Streamlining Training

[Scott L]

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?

Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert. All others, except distinctive specialties gone.

At least that's the way I see it tonight.

Simple but brilliant in my opinion. Many a diver out of sheer ego would wish to continue their training resulting in much safer dives and thus significantly increased retention levels.

Otherwise, divers are staring at professional courses or technical classes which are often not appropriate for most. It's still rather difficult for the average diver to stumble upon GUE or UTD. Heck, not one of my Florida Cracker dive buddies had ever heard of them until my mentioning last year and they dive at least twice weekly...

 

[Jim Lapenta]

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.


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?

The course does not need to cost any more than it does now. It could for those who do this for a living but that would be their choice.

As to the second point there are a number of ways. 1 have them do a quick dive in a pool. 2. Ask them questions you'd expect a drysuit diver to know. 3. Rent them the suit and have em sign a waiver that if they kill themself it's their fault. 4. Ask to see their logbook.

And what does a manatee diver, shark diver, UW photographer, etc need to show a card to rent? A manatee, a shark, a camera? How do those cards in any way make a course more valuable other than to the entity collecting the fee for the card. Some courses yes I see the need. Boats want to see an AOW card, Some want to see deep cert, nitrox, trimix, cave, cavern, maybe wreck. But not every course needs to have a card with it.

 

[fire_diver]

Because the days of paying simpy to learn a skill set are gone. People expect to be able show off a tangible. Pay money, get a card. Pay money, get a certificate. It's part of the "everyone wins" mentality.

People are scared to take a course they might not pass.

 

[BVickery]

Here is the view of a relatively new diver.

Rolling OW and AOW is a great idea, but you also need to factor in information overload as well as time. If your job is teaching SCUBA for a living, these are your 'work' hours as it were. For a lot of others, they may have 1, or nowadays even 2, jobs to juggle with. Some people are married, add in kids.

I honestly think e-Learning is a great idea to help avoid the information overload. A person gets to learn at their own speed. The problem with e-Learning is you will get people who will just look at what needs to be known to pass and that is all.

And I seriously wish I was closer to some of you Instructors to take a lesson or two from. Hell, just to be able to dive with a couple of you, to teach me some basics that you find out just from diving with experienced divers.

People are scared to take a course they might not pass.

When I first tried to get my C-Card in like 1990/91 it was from a NAUI certified shop. If you failed the final, you were not allowed onto the OW dives. Same thing when I took a SCUBA class for college credit. I tore my calf muscle off the bone and missed some pool time, instructor told me he would pass me as far as far as a school class, but for a c-card he 'failed' me. I was sad, but respect it and fully understood why.

 

[Peter Guy]

Jim L wrote

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.

And you know that from what source? Not to mention what is your definition of "the industry"?

I've yet to see anything convincing that demonstrates that "vacation tropical diving" is NOT the "backbone" of the "scuba industry" regardless of how you define it -- by $'s spent; by numbers of participants; by numbers of class takers; whatever.

I'll freely admit that I live in an area that gives me a skewed view of "the scuba industry." I have good diving within 30 driving minutes of my house and very good diving within driving 120 minutes and world class diving within 5-6 driving hours -- albeit NONE of it "vacation tropical diving." I'm a member of two local dive clubs -- guess what, at each meeting THE topic of "what dives did you do last month" is the "vacation tropical diving" the vast majority of the time (and certainly the vast majority of the $ spent within the "scuba industry"). And yes, these people also dive locally -- BUT they get excited about their vacation tropical dives. (As do I -- except my "tropical dives" are spent looking at wet rocks!)

I'm a firm believer in enticing local divers into diving locally but my belief is that the vast majority of divers, and money spent diving, will NOT be spent in cold water local diving. Unless you happen to be in a warm water tropical place, your local diving will seldom, if ever, be "the backbone of the industry" but instead a mere add-on.

 

[Thalassamania]

I've yet to see anything convincing that demonstrates that "vacation tropical diving" is NOT the "backbone" of the "scuba industry" regardless of how you define it ...

Backbone, no ... soft underbelly, perhaps?

 

[TSandM]

You know, one of the things I think about from time to time regarding training is that it's a shame it's all bundled into "classes", with a limited curriculum and a card at the end.

A couple of years ago, I managed to connect with a superb instructor. I asked him to go diving with me and my buddy, and give us some feedback on where he saw us as divers, and where we could improve. I got the surprise of my life during that first dive -- I had expected a simple cruise, and instead got a full-on training session. At the end of it, the instructor said, "You guys need some work. I have to come up here at intervals anyway, why don't we schedule a weekend every four to six weeks, and you can practice stuff in the meantime." His price for this was quite reasonable, so that's what we did.

It was a wonderful experience. Each weekend's diving had no goal other than to improve. There were no c-cards at risk, no access we were desperately trying to get, no ego to feed with another rating. There was just work, and fun, and steady progress. At the end of, I think, the fourth such weekend, he told us to get helium in our tanks for the next day, because we were doing the experience dives for the Helitrox class we didn't know we were taking

He said to us at the beginning, "Training is about the skills. If you have the skills, the cards drop in your lap." This was the most fun diving education I've taken, much more analogous to the twenty years of riding lessons I've had, and I think it's something both instructors AND students would enjoy, if more people did it.

 

[spectrum]

That is a win-win. He was essentially a mentor for hire doing free form diver development.

 

[aquaregia]

I'd love something like that. I know Trace does the whole SCUBA coach thing, not sure who else might. I spend an insane amount of money on coaching for fencing, and that's just training so I can hopefully do better at my next tournament. I'd love to have a mentor/instructor I'd go diving with for whatever-$ a week/month/session/etc and pick up whatever certifications this amounted to as they came. I can't think of anything I'd really *need* the cards for other than AOW/Nitrox.

 

[spectrum]

I'd love something like that. I know Trace does the whole SCUBA coach thing, not sure who else might. I spend an insane amount of money on coaching for fencing, and that's just training so I can hopefully do better at my next tournament. I'd love to have a mentor/instructor I'd go diving with for whatever-$ a week/month/session/etc and pick up whatever certifications this amounted to as they came. I can't think of anything I'd really *need* the cards for other than AOW/Nitrox.

Well if you weren't brandishing that knife in your avatar perhaps you'd find favor with some seasoned local diver. :shocked2: Of course taking your interest in fencing into account you do seem less dangerous.

Seriously, the more you can dive with a cross section of the local diving community the better. Learn a little, share a little.

Peye