Streamlining Training

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Of course the dive industry uses places like Dhahab, truk, caymans, etc for selling diving. But there are far more inland divers than coast divers. Is lake diving ideal? no, but we take what we can get.

Besides, your extinguishing ocean theory is just plain false.
 
I agree with boosting the breadth of training at the OW level, with a much larger focus on dive planning as Sas mentioned. Students need far more training on reading the water (current, vis, etc) then they currently get. Being in Colorado, we teach alot of students whose first non-training dives will not be close in conditions to what they learn at in a reservoir or Blue hole in NM.

The nav specialty needs to be removed as a specialty and thrown into an expanded OW. A dive guide should be a nice-to-have on a trip, not a form of life support!

Other specialties are useful if the instructor/LDS makes them special. As a DM I do get exposed to many different instructors, some I take specialties from, unfortunately many I wouldn't let near me.
 
Yet, most people dom't want to be a Navy diver. They want to know "just enough".to have fun. Good for them.

Granted, however a clown cannot be a clown until he learns to fall down. And get up.
 
No asking, "where's the beef?" there.
 
For years the diving industry has been telling divers to streamline their equipment. This is an opportunity to streamline the industry. Do we have too many "dangling" courses? Would the sport benefit from less is more? Please share your thoughts.

The market and peoples wallets will streamline the industry automatically :)
 
I rather doubt many people are attracted to diving for the whole quarry/lake scene, and I rarely see any promotional materials/DVDs/T.V. shows/etc. extolling the virtues of such locations. The diving industry will be a tiny fraction of it's former self, any way you slice it.

And this is one of the MAJOR problems with the industry as a whole. Most of the ads you see from the agencies, DEMA, Manufacturers, and shops portray warm exotic locations. Even my own site I'm sorry to say after looking at it has pics of those types of dives. (I'll be remedying that soon with some local pics in my photos section.)

I am careful to note local diving in much of the text though. But getting back to my initial statement. For the most part, and I was discussing this with the owner of the shop yesterday, the warm water vacation diver does little to keep the local dive shop afloat. They take a class, buy MSF, and are never seen again. The local divers are back all the time. Getting air fills, buying little stuff, buying bc's/regs/suits. Buying dry suits. Taking more classes to learn to deal with more challenging conditions.

As long as this keeps up I do see the industry shrinking and of it's own making. Has nothing to do with so-called global warming (hell rising seas just create more dive sites!), oil spills, or whatever. It has to do with training people to just go where it's warm, rent their gear, and be sheep to a DM or Guide shepard:(. I do everything I can with every student to get them to see that local diving is where they really learn to enjoy the sport. That is where they learn to just relax and enjoy the feeling as much as the sights underwater. To work on their skills, to see what they thought didn't exist.

There is a great diversity of life in just about every freshwater location. They just have to look for it a little harder. AND NOT SCREW UP THE VIS WHILE THEY ARE DOING THAT! :shocked2: How many people on their ow checkout dives even were given time to look at the little stuff, had it pointed out to them, and just hung there horizontal and were allowed to just breathe? More likely they rushed thru the skills, swam a little course led by the instructor or DM and got out.

There is a lot of discussion about DEMA and the misdirection it has been going. But all the members are at fault for allowing it. Every instructor and shop that takes a lackadasical attitude toward their local quarry or lake and tries to sell students on trips deserves to go under! Every manufacturer that focuses much of their line on the warm water diver and doesn't promote diving at places like Dutch Springs, the Great Lakes, mud holes in Texas, and little ponds throughout the US and the world has NO BUSINESS complaining about the industry decline. They have all done it to themselves. I would love to be able to dive in all these exotic places. Been to Bonaire, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Keys, Monterey. But htose places all cost money and take time. For what my trip to PR cost and the student whose checkouts I did picked up a big part of the tab, I could have gotten 3 trips on Lake Erie, gas and air fills for 15 or 20 of the local quarry/lake dives, and still had money for lunch!

The PR trip could have been done with me taking none of my own gear. Local dives require a drysuit or heavy wetsuit, my own bc so if it was a busy weekend I did not have to settle for what the shop had left in rental, my own cold water reg because renting gets expensive over time, a light, etc. All of this had to be bought from someplace.

Usually the local shop unless they get SO LITTLE REPEAT business from the warm water wuss vacation divers that they have to keep their prices high. Or because some mfg's engage in such restrictive and PRIMITIVE price fixing deals with the shops that they cannot give good deals. While they turn a blind eye to those that buy from their overseas ops and sell at below MAP because it is still money in their pockets.

Oh man what a Sunday morning! I have a new class starting today. 4 students who are driving 2 hours each way for 6 weeks for it. Taught a snorkeling class yesterday for a family going to the keys next month. By the end they were asking what local lakes allow it to be done there. Because during the class I related how each skill would benefit them and allow them to see stuff HERE- LOCALLY!

The 4 people I have coming this afternoon now know that they will be passing at least 5 places with lakes that they can dive that they never knew they could. The other OW class I'm in week 3 of is already itching to go into a lake with 5-10 foot vis and feed the catfish hotdogs. There is not even any talk of exotic locations. The one lady is going to Negril in Aug for a wedding but she is, I think, looking forward just as much to Mt Storm, the Yough Lake, and a local quarry where the bluegills follow you like dogs!

And they are already asking about buying their own gear. What bc do I recommend, what reg, do they need one light or two if they will only be doing daylight dives? And ya know what? I'm putting off answering because at this point it is not about selling gear, it's about teaching them how to dive. Week 5 or 6 I'll start making suggestions because they will still have 2-3 more sessions to use their own if they choose to buy. At this point when they ask me about skill practice and what do I recommend it always starts with how local diving is the best thing they can do to stay sharp.

Training to me does not need anymore streamlining. In some cases it has been not only streamlined but sliced, diced, and what was left compacted in car crusher and spit out in this little tiny cube that has no resemblance to what it was at one time. What needs to be done is expand it to include those things that will make a diver that actually does meet RSTC goals even though their minimum standards for training do not come close to encouraging that.

And we need to get away from the focus on resorts and put it on those spots that will encourage divers to want to get more training as opposed to giving them "just enough to get by" and scare the crap out of themselves or convince them they NEED more for the sake of the bottom line and never dive again. They also will see that it can only beenfit them to buy their own gear for local diving.

The local divers are the heart and backbone of the industry and yet the industry has been doing everything it can to stick a big serrated knife right into the middle of them.
 
Jim, that is one of the best posts I have ever read on this board. BRAVO!
 
People can dive within thier limits and still run into trouble.

If a diver is minimally trained, how are they going to react when....

Thier reg begins a violent free-flow?

Someone kicks thier mask off thier head?

They get attacked by an OOA diver?

They get vertigo?

Training a diver to handle minor problems can be the differance between life and death. Most diver deaths are because they didn't know how to handle a small problem, which led to many other small problems, which became one big FUBAR situation.
Except for the free-flowing reg, all of these (and more) are covered by the RSTC. It's funny, but I quite often hear about the experienced diver who gets in trouble as well as the newbie. No Scuba class can impart common sense or the ability to stick to one's limits. I have seen some experienced divers (even instructors) commit some elementary mistakes due to piss poor judgement. You'll often hear them brag about how they dodged the bullet, and never indicate that they screwed up. Taking responsibility for your own actions is not part of ANY Scuba curricula, it's a result of making thousands of responsible decisions and avoiding denial.

As for streamlining classes, it's simply sheer economics... you get what you are willing to pay for. Some people like McDonalds, while others prefer Ichiban's here in LA. Some people are willing to spend $900-$1200 for a GUE OW class, while most are not. As an instructor, I would rather get paid more for teaching a more thorough class, but if my clientèle want something quick and cheap, then I had best learn how to accommodate them, find a new cadre of clients or go out of business.

In this thread we have a number of different types of instructors: hobbyists (Scuba is not their living), commercial instructors, Scientific diving instructors and a precious few professional recreational Scuba Instructors. I would suggest that the first three could care less about the economics of their classes and their approach to instruction is more ivory tower in it's mindset. While there is nothing wrong with being a part of the first three, we should not expect those who make their living teaching Scuba to teach in the same manner. Should they be proud of what they do? Sure! But then, so should the professional full time Scuba Instructor.

In the end, it's up to the individual to determine which class is best for them. That could be a process of intense research, or mere happenstance by reading an ad or walking by a dive shop. Whatever your goals, start the fun NOW. Get certified in a way you feel comfortable and start diving.
 
Ahh, a stimulating training discussion to welcome me back to Scubaboard :D

At the very least I would role AOW into the basic OW certification, and add those "core" dives to the checkout requirement. I would add additional focus on buoyancy control, and since it is everywhere now, enriched air diving.

So using your plan a ow course should cost around $800.-$1,000..,. the public would not go for it and eventually diving will cost even more for the few participating in it.

I would leave all the specialty courses alone. They only sell if people want them, and to that end they should be available. I think I would eliminate the cards for those courses though, there is no need for a...kayak diver card for example, but the course may be valuable never-the-less.
the card is to verifiy that the person has completed a course.How else can they prove it,say if a person wanted to rent a dry suit and cannot show a dry suit card?
 
For years the diving industry has been telling divers to streamline their equipment. This is an opportunity to streamline the industry. Do we have too many "dangling" courses? Would the sport benefit from less is more? Please share your thoughts.
I'm not sure exactly what a dangling course is but I'll assume you mean any course that does not address directly streamlining - whatever that means.

As a recreational diver (let's be clear what I mean by that, no caves, deco, trimix, wreck penetration, commercial or deeper that 130'), no, classes fuel the industry. New divers are eager to learn and having opportunities to dive with Instructors and DM for their first 50 dives or so is a good thing. If the diver desires to move into more rigorous or stringent training there are plenty of opportunities available.

How many class and pool sessions do you think should be conducted prior to open water dives? How many open water dives do you think would be best?
Regardless of the standards set by the agency, the number of pool sessions or OW dives depends on the diver, not the rules.

Do you think there are too many specialties? Do you think the sport would benefit from less specialties?
Nope and nope. Like I said, all training is good for the dive industry. There are card collectors - so what? The market dictates the value of a specialty, not the agency or even the content of the course. If someone has a desire to take a boat diving specialty and they get in a few extra dives with their instructor what's wrong with that.

If you could remodel diver training how would you do it? What would be the training progression? What C-cards would you keep? What C-cards would you eliminate?
Really, the only things I would change would be:
Add more rescue training procedures in AOW.
Require all divers to pass a dive computer understanding class. (On their Computer)
Add more buoyancy/proper weighting training in OW.
More dive planing in AOW.
More navigation training in OW.

Other than that, leave the specialty markets alone. GUE/DIR/Cave instructors do a great job in policing themselves and an excellent job in providing this training for divers that want it.
 
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