrating neutral buoyancy. I was holding the line doing my safety stop while somebody else was just hanging in the water holding a perfect stop in perfect trim. After that I worked to accomplish the same now that I knew what it should look like. I wonder how many divers have never seen true neutral buoyancy.

It is indeed a really great skill. That there are several recreational instructors and former rec instructors on SB who advocate teaching in neutral buoyancy is encouraging. I don't know if they have the same enthusiasm for teaching strict buddy procedures, but I believe it could be just as significant an improvement as teaching the skills in neutral buoyancy.

Divers get lax with the buddy procedures because they leave the class environment and then out in the real world they see people who are lax with the buddy procedures and get the impression it's okay; it's a cycle. But it may possible to put the brakes on that cycle. I'm not an instructor, and I suppose I have rose-colored glasses, er, mask.

 

[boulderjohn]

Around 1967, the Coleman Report on educational performance compared the performance of schools and determined that the instructional program being used did not matter. The performance of students in schools as a whole appeared to be determined by the socioeconomic status of the students attending it. Instructional quality did not seem to matter.

Not long after that, educational researcher John Goodlad tried to determine which instructional programs in use at that time were the most effective. Unlike Coleman, though, he did not just compare total school performances. He went into the classrooms and watched teachers in action. What he discovered was that he could not possibly compare the effectiveness of different programs because many of the individual teachers were ignoring the programs they were supposed to be teaching and doing whatever they wanted.

Research since then has totally turned the Coleman study on its head and determined that the primary factor determining student success is individual teacher quality. When you look at total school performance, what you get is a conglomeration of great teacher performances, mediocre teacher performances, and poor teacher performances--all within the same school.

In a study a team I was on did on behalf of a large school district, an attendance area published the combined average results of a writing examination done at the 4th, 8th, and 10 grade levels. The average scores were roughly the same at all grade levels, and that is all the public was told. As researchers, we knew the hidden truth--not a single teacher had student performances anywhere close to that average. All the teachers either had student performances far above that average or far below that average.

That is what happens in public schools, where teachers have had years of intense and expensive training, and where teachers are evaluated regularly by professionals. Why would we expect scuba instruction to do better?

 

[BoltSnap]

I personally highly doubt that Naui had pony as mandatory equipment

No, never did. It must have been an instructor thing not a NAUI or regional thing.

 

[MichaelMc]

This distinction is key:

All divers should be trained in whatever their chosen protocol is and practice it until it's in muscle memory.

Because only a fraction of divers are that.


If when you say "a buddy" is a better trade-off than a pony for benign rec dive safety, you mean "a buddy well trained, practiced, attentive, and with muscle memory of the right responses", I'd agree.

If you mean "a random dive boat buddy who dives on one trip a year", I disagree.

Talking about the first (well trained, attentive and practiced buddy) when faced with a dive boat of the second (one trip a year divers) is pointless.

If you're not married to a dive buddy of the first type, you need to ask yourself do you want to dive in the Caribbean on vacation or not and what is the best trade-off for your safety?