SDI DMs and up must demonstrate skills while neutrally buoyant
- Thread starter VikingDives
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I'm just trying to work out how one can get all 5 confined water modules done in two hours. Swim test takes 20 minutes. Gear up and down 4 times. 4 exits and entries in scuba gear plus all the skills? And have those lessons stick?
Where does the 2h come from?
LOL! I'll have to remove my like!
2h is certainly not enough time. But, he is teaching SDI, and I'm thinking PADI.
I'm SDI/TDI as well. There's no way by standards I could get through everything in 2 hours. Not even with one private student who got everything quickly. I wouldn't even try to. I usually do a minimum of 5-6 sessions of 2 hours each. And for many students that's pushing it if I want to give them time to practice and have some fun at the end of each session. Plus I teach rescue skills. That's one full session itself.
That was only to achieve decent buoyancy. Not the entire course. When I taught for a shop in which we had two 3-hour sessions, I was able to get through all the skills in 5 hours and have "games" in the last hour. But I started with finning and skin diving skills. That made the transition to NB/T quite easy and fast.
I'm not having a go at you personally. I would love for all of us (instructors) to get on the same page with what and how we're teaching. But, that requires saying correct things to the students. I've been having issues here with the things you are saying that you say to students.
No. Over weighted does NOT equal negatively buoyant. You can be 10# over weighted and still be positively buoyant. Period.
If you are correctly weighted, you will STILL be negative unless you use your BCD to compensate - unless your tank is also empty or nearly so.
We get to the pool around 8am. Usually leave by about noon. Students are generally in the water for about 2 hours during that. They do 5 builds of their scuba unit at the shop, in the classroom, the afternoon before, so no pool time wasted for that. They do the swim test at the very beginning, before donning wetsuits.
Regardless, I don't find any of these "requirements" that you are asserting in the Standards. Am I missing something? Are they in another area of the SDI Instructor documentation?
I didn't believe it could be done, either, when I moved here and joined this shop. My prior experience was always 2 days (full mornings) of pool sessions. But, I showed up to help with my first pool session with an open mind. Seeing is believing.
No, I don't generally read the SDI blog at all. I check the headlines in the email newsletters and occasionally read an article if it sounds particularly interesting, but it is pretty rare that that happens. Slightly more often with the TDI articles. It's nothing personal. I don't even look at who wrote the articles unless I happen to decide to read one, and then I *might* give notice to who wrote it.
I'm not trying to be pedantic. I genuinely believe that telling students that weight, buoyancy, and trim are not separate is doing them a disservice. As I have already explained.
Divers should be able to maintain their buoyancy even if they do happen to be over weighted. That skill will serve them well should they ever be fortunate enough to dive with a steel 100 or 120, instead of an AL80. I have dived with more than one person who was taught that weight, buoyancy, and trim are not separate - divers who dived with a steel 100 for the first time and found their buoyancy was totally screwed. And in their minds, they felt heavy so they concluded that their problem was too much lead. Even though they had actually adjusted and were correctly weighted for the new tank.
Had they been taught correctly, they would understand that they were correctly weighted and the problem with their buoyancy was not that they were over weighted - rather that their buoyancy control was not as good as they thought. That they are carrying more gas, so they are more negative at the start, which makes buoyancy harder. So, they need to focus on improving their buoyancy control, not start removing lead (which would leave them too light at the end if they happened to breathe their tank all the way down).
Divers should understand that trim is "whatever orientation your body is, in the water". Trim is not "being horizontal in the water". And "good trim" is whatever orientation makes your current task the easiest and most efficient. Good trim is NOT always being horizontal. And, as someone else already pointed out, you can demonstrate perfect buoyancy while hovering in the Buddha position. Your buoyancy is unrelated to your trim. They ARE separate.
When you tell new divers that weight, buoyancy and trim are not separate, you make it REALLY hard for them to diagnose and fix issues. "I keep tilting forward. Does that mean I need to change how much lead I'm carrying, or breathe differently, or what?" How do you expect them to diagnose and fix issues if you teach them that all those things are not separate? You're telling them that they might need to change any or all 3 of those things.
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