Thank heavens for PADI

[ElectricZombie]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...

In the Instructor exam all skills are demonstrated sitting on the bottom. The reason you're not tought to do them midwater is because often the instructor can't do it.

Exactly.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Beach Bum k10 once bubbled...
Mike,

By the way, you have a few good points, though I disagree with some other.. Thanks for sharing.

When you say ...



While the book does not say you have to plaster to the bottom, so? What is your point? I don't quite get what you try to imply.

Safe diving.

I'm not sure I can explain what I was trying to say but I'll try. You can do a skill or you can DO a skill...You can over weight a student, plaster them to the bottom and have them breath a free flow or share air...or you can ask them to do that while they dive still staying with their buddy and maintaining control as they will need to do on a real dive. One is much easier and faster. The other is more useful.

Another example...You can have a student swim really fast accross the pool and not hit the bottom. That satisfies the requirement that they swim for 30 yards neutrally buyant per the wording in the standards.Or...you can have them swim slowly, using good finning technique, staying wwith their buddy while stoping, turning and changing depths like they'll need to do on a real dive.

All these possibilities meet standards but which meet the intent of the standards? Which are diving and which are just breathing under water?

All I'm talking about is teaching what is already required or implied in the standards as apposed to faking it and handing out cards.

Look at the outline for a DIRF. Al those skills with the exception of maybe lift bag deployment is listed in the OW standards. Every one should just breeze right through DIRF.

 

[MikeFerrara]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
I don't see this from any of the instructors that I've dealt with at my shop. They all seem to care. Now most do the skills kneeling, and I can see some benefit to this. Would you want 6 new divers hovering in a lake with 4' of viz while your doing a skill with one?

Yes.

 

[Beach Bum k10]

Thanks for the clarification. Now it makes more sence.

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


I'm not sure I can explain what I was trying to say but I'll try. You can do a skill or you can DO a skill...You can over weight a student, plaster them to the bottom and have them breath a free flow or share air...or you can ask them to do that while they dive still staying with their buddy and maintaining control as they will need to do on a real dive. One is much easier and faster. The other is more useful.

Another example...You can have a student swim really fast accross the pool and not hit the bottom. That satisfies the requirement that they swim for 30 yards neutrally buyant per the wording in the standards.Or...you can have them swim slowly, using good finning technique, staying wwith their buddy while stoping, turning and changing depths like they'll need to do on a real dive.

All these possibilities meet standards but which meet the intent of the standards? Which are diving and which are just breathing under water?

All I'm talking about is teaching what is already required or implied in the standards as apposed to faking it and handing out cards.

Look at the outline for a DIRF. Al those skills with the exception of maybe lift bag deployment is listed in the OW standards. Every one should just breeze right through DIRF.

 

[jbd]

by MikeFerrera about addressing the intent of a skill. This is something that must be addressed by the instructors of every agency.

 

[MikeFerrara]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
Question about your classes Mike? And I'm not trying to argue with anyone. what are the first skills you teach in the pool? Do your students just jump in and bang they are neutral and then the do reg recovery? I'm not talking down what you do Mike, cause I believe you are a good diver/instructor. Just curious how you go about doing it?

I've posted some of this before and it's always changing but I'll try to give you a quick answer.

In a PADI course you only have so much latitude in when you introduce skills. Reg recovery, mask clearing and sharing air are required in the forst module. That's not bad since if a student can't clear a reg he might drown before you have time to teach him to dive. However you can't teach neutral buotant swimming until module three. The confusing part is that underwater swimming while controling depth and direction are required in module one as well as ascents. I have yet to figure out exactly how a student is supposed to swim controlling depth and direction before you get them neutrl but here's what I do.

I demonstrate everything neutral and horizontal even in shallow water. None of my assistants ever touch the bottom. I start students horizontal. If they're not neutral then they're laying down not kneeling. The reason is a person goes through their whole life upright. Whenever they do something or are stressed that's the position they want to return to. In order to dive with control we needto get rid of that tendancy so at no time in my class do I encourage the position. Also as I said the staff never touches the bottom and students tend to coppy what they see.

The standards don't let me require them to be neutral in mod 1 but it doesn't say that I need to stop them if they do it on their own either.

Anyway, all these skills that are done in the beginning while maybe in contact with the bottom will be revisited later in the class and in combination. The standards do encourage practice and don't require you to kneel on the bottom while practicing.

I think the real key thing we do in the pool is take a few minutes to work on body position and trim and allow students some time to practice it. Then we go back and practice all the component skills while diving. There are some thing in the classroom that go along with this but the post is getting long.

 

[newdiverAZ]

and what happens when #6 who happened to drift 6' away from you in the 4' viz has decided he don't wanna be there anymore and bolts to the surface?

 

[newdiverAZ]

I like the laying down thing, but one more question. When my wife and I first tried diving, and we were first under the water she had a real problem with not breathing from her nose which created a problem at first, now kneeling on the bottom she could just stand up, laying on the bottom would be a lil different story. She eventually overcame this where the instructor took the time and had her remove her mask and hold her nose first, then once she was comfortable like this, he reintroduced the mask. If she wasn't kneeling this may have been the cause for her to not continue diving?

 

[MikeFerrara]

jbd once bubbled...
by MikeFerrera about addressing the intent of a skill. This is something that must be addressed by the instructors of every agency.

Not to long ago there was even a little pice in one of the PADI publications about the difference between the wording and the intent of the standards. I don't remember if it was in the journal or a training bulliten but there don't seem to be many who took it to heart. They also don't seem to be pushing the issue.

 

[jepuskar]

I even plastered a big ole smilie face at the end of that comment with the hope of letting you know this is all in good discussion and I was expecting a rebuttal from you very soon.

But once again I have failed.

Your right, I am fool, and I really didn't mind that you called me one. I thought you and I had a deeper relationship...a mutual understanding and respect of ones opinions. I didn't mean to throw in a smilie face on you....do you ignore smilie faces?

:1st: