Redundancy Required for Decompression Diving?

[Bennno]

The statement that "Alsolutely (sic) anyone at any skill level can get any instructor rating with most agencies! There is virtually no skill level required." is complete and utter balderdash and nonsense. Every single agency I have ever heard of has at the very least the following requirements for becoming an instructor:

My statement is alsolutely true and every honest instructor (who actually knows the industry for more than a couple of years) will tell you that. You might not be aware of this because you're a new instructor??

Let's hear it you guys, what skills are required of instructors that can't be done or are difficult to achive by a normal competent diver???? Instructor is a PAY-LEVEL not a skill level.

The ones I know all have a minimum number of required dives that will take many days to complete, in addition to any other requirements.

Oh, right, the minumum dives are quite the hurdle... what are they? In average 30 dives for the level or specialty you wanna teach at?

Riddle my this: Here are a tec IT and his buddy diving the BH. How is that possible?

Seriously, how is this possible?

Stuff like this I have seem with my own eye MANY times over the last 20 years done by instructors! I've also seen people kneel down to tigh off their reel in a cave... and I have tons of examples!
IF you guys think, you're great divers, because you got an instructor cert you're incredibly naiive.

I never said every instructor sucks, I myself have been an instructor for 14 years. The point I was making is that the cert/instructor training means NOTHING, anyone can get it, really anyone.

Fun fact: In thailand, some PADI shops used to sell ITC/IE packages with a garanteed pass.

 

[boulderjohn]

If you think there is a risk that your instructor is useless, don't you think that is more likely to be obvious than whether the stuff on a web site is correct?

Ken, what you are missing is the normal ScubaBoard line of thought that leads to conclusions like this. Here it is in its entirety so you can understand it.

1. New divers leave class totally unprepared for diving because the modern instructor doesn't know anything about diving. That is why all the divers you see on dive trips are so totally incompetent.
2. New divers should not take formal classes because they would still be learning from those know-nothing instructors.
3. New divers should instead learn from unpaid Mentors they meet among those people they meet on dive trips. (See item #1.) These divers originally learned to dive from know-nothing instructors but achieved expert status through the process of not being instructors as they practice their incompetence by "just diving."
4. Occasionally those true experts, the unpaid and untrained Mentors, will become instructors. When that happens, some sort of mystical ritual removes all their previous knowledge and expertise, and they are suddenly rendered useless.

 

[jseyfert3]

It is very possible for new divers to have breathing rates similar to tech divers. I have a pretty good breathing rate, although it is by no means fabulous. I certified two old friends a few years ago and have done many dives with them since. The husband matched me from the first day, and neither of us can come close to his wife. When I teach classes that include petite and athletic females, I assume they will blow my breathing rate away on the first dive.

It wasn't their breathing rates I was commenting on. After I punched my air pressures into the Suunto DM5 software it said my SAC (for my first 3 dives after OW cert) was 0.76 for dive #1 and 0.47 for dives two and three, better than some of the other divers on the boat with more dives than me and better than some regular divers on SB (I did a quick search to see how I compared).

My point was that from training and reading, it seems universal to get back on the boat with 500 PSI or more, to leave a reserve, but these two tech divers who brought pony bottles for redundancy drained their main tanks below what they should have, if the pony bottle was truly for redundancy, and they should have, IMO, ended the dive a couple minutes earlier to get back on the boat with 500+, pony bottle or not.

 

[cerich]

With what agencies? I don't know the rules for all of them, but I can't imagine any like that. The ones I know all have a minimum number of required dives that will take many days to complete, in addition to any other requirements.

seems to me his comment was correct. For an instructor to become a sidemount instructor is a 1-2 day process. The pre-req dives notwithstanding.

I

 

[boulderjohn]

Alsolutely anyone at any skill level can get any instructor rating with most agencies! There is virtually no skill level required.

My statement is alsolutely true and every honest instructor (who actually knows the industry for more than a couple of years) will tell you that. You might not be aware of this because you're a new instructor??

Let's hear it you guys, what skills are required of instructors that can't be done or are difficult to achive by a normal competent diver????

Not quite the same thing.
So you think that a beginning diver just out of OW can don a dry suit and doubles and do a valve drill in 45 seconds while holding depth and position? That is not even an instructor level skill--that is a beginning technical diving skill. It takes my pretty experienced and skilled divers quite some time and a lot of practice to get that, and they are not remotely close to being at the required level for an instructor.

 

[Bennno]

I just wanna add one thing before the member of the little SB 'reporters-gang' get a heard attack.
I'm sure someone like Andy is great inrstuctor, but for every guy like Andy there are 20 god aweful, incompetent once out there.

 

[Bennno]

seems to me his comment was correct. For an instructor to become a sidemount instructor is a 1-2 day process. The pre-req dives notwithstanding.

Is there any agency were it actually takes longer?

 

[boulderjohn]

seems to me his comment was correct. For an instructor to become a sidemount instructor is a 1-2 day process. The pre-req dives notwithstanding.

His comment meant that a sidemount instructor does not have to have any particular skills since it only takes 1-2 days to become an instructor. Sure it only takes that long if you show up at the instructor development class with the skills you learned previously during the required experience dives. That is like saying that it only becomes a couple days to become an OW instructor because that is how long the instructor exam takes. In talking about how long that takes, you usually include the couple weeks of intense training in the instructor Development Class.

 

[Colliam7]

seems to me his comment was correct. For an instructor to become a sidemount instructor is a 1-2 day process. The pre-req dives notwithstanding.

I

Now, I am curious. Where / how does someone become a SM instructor in 1 day? Maybe, I am misunderstanding the context of these statements.

 

[Bennno]

So you think that a beginning diver just out of OW can don a dry suit and doubles and do a valve drill in 45 seconds while holding depth and position?

Are you saying you think that's difficult to learn? That's a intro to tec/fundi skill on stundent level.