SSI or PADI

[boulderjohn]

I was trained for years by one of those small agencies "that keep their instructor pool very small because they are very conscious of internal quality control." Let me describe what it was like.

As we began the program, the instructor made it clear, telling us it would not be like PADI--I will not be "holding your hand." I didn't know what that meant, but this description of one training exercise should make it clear.

The skill on which my buddy and I were to be evaluated was "bottle passing." We did not know what that was, and we were told it was transferring a stage/deco bottle from one diver to another. This was at the very beginning of a tech program. Here is the sequence of what happened.

1. We were told that we would descend to a certain point and my buddy would transfer his stage bottle to me, at which point I would add it to the stage/deco bottle I was already carrying. We would use AL 80s for the performance, meaning I would start with one AL 80 sung at my side and finish with two. We would do it while simulating a decompression stop next to a silty wall. We were warned that disturbing that silt was not allowed!
2. The instructor decided that the skill was not challenging enough, so before we got started with the bottle pass, he put me out of air so that I would have to do the skill while breathing from my buddy's 7-foot hose.
3. As we did our simulated decompression stop on an ascent line next to a silty wall while connected by my buddy's 7-foot hose, my buddy handed off an AL 80 to me, and I struggled to attach his AL 80 next to the AL 80 I already had in place while trying not to disturb the silty wall next to me. It was not pretty.
4. After we got out of the water and were thoroughly and completely reamed for our (my) pathetic performance, we were told to go out and practice on our own while he worked with other students on other skills.
5. After a very frustrating practice session, my buddy and I got on shore and literally yelled at our instructor, primarily asking him how the Hell we are supposed to do that skill.
6. In response, he told his how he thought we should do the bottle passing, showing us technique we had not imagined. That was the first an only instruction we received.
7. That evening everyone at all levels watched the video of our performance. The instructor focused the video and discussion on the part where I tried to clip the passed bottle onto my lower D-ring and instead accidentally clipped it to the bolt-snap of the AL 80 that was already there. That was a great point for ridicule and general merriment as the group laughed at my incompetence.
8. That was it for that session. My buddy and I went online and looked for videos of people passing bottles. We then met in a swimming pool and practiced.
9. We then repeated the session and passed.

So, that was the way the instruction was done by an agency that "that keep their instructor pool very small because they are very conscious of internal quality control." If I as a PADI "hold your hand" instructor had done it, it would have gone more like this:

1. A thorough explanation of the skill and its importance would have been followed by a clear explanation of how the skill should be done.
2. A demonstration would have shown the student what the skill looked like.
3. The students would have first done the skills with AL 40s instead of AL 80s to allow an easier transition.
4. There would have been no extra problems introduced at the earliest stages--no deo stops, no silty walls, no OOA air sharing.
5. initial attempts would have included interventions at problem points to help the student solve problems and understand correct procedures.
6. As the student succeeded in early trials, more challenging situation would be added later to improve overall student learning. Eventually the student would do it on deco stops near silty walls with AL 80s
7. There would have been absolutely, positively, certainly, no ridicule of the student's first attempts in front of a general audience.

So, for some people, the top sequence is an instructional ideal. For others, the bottom sequence will work better. It is up to the prospective student to choose which is best for him or her

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I dive in two different quarries and I see hordes after hordes of Advanced Open Water courses being done by different shops and different instructors. This is what they look like:


kneeling (2:04) hand on the ground to maintain buoyancy (1:19) girls octo dragging in the mud (1:19), everything you see in this video and a whole lot more is what I will see every single weekend that I am there through not one but horde after horde after horde after horde. The students that I witness kick so much muck that the vis get messed up and you will have to swim to the other end of the quarry to get those 20 feet of vis that the quarry advertises. Google "PADI AOW" and you will see many such videos, posted by extremely proud AOW students who are given shiny c-cards by hundred of instructors around the world from Caribbean to Philippines Thailand convincing them that they have achieved something. The word "advanced" has a marketing pull to it specially when it is printed on a shiny card.

No Sir, this is not about a lone instructor not following standards. It is about an industry that sells "plastic achievements" to people who do not know any better. My PADI Advanced Open Water was a bigger circus that I will describe below.

I have also seen multiple UTD classes happening. This is what they look like:


My own UTD course was similar to the above. It was not at all like the experience you described. Unlike my PADI AOW, my UTD Essentials had actual videos shown to us days before we even jumped in the pool. Before we jumped in we knew what we were required to do. Prior to jumping in the pool there were land-drills demonstrated by the instructor.

Once we were in the pool, the instructor would demonstrate a skill, ask us to perform it and correct any flaws. Then we were video taped and we would return back to the classroom to look at our techniques in class. It was quite enlightening to see that we were never where we thought we were and this gave us the exact area to focus on. At no point was anyone ridiculed or made fun of. The instructor was very picky and would point on extremely minor details that I would never have gotten myself. I did not take that in a negative way because that is what I am paying them for. In the end, I did not get a pass at the first attempt but I left with a very clear idea of what I need to work on, on my own in order to get a pass. I put in a few more sessions in the quarry and sent the video to the instructor and he felt that I was good enough to get a tech pass.

As opposed to 5 days of the above training, my own PADI AOW was 2 days. No instructional videos were shown to me. I was told to follow a compass in 100 feet of vis and come back to the instructor while doing underwater navigation. Prior to taking AOW I was already using a compass so this was not anything I gained in the course. I was given a pat on the back for completing "Underwater Navigation!" Then we swam around a wreck and that was a "wreck dive" checked off. He also doubled it as a deep specialty since the wreck was 100ish. Later on I found out that it was violation of standards since wreck and deep had to be two separate dives by PADI standards. I never realized that for years so by the time I found out that part it had become an old story. Must I mention that while attempting to make PADI wreck and PADI deep the same dive, my instructor made me run out of air. Advanced gas planning was not part of PADI AOW as it was part of my UTD Essentials so one the way up I was low. I had to do an air share with my instructor and when I surfaced, the divemaster was upset at me for running out of air. My instructor and DM on the boat had a huge argument over me running out of air because the instructor was on a boat charter.The next day we did a drift dive except there was no drift. He said that if there was current this is what you will do and then it was a guided dive on the reef rather than an instructional experience.

While my own PADI AOW was a total load of BS where major standards were violated, the courses I witness almost every weekend at my quarry are not as horrible. Still they are no where near the level where UTD courses are. My UTD Essential exposed me to concepts like dvanced Gas planning, rock bottom calculations, converting surface consumption rate to depth consumption rate and stuff that I did not hear until I did TDI Technical diving.

 

[tursiops]

But they would not be happy with my adding that skill training to OWSD.

Untrue. You only are not allowed to demand mastery of it for certification.

 

[rsingler]

Untrue. You only are not allowed to demand mastery of it for certification.

I'll take your more-experienced word for it, but I still wonder...

So, you teach some advanced navigation techniques to an interested new OW diver who had been camping all his life and knows compasses. You include it for free as part of your class, but check no boxes. And he goes out and gets lost, goes OOA and dies.
His wife's lawyer comes to you saying, "Show me where the advanced navigation that got my client killed is part of the OW curriculum." And I'll bet my parent organization PADI, will say the same thing and not back me up.

But you're right in one sense - I teach more than is required for "Approach to the diver in distress" just because I think it's important for diver safety. Especially for a diver who hasn't had Rescue, and may not know how to disengage from a panicked diver in distress.

 

[tursiops]

I'll take your more-experienced word for it, but I still wonder...

So, you teach some advanced navigation techniques to an interested new OW diver who had been camping all his life and knows compasses. You include it for free as part of your class, but check no boxes. And he goes out and gets lost, goes OOA and dies.
His wife's lawyer comes to you saying, "Show me where the advanced navigation that got my client killed is part of the OW curriculum." And I'll bet my parent organization PADI, will say the same thing and not back me up.

But you're right in one sense - I teach more than is required for "Approach to the diver in distress" just because I think it's important for diver safety. Especially for a diver who hasn't had Rescue, and may not know how to disengage from a panicked diver in distress.

I understand the concern. Not sure your example is a good one, however, since an OW class really doesn't have the time in it to do advanced navigation during it! Yes, it's a gray area....but I wouldn't hesitate to show someone a frog kick or a back kick, for example, or have them try out different BCs, or give them a chance to do more than a giant stride to get into the water, or..... My point is, the OW class (or Rescue, for that matter) usually only demands that you do something that works, but rarely gives you a chance to try several different techniques to find the one that works best for YOU. And sometimes the best way to answer a question from a particularly good/advanced student is to show them something, let them try it, and maybe then maybe point out "you shouldn't do this on your own without more training and practice." Do that in front of the other students in the class....so in court they can back you up.

 

[boulderjohn]

Exactly as Tursiops said, you can add skills and information to the course as long as you don't require mastery for completion of the course. In other words, you cannot FAIL a student who does not perform something you added to the course. In reality, that does not matter a bit, since even for the standards of a course you don't fail the student who is having trouble but rather keep teaching until he or she masters it.

There is a common sense limit. It is bad teaching to pile on information that is not truly germane to the course because it interferes with the student's ability to master that which is really important.

BTW, in one of his introductions to the professional journal, the CEO and President talked about the importance of instructors using their expertise to flesh out the course with those valuable extras. A link to that was provided during one of the many discussions in which people were insisting PADI instructors are not permitted to add anything to a course. When he saw that clearly contradictory message, the poster insisting PADI instructors couldn't add anything wrote that when someone from PADI headquarters writes something in the official journal, even the CEO and President, that person is only offering a personal opinion, and he could be wrong. He said, in essence, that the only true authority on PADI standards was he himself, since he was the only one who could decipher their hidden meanings.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

BTW, in one of his introductions to the professional journal, the CEO and President talked about the importance of instructors using their expertise to flesh out the course with those valuable extras. A link to that was provided during one of the many discussions in which people were insisting PADI instructors are not permitted to add anything to a course. When he saw that clearly contradictory message, the poster insisting PADI instructors couldn't add anything wrote that when someone from PADI headquarters writes something in the official journal, even the CEO and President, that person is only offering a personal opinion, and he could be wrong. He said, in essence, that the only true authority on PADI standards was he himself, since he was the only one who could decipher their hidden meanings.

John,

I’m a little jetlagged so bear with me. Who is the “true authority” on PADI standards? The way I read your post is that Dean Richardson is not. I’d expect that the instructor manual and standards & procedures, etc. would be. Of course no documentation can be crystal clear 100% of the time, but that a PADI rep would consult a team where consensus would be reached and documented. I would assume that all agencies operate this way.

 

[boulderjohn]

John,

I’m a little jetlagged so bear with me. Who is the “true authority” on PADI standards? The way I read your post is that Dean Richardson is not. I’d expect that the instructor manual and standards & procedures, etc. would be. Of course no documentation can be crystal clear 100% of the time, but that a PADI rep would consult a team where consensus would be reached and documented. I would assume that all agencies operate this way.

I must not have written it clearly. I was referencing someone else with whom I do not agree.

In a long series of posts, several people were insisting that their interpretations of PADI rules and regulations were the correct ones. To refute them, a number of people, including me, quoted from published articles and from specific answers to emailed questions to PADI headquarters. You would think a direct and very clear statement from PADI headquarters, especially from its CEO and President, would be all the proof you would need, but these people argued that no one in PADI headquarters has the authority to speak for PADI. They further argued that the people in PADI headquarters knew less about PADI rules and regulations than they did, so those people were not to be believed.

Does that seem imbecilic to you? It sure does to me. To these people in their desperation to be right, though, it made perfect sense.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I must not have written it clearly. I was referencing someone else with whom I do not agree.

In a long series of posts, several people were insisting that their interpretations of PADI rules and regulations were the correct ones. To refute them, a number of people, including me, quoted from published articles and from specific answers to emailed questions to PADI headquarters. You would think a direct and very clear statement from PADI headquarters, especially from its CEO and President, would be all the proof you would need, but these people argued that no one in PADI headquarters has the authority to speak for PADI. They further argued that the people in PADI headquarters knew less about PADI rules and regulations than they did, so those people were not to be believed.

Does that seem imbecilic to you? It sure does to me. To these people in their desperation to be right, though, it made perfect sense.

Sometimes documentation can be subject to interpretation, but as a former PADI IDC Staff, their materials in my opinion are pretty darn clear.

“no one in PADI headquarters has the authority to speak for PADI “

You can’t be serious. Okay you can and are. Mind blown.

 

[boulderjohn]

Sometimes documentation can be subject to interpretation, but as a former PADI IDC Staff, their materials in my opinion are pretty darn clear.

“no one in PADI headquarters has the authority to speak for PADI “

You can’t be serious. Okay you can and are. Mind blown.

Do you understand that I am reporting what someone else said and not what I believe?