Thank heavens for PADI

[MikeFerrara]

Lawman once bubbled...
ve vill teach you how to dive! ve vil gif you the
standards!! You VIL meet the standards of
the Hitler School of Diving or ve vil make you
hurt all over like the pig dogs you are!!!!


Welcome to Mikes first orientation class....

You just feel left out cause you weren't tought to stay off the bottom. LOL

Is that what you really think of some one who uses the standards to the advantage of their student and doesn't like seeing student sent out unprepared for the most minor of problems? What have I said that would cause you to compare me to hitler?

 

[Diversauras]

I agree that if you introduce only BP/W config that you will have equipped OW students with all the gear they need to get trimed and horizontal, and if you teach long hose from the start they will learn to manage it without thinking about it. What you are also doing is cheating them of the entire experience. You are giving them all the solutions before they experience the problems.

You can show your students what to do, or tell them what you see and why it is the approach you have taken, but the part you have missed is giving them all the questions and all the alternatives so that they can see what you see, not just be told what you see. If through experience they arrive at the solutions then they are their solutions, as it sits now they are your solutions.

I am not saying you are doing anyting that can be construed wrong in any way, but it isn't the only way to teach or the only approach to diving.

 

[Walter]

Jason,

There's an old saying, It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

I've never said PADI was all bad. What I have said is their standards are not nearly as good as they should be. Even in their standards, they require many good skills/topics. They do not require enough to do an adequate job of producing safe competent divers.

Lawman,

I've never met Mike, but I've read enough of his posts to know he has integrity and is a fine instructor. While we don't always agree, I can count on his posts to be helpful and well thought out. I've read enough of your posts to know you are generally a troll who rarely contributes anything of value in your posts. You aren't improving your image by trying to tarnish his.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Diversauras once bubbled...
I agree that if you introduce only BP/W config that you will have equipped OW students with all the gear they need to get trimed and horizontal, and if you teach long hose from the start they will learn to manage it without thinking about it. What you are also doing is cheating them of the entire experience. You are giving them all the solutions before they experience the problems.

You can show your students what to do, or tell them what you see and why it is the approach you have taken, but the part you have missed is giving them all the questions and all the alternatives so that they can see what you see, not just be told what you see. If through experience they arrive at the solutions then they are their solutions, as it sits now they are your solutions.

I tell them what we have seen, experienced and how we got where we are. I don't give them the answer without the question.

I don't really see what experience I'm cheating them out of... well...other than wallowing in the bottom or needing air from some one who can't find their alternate or...having a free flow shoot them to the surface because I never asked them to do it midwater.

 

[jepuskar]

I think Walter just directly or indirectly called me a fool. I'm not sure which because if I would say why did you call me a fool and then he would say.....I was just stating an old saying.....

I have been offended, this is a disgrace, I expect more from Scubaboard...I paid my $19.95 for this month.

;-0

 

[Beach Bum k10]

Very good one Lawman. You just raise the level of entertainment on this board.

I second and 3rd... Thanks PADI for introducing the world to scuba.

Keep it up Lawman.

Lawman once bubbled...
ve vill teach you how to dive! ve vil gif you the
standards!! You VIL meet the standards of
the Hitler School of Diving or ve vil make you
hurt all over like the pig dogs you are!!!!


Welcome to Mikes first orientation class....

=-)

 

[Scuba Dooba 12]

Padi is awsome. I got my OW throu them. It was so much fun!=-)

 

[Walter]

Jason,

Ii wasn't just an old saying, it was directed at you. I was giving you advice. Your "come on SAY IT SAY IT!! I know you want to...come on COME ON!!!!" post made you appear to be a fool. Unless you like so appearing, you should think before you post. Your choice, it matters not to me.

 

[Beach Bum k10]

Glad you enjoyed your experience with PADI, Scuba Dooba, welcome to the PADI world of diving.

Haver a Great life and safe diving.

Scuba Dooba 12 once bubbled...
Padi is awsome. I got my OW throu them. It was so much fun!=-)

 

[fins wake]

... but I'll make an exception for a lady diver, mainly because her points underline the weakness of her side's arguments. The point being that the anti-PADI people really don't understand recrational diving ... at all!

Do they teach backward kicking in PADI? Nope. Grrrrrrr, why not?

Simple answer, and Margaret answers it herself:

I just learned to fin backwards this weekend. It took me four months of practice. I practiced alot, mostly during deco stops, and was told by one of my buddies that I didn't even look like the proverbial monkey violating a football; I looked like a monkey looking at a football, not sure how to start.

Four months? In an ideal world, all newbie divers would do a four-month course, which of course would include finning backwards, breathing from the longhose, doing advanced decompression planning and what have you.

In the real world people want to learn and commence diving ASAP. Even a two-week course - in some cases indeed a week-long course - will be too much. Remember, many budding divers are a bit apprehensive at first, and doing BUD/S training with them will undoubtedly scare off the vast majority. (Not that many people in this thread would fin that sad at all, I suspect. Me, I'm not that élitist.)

Given that GUE allegedly will start OW courses later this year (or at the beginning of next year) it will be very interesting to see if a long and extremely rigorous entry course is viable at all. Yes, there will undoubtedly be a handful people doing extremely long beginners' courses. But the rest?

In any case, the initial OW course is vastly over-rated as far as diving is concerned. The true diver will go on learning throughout his or her diving career. Saying nailed the real issue:

So am I, with my PADI OW card and diving every weekend or two, less safe than an advanced graduate of PDS (Perfect Diving School) who logs three dives a year over the course of one week?

Saying, you are easily more safe than the advanced graduate of PDS exercising her or his skills far too little, because your experience is greater. And that's all any OW course is, irrespective if it's agency X or brand Y: An entry-ticket into the underwater realm.