September LessonsforLife

[MikeFerrara]

I think he's trying to say he exceeds standards.

I read these discussions and shake my head. The standards, as quoted, are skeletal -- but I never met most of them. I've written before that, when I got my card, I had never done a descent without holding onto my instructor's BC. I didn't hold a shallow stop successfully until my 50th dive. The tour portions of my dives were done holding my instructor's hand (and discreetly pushing myself up off the bottom every few seconds). I have thought for a long time that I should not have been passed out of OW.

On the other hand, if they hadn't passed me, would I be diving today? I don't know. They did pass me, and I was smart enough not to get hurt as I tried to "master" this sport that I really wasn't very good at. My husband thinks that part of the reason they passed me was that they recognized my temperament and knew I wouldn't take my certification and go get killed with it. I don't know the answer to that, either.

No matter what the standards are, there are always going to be some judgment calls as to whether a marginal student met them or should not be passed. Some of those judgment calls will be made correctly and some will not. The woman in the article may have been one of those cases.

Well, the less the standards require, the fewer judgment calls have to be made. If standards don't require any kind of buoyancy control on the tour portions of the training dives then we don't have to give the students buoyancy control performance any thought at all. Heck, we don't need to wast time teaching much about it at all. The same with buddy skills and a bunch of other stuff that I could rattle off. Why bother pairng a student up with a buddy on training dives and evealuating their performance. That's work and to really test it requires some skill on the part of the instructor beyond..."kneel here and do like this"

I think if you had a better class your first fifty dives (or more) would have been a lot more fun and the tenacity that you've shown might not have been required.

ok, enough about what isn't taught. What about the things that are taught? Take the instructor out of the equation and lets just look at things like the texts and videos.

We could use your own recent adventure. I can't say about all agencies but at least one really big agency has no clue how to even clear a mask and they certainly don't know how to teach it. BTW, I know LOTS of divers who have had adventures much like yours, including my wife and myself. Ours were directly related to the way we were taught to do it. It would have been ok as an introduction maybe but it's inadequate end even dangerous to leave it there. Name a skill, and we'll look at it. There are a bunch that are all hosed up. Even as skimpy as standards are, we would be light years ahead if they just fixed the ones they have but have screwed up.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I think he's trying to say he exceeds standards.
...

Thanks, Lynne, that's exactly what I was saying. But let's not spread that around. We're not supposed to teach outside of the standards...

 

[Thalassamania]

That's also an interesting concept, when exceeding standards is outside of standards, sort of "less is more."

 

[Michael Schlink]

You know Mike has a good point as to why and how some skills are taught. I know that I have seen some inst. teaching at the pool and had a hard time not saying something but then my wife reminds me that they were "taught" that way. And a lot of instructors teach the way they were taught, I certainly did for quite a while. Another thing that has escaped some of the more recently certified is that things like frog kicks and long hoses and horizontal hovers, trim, balance, Cg/Cb, etc. simply weren't "mainstream" and being used by OW divers or Inst. very often until just very recently. I learned most of these skills in my cave training and back then the two(Ow/Cave) never intermingled much. And "tech" hadn't become a household word either.
Some of the things that OW divers are learning are straight out of the cave course, and although they are good things to know and learn, some instructors haven't learned to teach these skill sets OR they don't believe in them.

 

[The Chairman]

NAUI encourages it's instructors to exceed standards. Anything to make diving safer and more enjoyable.

 

[Thalassamania]

Yet PADI says that exceeding standards is a bad thing and just makes courses harder.

How do the other agencies come down on that issue?

 

[The Chairman]

SDI/TDI also encourage it.

 

[Thalassamania]

how about SSI, IDEA, MDEA, YMCA and the rest of the alphabet soup?

Do they encourage/permit exceeding standards?

Do they insist that a given skill/exercise be done during a specific pool/open water session?

 

[Surelyshirly]

I may be a new diver but I do remember what I was taught in class and a little common sense is not hard to throw in also. Two people with the same knowlege and training can have different skill strengths or comfort levels. The right decision for one may not be right for the other. Hence personal judgment is just that, personal.

Maybe the requirement outlines are also a little generalized to accomodate for areas that are cold water vs warm and ocean vs fresh so the most pertinent skills for these specific areas are emphasized. Allowing for some specific skills to be highlighted. You cant teach ocean skills in Idaho but you sure have to in Jersey. While diving is diving and all diving skills are important, some things are area specific. The outline may allow each instructor to adapt the course slightly for their area.

While all the required skills were discussed, demonstrated, taught, practiced and tested. Certain area specific skills were gone over and over also. And incorporated into the exploration portion of each ow section.

I was prepared for the differences in ocean diving and freshwater since I will primarily dive ocean living so close. I was taught the buddy system and practiced it. Some things were repeated so much that we would laugh and repeat them along with the instructor after a while. They will echo in my mind forever.

Our instructor adapted the padi course for our area so we would have a comfort level in the environment we would be diving in. I have a lot to learn about diving but I have the basics necessary to get me moving forward here. I can do a fin pivot AND I know about tides, beach entrances, 7ml wetsuits and not to lick a starfish

 

[TheRedHead]

how about SSI, IDEA, MDEA, YMCA and the rest of the alphabet soup?

I think my SSI instructor probably taught outside of standards. He talked a lot about stress and we did several rescue skills. I remember him talking about CO2 retention and overbreathing a regulator, narcosis and how easy it is to dive deeper than your plan. None of those topics were in the OW manual.