Right on Detroit Diver. Was thinking the same thing since I recently finished "Power Failure"....decent book.
Jepuskar, INFLUENTIAL.......yes, maybe influential but that does not always carry a positive message.
Thank heavens for PADI
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Right on Detroit Diver. Was thinking the same thing since I recently finished "Power Failure"....decent book.
Jepuskar, INFLUENTIAL.......yes, maybe influential but that does not always carry a positive message.
Whirling Girl
Contributor
gedunk once bubbled...
Margaret,
You have really had a double dose of kool-aid haven't you?
Think about what you said here one more time. You may have learned new things or techniques in your DIRF but it was hardly as thorough in teaching OW diving to you than your PADI course. I'm not going to waste bandwidth here but i can probably think of over 200 specific knowledge development topics required by PADI standards alone. Also there are plenty of in water skills presented and performed in most OW courses, that are never touched on in the DIRF.
If you still feel the same way, you need to report your instructor to PADI. There is no way you should have gotten more information or learned more skills in your DIRF.
Hey, no need to be rude by implying that I've been brainwashed by some cult. I can, and do, think for myself, at least some of the time. But being a new diver, I have a particularly fresh perspective on what it was like to go through an openwater course, and then take DIRF, and compare the two. Did you have that experience?
Er, what's a "knowledge development topic"?
My PADI instructors were both excellent, actually. They taught the PADI curriculum to the letter and they tried to answer all my questions. As I started to figure things out, though, it got harder for them to answer questions about why we were being taught to do things a certain way. "That's just how we do it."
If you haven't taken a Fundamentals class, you should spend a weekend and do it. And then tell me it doesn't review everything from your basic openwater course, and then give you a) the reasons behind everything, including gear, gas management, buddy awareness, and emergency response; b) a change in orientation toward the sport of diving generally which is intended to make your diving a lot safer; and c) a basic set of skills to keep working on after the course is over that most openwater courses don't 'touch on'.
Like backward kicks. Which might sound like a fluff skill, but since a typical openwater instructor apparently does not know how to do it, and therefore teaches their students to use the bottom or the coral or a rock in order to move backwards, I think that it becomes a nice skill to have.
Grrr. Peace.
eace:Margaret
I don't need protection from you. I guess the metphor flew by me too so I wouldn't mind if you answered the question I asked in response to your post.
"not less confident, but actually unsafe"
Less confident is unsafe. Lack of confidence leads directly to panic. Panic kills divers.
Whirling Girl,
"Knowledge development topics" is a list of topics in the PADI standards which are required knowledge for PADI students to become PADI certified divers. Unless you had a copy of PADI standards, you'd have know way of knowing such a list existed nor what is on the list.
While I think that list could be improved, it's not all that bad. I have more of an issue with in water skills.
Lawman,
Yes, it was a metaphor. A metaphor is a comparison, it did not fly right past anyone. A metaphor in bad taste. A metaphor which did not show your best side.
Less confident is unsafe. Lack of confidence leads directly to panic. Panic kills divers.
Whirling Girl,
"Knowledge development topics" is a list of topics in the PADI standards which are required knowledge for PADI students to become PADI certified divers. Unless you had a copy of PADI standards, you'd have know way of knowing such a list existed nor what is on the list.
While I think that list could be improved, it's not all that bad. I have more of an issue with in water skills.
Lawman,
Yes, it was a metaphor. A metaphor is a comparison, it did not fly right past anyone. A metaphor in bad taste. A metaphor which did not show your best side.
I'm speachless :whoa:
If the taste police are going to patrol
ScubaBoard they might skip over to
the thread that asks if you Pee in your
wetsuit.
In the meantime I'll respond to Mike when
he rants about the untrained PADI swine
that endanger us all.
ScubaBoard they might skip over to
the thread that asks if you Pee in your
wetsuit.
In the meantime I'll respond to Mike when
he rants about the untrained PADI swine
that endanger us all.
ScoobyDave
Contributor
I have the perspective of someone who had over 100 dives prior to taking the ow class, and there is one skill that has been mentioned here that is sorely lacking in the ow class - that of bouyancy control. The extent of bouyancy control training was teaching fin pivots, which don't do a whole lot of good at a safety stop.
In reading through the various dive accident summaries, a common thread surfaces - that of loss of bouyancy control leading to some injury. Now whether the control is the problem or a symptom of something else (IE, panicing in an oow situation, turning it into an emergency), it remains a significant statistical problem.
My candidate for one compulsory requirement for completing the ow class is demonstration of controlled bouyancy - more than being able to fin pivot.
In reading through the various dive accident summaries, a common thread surfaces - that of loss of bouyancy control leading to some injury. Now whether the control is the problem or a symptom of something else (IE, panicing in an oow situation, turning it into an emergency), it remains a significant statistical problem.
My candidate for one compulsory requirement for completing the ow class is demonstration of controlled bouyancy - more than being able to fin pivot.
Whirling Girl once bubbled...
Hey, no need to be rude by implying that I've been brainwashed by some cult. I can, and do, think for myself, at least some of the time. But being a new diver, I have a particularly fresh perspective on what it was like to go through an openwater course, and then take DIRF, and compare the two. Did you have that experience?
Er, what's a "knowledge development topic"?
My PADI instructors were both excellent, actually. They taught the PADI curriculum to the letter and they tried to answer all my questions. As I started to figure things out, though, it got harder for them to answer questions about why we were being taught to do things a certain way. "That's just how we do it."
If you haven't taken a Fundamentals class, you should spend a weekend and do it. And then tell me it doesn't review everything from your basic openwater course, and then give you a) the reasons behind everything, including gear, gas management, buddy awareness, and emergency response; b) a change in orientation toward the sport of diving generally which is intended to make your diving a lot safer; and c) a basic set of skills to keep working on after the course is over that most openwater courses don't 'touch on'.
Like backward kicks. Which might sound like a fluff skill, but since a typical openwater instructor apparently does not know how to do it, and therefore teaches their students to use the bottom or the coral or a rock in order to move backwards, I think that it becomes a nice skill to have.
Grrr. Peace.
Margaret
Well Margaret, my intention was not to insult you .... did you not see the winky and smile smilies after my kool-aid comments. I apologize if you felt insulted.
With that said, i have not taken the DIRF course nor i have read the book. But you directly implied that you learned more in one weekend than you did in a three week PADI course, which in your own words was taught very thoroughly.
Your trying to tell me you learned more in one weekend than you did in three weeks? Sorry girl, but i'm not buying that.
What is a knowledge development topic? Well, everything you learned in your openwater course. Things like volume, pressure, density relationships, how a regulators works, what the markings on a scuba cylinder mean, standard hand signals, how to use dive tables etc, etc.
Getting back to the whole DIRF topic. Do a search, you will be hard pressed to find one negative comment i have made about the DIRF. I know what a DIRF is and if your assuming that i think it is a bad thing, you would be wrong. I simply know you can't pack all the content of the PADI or any typical OW program, into one weekend. Of this you can be sure.
I'm glad your happy with your training and wish you the best in your diving.
Have a nice day!
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