Rumor control - DM logged dive requirements?

[DCBC]

DCBC - and there's the real issue behind all of these sorts of discussion. Diver certification has become a business apart from the business of diving. PADI doesn't care about anything beyond their certification and travel business.

I believe that PADI is a professional organization and as such has to weigh many factors in the creation of its business plan. The needs of Society at-large are a factor and as such all organizations have "modified" the standards of divers and instructors over the years. PADI has just "modified" them in such a way to give them a marketing advantage.

Arguably, there have been technological advancements in diving equipment and what was expected in the past, is no longer required. I'll give an example... When full-jacket BCs came out (instead of ones worn on the front only), an argument in the industry was that the "new" BC would keep an in-water victim in a vertical position inhibiting in-water AR, but this as you know was overcome by industry. Then back-mounted wings came out (about the same time), but these were found to float a diver face down in the water (a definite no no at the time). These models were discontinued and companies that produced them went out of business. Today if you walk into a dive store and tell the salesman that you want to purchase the best BC he has in the store, what do you think that is?

Besides how many diver's are ever required to do in-water A/R? Oh yes, this requirement was discontinued because it was thought of as an unsafe procedure because the rank and file were unable to do this safely (due to a lower degree of training) as they lowered the standards and it wasn't a requirement... Remember they call this progress...

People's attitudes change for many reasons. Diver safety use to be the most important factor. Standards were a lot higher (although some higher than others). On another thread, a DM candidate completed an in-water test. His comment was that I DID IT! Certainly congratulations were in-order, but the test he was referring to required him to exchange his SCUBA equipment underwater (some comments even questioned the usefulness of this exercise). I couldn't help but say that my OW students were required to complete this under blackout with harassment before they became certified. It builds confidence and better prepares the diver for an emergency (it does this without question). Times have changed. What it means to me is that as far as in-water ability is concerned, today's instructors have to prove less than OW divers had to prove in past years! B by my own admission however, I'm from the old school and part of a dieing breed. Divers today would have difficulty understanding my perspective.

 

[Kingpatzer]

I believe that PADI is a professional organization and as such has to weigh many factors in the creation of its business plan. The needs of Society at-large are a factor and as such all organizations have "modified" the standards of divers and instructors over the years . . .

As part of a business plan, PADI (as a business) would be absolutely wrong to consider anything beyond the minimum requirements within their training structure to maintain and grow their business.

If they can figure out how to turn OW into a 2 hour course, they will. The entire "Dive Now" philosophy, the move to on-line classroom, and other changes are all moves designed to minimize training costs and time to the minimums they can get by with without creating so many diver accidents that the negative publicity reduces new certification clients to the point where they start to lose market position or growth fails to meet their goals.

That point can never be forgotten in these discussions.

If this change is in the works it isn't about diver safety. It's about the PADI bottom line, period.

 

[DCBC]

As part of a business plan, PADI (as a business) would be absolutely wrong to consider anything beyond the minimum requirements within their training structure to maintain and grow their business.

If they can figure out how to turn OW into a 2 hour course, they will. The entire "Dive Now" philosophy, the move to on-line classroom, and other changes are all moves designed to minimize training costs and time to the minimums they can get by with without creating so many diver accidents that the negative publicity reduces new certification clients to the point where they start to lose market position or growth fails to meet their goals.

That point can never be forgotten in these discussions.

If this change is in the works it isn't about diver safety. It's about the PADI bottom line, period.

You're singing to the choir. I was called by PADI (several years back) telling me that they received a complaint from a competitor that I wasn't teaching to PADI standards. The complaint was that my course surpassed the training time specified and that I was imparting "advanced skills" to the students.

"How was I going to get them back on an Advanced Course, if I taught these skills in my OW Course?" My response was "What if they don't come back for more training?" I wanted to be confident that they were trained to what I felt was reasonable (considering the shrinking training standards). The conversation ended with me telling PADI that if this was a problem, I wouldn't teach PADI courses and would feature other certifications. The guy just said, "Don't worry about it, but I hope you can understand our position."

I have always maintained that the standards are minimums and it's up to the instructor if he wishes to surpass these. This of course is complicated by Dive Store Owners who want students in and out quickly; ching ching! In the past, this has put my SCUBA programs at a competitive disadvantage.

When I ran a Commercial Diving Training Centre increased training was seen as an advantage, not a disadvantage. Commercial operators were more satisfied that graduates from my school actually knew what they were doing and were comfortable in the environment. The ticket wasn't all they looked at. As a commercial operator I too evaluated the hireability of a student largely based upon where he received his training. This use to be true about SCUBA divers as well, an instructor's name was important. Somehow this has been lost in translation...

 

[SailNaked]

Seems that all the dive operations that I have used recently that use DMs have made me sign a release that actually states that they are released from any responsibility including negligence. so if I want to dive with them then I have to accept responsibility for their negligence. I rented a tank from a shop and the same wording was in the form, I have to accept the tank even if the level of CO is deadly at 100 ft.

Some courts will not hold that up but some will. Do you know if your destination vacation court will hold the operation blameless for filling your tank with carbon monoxide?

How is this relevant? Standards of training, if a DM is not really responsible then what difference does it make how they are trained? if all they have to do is swim up and down a reef pointing to the star fish why do we need more practice before we can learn to do so, most of us learned it in OW.

I have no problem being harassed in a DM course, I think that while I am trading gear underwater someone should turn off one of the tanks (not both). I think someone should snatch a mask from one of us. but I think that is fun and would love to have the opportunity to work it out underwater for my own edification not because I think a DM needs this kind of training to do his job of escort or backup rescue diver or tank schlepper.

I support higher standards of training, Training makes better divers not dive count. I have seen divers with a hundred dives have horrible trim and struggle with their buoyancy, a little coaching goes a long way towards resolving problems the diver does not even know exists.

 

[lord.harshil]

When I travel, I often dive with DM's who have less overall experience than I do. I am not hiring them for their experience ... I'm hiring them for local knowledge ... which they have more of than I do. Their primary value to me is to help me get the most value out of my dive time by choosing appropriately interesting dive sites, and helping me locate and recognize local critters.

If a DM can do those things, I really don't care how many dives he or she has.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Happened to me last weekend. I'm a recently cert DM and I was attached with an older tech diver with roughly twice the number of dives I have. She was still very much happy to let me bring her around since I knew where the wrecks were, where the reef was and where to look for critters whereas she had the experience and comfort in water that I didn't have.

I spent the 6 dives learning about trim and a bit of decompression theory (was very very tempted to try some mild decompression but ended up deciding not to on my single AL 80) and we both practised SMB deployment together at the end of each dive. I was less than proficient in these and I was very happy to have a more experienced diver to guide me along.

She spent the dives learning about the local sites, where things are and things like that. She was very happy when I found sponge crabs for her and let them crawl on her arm. She wasn't too happy when over 6 dives she was stung by jellyfish, bitten by damselfish and pinched by a crab that was smaller than my thumbnail. She enjoyed the trip as much as I did.

It has to be both - training and 'doing'.

Any training course should provide you with the skills and knowledge to do a particular activity. However, only by doing that activity do you then become competant at it.

Anyone fresh out of training, who has not yet had the opportunity (or subsequently not taken the opportunity) to engage in utilising that training cannot be considered competant at that activity. They have not applied that knowledge and become proficient in using it.

Specifically with scuba diving, all entry-level divers should equipped with the skills and knowledge to operate as complete, functional divers, independant of professional supervision. However, the overwhelming trend is for those divers to hop from course to course (under the supervision of an instructor) or to only go on escorted fun dives (under the supervision and guidance of a divemaster).

The greater majority of scuba divers - regardless of the number of years they have dived, or the number of dives they have completed, have never been in a situation where they were the most experienced diver in the team and had taken complete responsibility for themselves.

When some of these divers subsequently enrol on professional level courses, their lack of experience applying the training, they have previously recieved, becomes instantly apparant. As such, the DM course has to achieve the dual goals of training them to become a basically competant independant diver AND a dive leader. As such, the effectiveness of that training course is diluted and the end product is considerably weaker.

SailNaked is correct to ascertain that simply raising the minimum requirement of dives for entry to the course is somewhat pointless. What matters is that the diver has done a sufficient number of independant dives to have applied the training they have recieved on previous courses and developed the ability and confidence to dive effectively without supervision and guidance.

As such, only a pre-course assessment of ability would determine and guaranee that a diver had gained the requisite knowledge and experience for DM training.

However, when one looks at the training pre-requisites for entry on a DM course (OW, AOW and Rescue) we can see that it only accounts for 12 dives. Leaving the diver with only 8 dives to be completed before they could enrol on DM training. There is no way, regardless of the divers personal ability, that 8 dives (even of high quality and independant of supervision) could supply them with sufficient opportunity to have applied and ingrained the skills they had learned on courses. In addition, such little in-water experience will not have provided them with sufficient variables and events to have developed their overall breadth of experience, judgement, and ability to recognise problems and engage effective problem-solving skills to deal with them.

As such, the current dive pre-requisite is ludicrously low. It allows a ratio of training dives to independant dives of 3/1. A more appropriate training/independant ratio would be 1/8 (hence 96 dive overall requirement...rounded up to 100 dives!).

100 Dives for DM training. I agree with that!

I think the number is just a figure. A DM with 100 dives is bound to be better than one with 10 dives. Yes, there are exceptions but the average diver improves over time and I think everything in the dive industry has a lot to do with instructor standards rather than agency standards.

Agency standards are ridiculously easy to pass, instructor standards are often not.

Perhaps it should be changed to 60 UNSUPERVISED dives instead since I found that I learned a LOT more when leading divers without any help from the instructor (not in planning and not in the dive itself) than when I was merely tagging along to make up the numbers.

 

[DevonDiver]

I have always maintained that the standards are minimums and it's up to the instructor if he wishes to surpass these.

I have a solution to this. PADI's standards only apply to training dives and courses.

I add my extra components, where they specifically exceed stated standards, outside of the course. There are no rules governing what you may or may not do on a fun dive.

Somebody wants to learn wreck diving? Sure, no problem. The first 4 dives are the PADI wreck course dives...they allow me to get to the stage where a student has sorted their buoyancy, trim, finning and had plenty of practise laying line (not in overhead environment). Course over, here is your card. Now, you are a qualified wreck diver (PADI card holder)...lets go fun dive on some wrecks. This is where I do my real work with penetration skills, team skills, line skills and emergency skills. I am not breaking standards, it isn't a PADI training dive. My customer has a wreck diving qualification. I am a qualified wreck instructor. What we may or may not do is our concern.

Perhaps it should be changed to 60 UNSUPERVISED dives instead since I found that I learned a LOT more when leading divers without any help from the instructor (not in planning and not in the dive itself) than when I was merely tagging along to make up the numbers.

Yeah, that would be a fair comment. I agree. I learnt a lot from my experience doing exactly that. However, it is actually VERY HARD to be allowed to do unsupervised dives, if you are using dive companies that insist of a DM leading customers.

 

[DevonDiver]

When I travel, I often dive with DM's who have less overall experience than I do. I am not hiring them for their experience ... I'm hiring them for local knowledge ... which they have more of than I do. Their primary value to me is to help me get the most value out of my dive time by choosing appropriately interesting dive sites, and helping me locate and recognize local critters.

If a DM can do those things, I really don't care how many dives he or she has.

That is very true. I feel the same way. But we are both experienced and safe divers.

For a novice diver, a good DM has to be much more than just a guide. They should be a 'safety net' for the diver. Not a shepherd leading sheep... but someone with the skills and experience to prevent small problems becoming dangerous incidents.

 

[vjanelle]

A lot of DM practice is also not spent in the water(handling logistics, equipment, etc) in all places. And these people still need to be able to show that they're good enough divers in someone's mind to get hired... Just having a DM card isn't enough. If you have a problem with the DM, you should look higher up on the chain and figure out if you want to be diving with that operation.

They're also not supposed to be responsible purely for experienced (ie, certified) divers... You're certified, you're supposed to be responsible for yourself. The DM is there to make sure you sign your forms, help you with your gear(or set it up for you if that's what the operation does), pat your head, make sure everyone is on the boat before it departs, tell you about the site hazards, details, and guide you there, etc. Granted in an emergency they should handle the situations gracefully, but that's what a good instructor in the rescue course teaches you.

In the few optional roles a DM can do (conduct the local experience dives of discover scuba), an instructor is supposed to be there with them, or the DM is babysitting the student an instructor isn't immediately supervising.

Anything above that is just being a nice person and professional, which they should be striving for anyways if they want you to come back.

Now, what I'd really be worried about is the 1 year & 100 dive minimum that instructors are required to have

 

[Grish]

Given that an OW diver can dive independantly...

..and then goes on to gain AOW and Rescue skills...

...all whilst supposedly independant of an instructor/divemaster...

I would want them to demonstrate their ability to dive BEFORE being formally allowed to begin DM training.

If they can't lead themselves, then they aren't ready to learn how to lead others.

Such a standard, would encourage potential DMs to spend some time developing their diving, planning their dives properly and taking more responsibility, in general, if they were planning on enrolling in a DM class.

I agree with this 100%. I actually recently felt like this was a weakness of mine. I've done a good amount of diving, but always with people with miles of experience on me. It was too easy to let them lead a dive while I looked at critters.

So my personal plan of action was doing some diving in the last month with people I don't know and buddying up with strangers. I stayed with experienced people first, while communicating my need to lead the dive and why; and the last few dives I've done this, it's been with people less experienced than me who might rely on my ability to plan, navigate, and manage a dive. It has made me 100x more confident in my own abilities, and it has made me equally more confident in my ability to be responsible for the safety of others.

 

[NielsBlokie]

Yes, if the customer is more experienced than the DM, they are not going to pay for him as a guide. If the customer is less experienced then you want someone who can handle trouble. Only DMs who have been around a bit know how to head off trouble before rescue training is needed.

Disagree. A Divemaster can function great as a dive guide, as long as he is familiar with the local dive sites. Even with several hundred dives I'd still like to have a guide on sites I am unfamiliar with.
Moreover, when the DM is trained properly, he can function as an assistant in courses since he has shown a basic level of knowledge and skills.

- and there are many professionals who are worse divers than some of the DM's I know with 'only 60-100 dives', since these guys were trained under strict supervision and in many different circumstances.

The problem here is, is that the entry-level of every diver, not only the divemasters, depends mainly on the instructor who teaches the course.

But ontopic: I doubt wether PADI would raise it's minimum amount of dives, since it'll lose customers to for example NAUI. Even though I think that some of the DM's with 60 dives have had sufficient training, it would not be a bad idea to raise the minimum amount of dives to get a somewhat higher quality.