So what is a basic certification today?

[Wayward Son]

Bil launches a 6 pack from Tyndal. Sea Diver is slipped in City Marina. I dive from both but mostly from Sanctuary.

 

[DennisW]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Scuba_Steve]

How come some of us (instructors) come on here and defend the instructor on the watch issue by quoteing standards yet can't be bothered to point out 17mins is not long enough to count as a dive? (by standards)

Don't know if you've been corrected yet, but this isn't neccessarily the case. Not that this has any relevance with respect to the underly real problems anyway.

Regards

 

[cerich]

Don't know if you've been corrected yet, but this isn't neccessarily the case. Not that this has any relevance with respect to the underly real problems anyway.

Regards

I take it defend was too strong a word to use. How about state?

 

[Walter]

I think he's referring to the 17 minutes.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I take it defend was too strong a word to use. How about state?

No it's was the 17min thing.

In between our posts I noticed Mike stated what I was thinking.

Chris, Walter and Mike, I must say good show!

I used your OW tour/dive and do skills to complete the OW course this past weekend myself, and I must say it was far better than how I originally used to do it. Of course we weren't taught to do it this way, but I just figured it would make a better course, not knowing you gents would be talking about this very topic today.

I almost have to make a public apology for those unfortunate few that I now feel I didn't give my best in this regard.

It worked so well this is how I am going to do it from this point onwards. Of the 6 OOA I gave to the one student, the last 4 were totally impromptu and whilst swimming around looking at the scenery. This person, save once, did not touch a platform for her 6 dives. She was hovering like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Damn sweet.

EDIT: hehehe, yep Walter you're right.

 

[Walter]

I used your OW tour/dive and do skills to complete the OW course this past weekend myself, and I must say it was far better than how I originally used to do it.............................................I almost have to make a public apology for those unfortunate few that I now feel I didn't give my best in this regard.

It worked so well this is how I am going to do it from this point onwards. Of the 6 OOA I gave to the one student, the last 4 were totally impromptu and whilst swimming around looking at the scenery. This person, save once, did not touch a platform for her 6 dives. She was hovering like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Damn sweet.

EDIT: hehehe, yep Walter you're right.

I did skills by having them kneel for years before I questioned it and changed.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

Thanks for the honesty Walter. I know Mike has said the same thing.

I guess I don't feel so bad, I only did several classes of "mostly" kneeling....lol

I say mostly because I knew it was dead wrong, but I kept running up against a lot of oppositions and limitations. I did what I could to make it better.

Now I say F-it, I'm doing it how I know best or I'm not going to do it at all and the nay-sayers can kiss my *****.

Oh yeah, I'm a real treat in our parts.............LOL

Regards

 

[Walter]

Well, when Mike and I started teaching, no one even thought about getting off their knees. I started teaching 20 years ago and I taught skills kneeling longer than I've been teaching them in mid water. It was a very good change, both for me and for my students. It was through discussions such as this one that I realized there was a better way.

 

[neil]

..... A few years ago, I stopped doing the "skills portion" of dives entirely. Now, all my check out dives are tours with skills tossed in as we swim around the reef. We still do all the skills, but there's no one time set aside for them. Students know what skills we'll be working on during the dive, but they don't know when they will come. They do know they won't be on their knees when it's time to recover a regulator or remove a mask.
...

Pretty much the same with me, and I have to say I was enlightened by the likes of you and Mike F. I doubt that more than 10% of the dive is taken up by just observing isolated skills being performed. I just give the signal at random times, take up a safety position if required, and then on with the tour. Nobody touches bottom except in PADI classes for the, er, "finger pivot."