Seeking opinions on NAUI tech training

[BoltSnap]

From experience, it will be difficult to find a "bad" NAUI technical diving instructor. Rigorous training with difficult evaluations, lots of requirements and high standards. The only challenge is to find one since there are very few of them because it is very challenging to become one.

 

[kensuf]

I'm a technical instructor evaluator for NAUI and an IT/Evaluator for TDI, IANTD and the NSS-CDS.

Unfortunately all agencies have bad instructors, even NAUI. One of the worst cave instructors I've ever watched was a NAUI cave instructor, and it was flat out embarrassing (he no longer teaches, thank god).

One of the best things an instructor can do in the process of becoming a tech instructor is to co-teach with multiple different instructors. It gives the candidate the opportunity to watch other instructors teach to the same standards, presenting the material with slightly different methods. Another bonus is working with multiple different classes gives the opportunity to be exposed to different learners so the candidate can pick up methods that will help when they run into those students "in the wild". The tech instructor candidate can then take the best pieces from each instructor and incorporate it into their own.

Find an instructor that has co-taught with multiple different instructors and didn't take the easy path to become a tech instructor.

 

[kensuf]

From experience, it will be difficult to find a "bad" NAUI technical diving instructor. Rigorous training with difficult evaluations, lots of requirements and high standards. The only challenge is to find one since there are very few of them because it is very challenging to become one.

Unfortunately the standards to become a tech instructor with NAUI do not require co-teaches. Please see the current S&P, pages 198 and 199. A good evaluator will put a candidate through the paces and have them do a co-teach, even if they are simply simulated, but it is not a requirement.

 

[BoltSnap]

Unfortunately the standards to become a tech instructor with NAUI do not require co-teaches. Please see the current S&P, pages 198 and 199. A good evaluator will put a candidate through the paces and have them do a co-teach, even if they are simply simulated, but it is not a requirement.

No agency can make the requirement and still be able to enforce it. How can you ask somebody like me to teach with several instructors when I live in a distant locations with NO technical instructor of any kind here? I have/had to travel to Europe/USA for courses and it will be totally ridiculous to require me to stay in the US or Europe long enough to "co-teach" with several instructors. Might as well require me to just move and live in US or Europe (or anywhere else) just to satisfy this requirement. If NAUI did, it might as well just shut down their technical diving division.

Now, in my experience with NAUI technical diving training and two other agencies, NAUI is the most difficult and hardest to get. In fact, other agencies, including big name ones, are easy to become tech instructor let alone technical diver.

As for knowing a bad cave diving instructor, I never said that they don't exist in any agency but it is much less so with NAUI. I am speaking from my personal experience across 4 continents. You wouldn't believe the crap taking place near and around me (with agencies not NAUI). I am very active in the region and I see most horrible crap with other agencies in technical instructor training. Give you one example, I know for fact and personal first hand knowledge a person who was NOT a certified DIVER by any agency in the world at any diving level went to a diver training course and at the end of the 5 day course, he was certified as a diver and INSTRUCTOR!!! I know the guy very well and know who "certified" him and know everyone involved. This is one example in addition to my own personal experiences. You can criticize NAUI all you want for other reasons, I may join you too, but not for their standards and their QA. If I want to take a technical training course, I'll have no issues or second thoughts about doing it with any NAUI instructor but I have to do my research and investigate before hand if I take it with another agency's instructor. As I said earlier, there maybe bad apples within NAUI in technical training but they are going to be extremely rare in contrast with other agencies. Again, I am speaking from personal experience.

 

[kensuf]

No agency can make the requirement and still be able to enforce it. How can you ask somebody like me to teach with several instructors when I live in a distant locations with NO technical instructor of any kind here? I have/had to travel to Europe/USA for courses and it will be totally ridiculous to require me to stay in the US or Europe long enough to "co-teach" with several instructors. Might as well require me to just move and live in US or Europe (or anywhere else) just to satisfy this requirement. If NAUI did, it might as well just shut down their technical diving division.

And yet both IANTD and TDI require co-teaches in their standards to become technical instructors for cave diving.

Now, in my experience with NAUI technical diving training and two other agencies, NAUI is the most difficult and hardest to get. In fact, other agencies, including big name ones, are easy to become tech instructor let alone technical diver.

As for knowing a bad cave diving instructor, I never said that they don't exist in any agency but it is much less so with NAUI. I am speaking from my personal experience across 4 continents. You wouldn't believe the crap taking place near and around me (with agencies not NAUI). I am very active in the region and I see most horrible crap with other agencies in technical instructor training. Give you one example, I know for fact and personal first hand knowledge a person who was NOT a certified DIVER by any agency in the world at any diving level went to a diver training course and at the end of the 5 day course, he was certified as a diver and INSTRUCTOR!!! I know the guy very well and know who "certified" him and know everyone involved. This is one example in addition to my own personal experiences. You can criticize NAUI all you want for other reasons, I may join you too, but not for their standards and their QA. If I want to take a technical training course, I'll have no issues or second thoughts about doing it with any NAUI instructor but I have to do my research and investigate before hand if I take it with another agency's instructor. As I said earlier, there maybe bad apples within NAUI in technical training but they are going to be extremely rare in contrast with other agencies. Again, I am speaking from personal experience.

Did you file a QA with those agencies?

 

[BoltSnap]

Did you file a QA with those agencies?

Some times yes and other times I just give up since it isn't worth it and nothing happened. I did at the beginning and provided evidence and all information only to be told by the head training guy in Europe that they "can't investigate." The crap I reported was in the open and would be criminal in other countries but they chose to ignore since it was a "political" thing for them and just didn't give a shiit about what happens in the a third world country. If the crap was taking place in a European country, people would have gone to jail but that's a white man's world not our world.

(I didn't mention above the other shiit involving people teaching minors/children to dive and giving them c-cards they bought from other instructors who live 100's of miles away and who never trained or even seen these student children train or dive. I wrote about these issues in my FB page. I was threatened frequently by these bastards. I let everyone knows about their threats including lawyers).

 

[kensuf]

I understand, but the experience that you've had in your geographic area is different than the experience I've personally seen in mine. That is the point when I say "it's about the instructor not the agency."

My NAUI cave evaluator, Scooter Sellers (RIP), told me one of the biggest problems with NAUI cave was that there was a person making cave instructors strictly for the money with no oversight. I met several of the people this person certified as cave instructors over the years and only one of them was any good, I suspect that guy would have been good no matter who his evaluator had been. This was over 12 years ago and that person is no longer making cave instructors and I believe only one of his former instructors is still active.

I'm sure there are similar ****** stories in almost all other agencies. Sometimes those stories represent a point in time. Example there's a guy that keeps talking on scubaboard about his lousy GUE fundamentals class from 15 years ago.

Sometimes these stories represent a poor culture, but that poor culture may be locally confined. I'm reasonably sure your story about the guy that wasn't even a certified diver becoming an instructor would not happen over here in Florida, no matter what agency was involved.

 

[BoltSnap]

My NAUI cave evaluator, Scooter Sellers (RIP), told me one of the biggest problems with NAUI cave was that there was a person making cave instructors strictly for the money with no oversight. I met several of the people this person certified as cave instructors over the years and only one of them was any good, I suspect that guy would have been good no matter who his evaluator had been. This was over 12 years ago and that person is no longer making cave instructors and I believe only one of his former instructors is still active.

I'm sure there are similar ****** stories in almost all other agencies. Sometimes those stories represent a point in time. Example there's a guy that keeps talking on scubaboard about his lousy GUE fundamentals class from 15 years ago.

My own experience with NAUI tec. doesn't involved cave diving, you are the expert in this part. In regards to Cave diving, my understanding is that NAUI cave diving program; standards/requirements/training is excellent and considered top of the line. This is the impression I get from several people but not based on personal experience. Heck, I got the feedback from several people that you are one of the best out there in the US. I did investigate you and got references about you that know you very well

Sometimes these stories represent a poor culture, but that poor culture may be locally confined. I'm reasonably sure your story about the guy that wasn't even a certified diver becoming an instructor would not happen over here in Florida, no matter what agency was involved.

The problems I was talking about don't only happen in my region, they also happen in other regions outside the Middle East, Asia for example.

I have no doubt that the specific scenarios I mentioned above would not happen in the US. The people involved wouldn't worry about agency's QA as much as about liability and being sued as is the case in the US but not here. What is most disturbing to me is that the Europeans who are directly in charge of ME region don't give a shiit as long as they are getting $$$ in dues and cert fees from ME. One other story I just remembered, a very good friend of mine who is a NAUI CD and one of the most experienced here left NAUI and went to another agency 4 - 3 years ago because he had a fall out with one NAUI official. I spoke to him few months ago and he told me that he came back to NAUI after the shiit he saw with the other agency he joined for about 2 years. He came back to NAUI because he believed that NAUI had much higher standards and much stricter QA than the others.

 

[rddvet]

I did naui deco and cave. I liked the courses but it is 100% dependent on the instructor. I only took the courses because I respected the instructor. Naui in no way has nearly the quality of course or instructor oversight as gue.

 

[rddvet]

I understand, but the experience that you've had in your geographic area is different than the experience I've personally seen in mine. That is the point when I say "it's about the instructor not the agency."

My NAUI cave evaluator, Scooter Sellers (RIP), told me one of the biggest problems with NAUI cave was that there was a person making cave instructors strictly for the money with no oversight. I met several of the people this person certified as cave instructors over the years and only one of them was any good, I suspect that guy would have been good no matter who his evaluator had been. This was over 12 years ago and that person is no longer making cave instructors and I believe only one of his former instructors is still active.

I'm sure there are similar ****** stories in almost all other agencies. Sometimes those stories represent a point in time. Example there's a guy that keeps talking on scubaboard about his lousy GUE fundamentals class from 15 years ago.

Sometimes these stories represent a poor culture, but that poor culture may be locally confined. I'm reasonably sure your story about the guy that wasn't even a certified diver becoming an instructor would not happen over here in Florida, no matter what agency was involved.

I have seen several of the instructors you are referring to as well many years back they were crap instructors putting out crap students