Thank heavens for PADI

[jepuskar]

You start a post like this and now this guy is doubting the agency he chose. Nice going guys!!!! :upset:

Thierry,

Concentrate on your training and get the most out of it. If your not comfortable with a certain skill make sure you and your instructor go over it again and again until you are.

Don't let strangers ruin your experience. You are involved in a great program...keep it up!!

Good diving!!

Jason

 

[MikeFerrara]

jepuskar once bubbled...
You start a post like this and now this guy is doubting the agency he chose. Nice going guys!!!! :upset:

That's exactly what some of us think should happen. He shouldn't assume the program is adequate. He should look into what might be missing.

 

[MikeFerrara]

ThierryA once bubbled...
Hi,

I'm new to diving and am in the middle of taking an OW/AOW class in Israel at the moment. With all the talks of low standards with PADI, I was wondering what's missing from the course I am taking. My instructor is an MD with 10 years experience as a dive instructor. The diving school is both certified by PADI and the Israel diving authority. I've been doing the OW in the med and will go down to the red sea for the AOW on a weekend.

What would be missing from the curriculum and training? I asked for a PADI certificate, as it is well known everywhere. The school is certified by a couple of other agencies. I can basically get another certificate with no change in the curriculum (maybe the theoretical exam will change?)

I am missing something?

T.

What's missing from manny classes is the adequate development of skills such that they can be performed in a real diving situation. For instance you should learn to handle a free flow while diving. That means off the bottom and while maintaining contact with your buddy. The same is true for replacing and clearing a mask or sharing air. Only doing these skills on the bottom just doesn't cut it.

Few classes teach the mechanics of trim. In fact the word appears nowhere in the text and you may just find that your instructor doesn't understand the concept. Most don't spend enough time working on buoyancy control before goint to open water.

The advanced class often takes a diver with poorly developed skills into environment or tasks that can be difficult without them. There just isn't any sense in doind deep dives if you aren't yet a good diver shallow. There's no sense attempting complex navigation or search and recovery if you can't yet control your position in the water column. Yhe solution many instructors come up with is to have you do these skills while sitting on the bottom as well.

The list goes on.

 

[Knavey]

MikeF,

Come one Mike, be reasonable. I would venture to say that 99.9% of the people out there who decide that scuba diving looks interesting and want to try it out are not going to even know where to start to decide if a company or instructor is a good one or not.

I know you would like to change the fundamentals of how training is done, and I believe that is a worthwhile and noble endeavor although a bit more daunting than climbing Mt. Everest or walking to the moon.

The thought process of the average Joe is much different than someone who has years of experience in a subject though. The person that walks into a dive shop and wants to get trained is going to shop at 1 or 2 shops and make the selection based on how they click with the person behind the counter. That person may not even be a diver!

Once they decide to dive with a shop (they aren't going to care if its NAUI or PADI or anyone else) they are going to do thier dives and training and become certified.

Some will get the bright shiney card and look up at the board and say "Hey what is that AOW course all about?" and like one LDS shop told me, some person behind a counter will say "Its some additional training and a way to get a few more dives in under the watchful eye of an instructor." That is exactly how it was sold to my wife.

And the person who has just qualified OW will be taking an AOW course because the person behind the counter just talked them into it.

Somewhere in all of this, several (many, maybe even a majority) posters on this board wish that the students would slow down and do some research...but it just isn't going to happen. In the excitment of it all (and scuba diving is VERY exciting if you remember your early dives and even or last one) the student is going along with whatever the diving instructor tells them. Its the nature of the inexperienced in just about anything...they will listen to someone who "appears" to know more than them and believe that they are looking out for the less experienced person. Now we know that is not always true...

That being said, I respect your opinions on a lot of things LDS related because of what you have been going through with the store. You have a perspective that brings a lot to the forums because of the experience that you have.

I just believe it is a bit niave to think that every wanna be diver is going to do the amount of research that most of us would do prior to doing something new in scuba now.

Most of us who post on forums use the internet as second nature...but I talk to people all the time that don't know the first thing about computers or the internet. Talk about a board, and they think you are building a house.

The majority of the newest divers are unfortunately caught up in the thrill of diving and are going to go with whatever their instructor tells them...whether it is to buy this course, or this gear or dive this way...that is what they are going to do.

One day they will pick up a book and say "Hey, thats not the way the book says to do it" or they will come onto Scubaboard and see the debate that occurs here and say to themselves "Whoa, my instructor told me this...maybe I better ask about that."

Hopefully, people here give them well reasoned (although at times debatable) information and then they go back out a better diver because of it. Just because you don't have them enrolled in a class doesn't mean they don't get instruction from reading this board.

Well, enough of my ramblings...lets try to remember that those of you with a wealth of experience on this board are educating those of us without it. Be smart about the way you present your advice and you will find the ignorant become the educated because of you.

 

[PhotoTJ]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...

Few classes teach the mechanics of trim. In fact the word appears nowhere in the text and you may just find that your instructor doesn't understand the concept.

Maybe the word doesn't appear, because for the type of diving that most open water students do, it's not that important.

Having never dove with you, or met other than here, I don't know why you dive, that is to say, what makes it fun for you. But, based on your posts, it seems like you, (as well as several others), are only enjoying diving when you, and everyone around you, are performing with flawless abilities.

Me, I just want to have fun, see some fish, catch a lobster, maybe find an old anchor. I neither want nor need to put on a skills demonstration every time I dive.

I wanna do barrel rolls.

I wanna rodeo the anchor rode.

I wanna stand on one finger on the bottom.

Yep. Fun!

 

[Diversauras]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...


Maybe the word doesn't appear, because for the type of diving that most open water students do, it's not that important.

Having never dove with you, or met other than here, I don't know why you dive, that is to say, what makes it fun for you. But, based on your posts, it seems like you, (as well as several others), are only enjoying diving when you, and everyone around you, are performing with flawless abilities.

Me, I just want to have fun, see some fish, catch a lobster, maybe find an old anchor. I neither want nor need to put on a skills demonstration every time I dive.

I wanna do barrel rolls.

I wanna rodeo the anchor rode.

Yep. Fun!

ditto...

 

[Walter]

ThierryA,

It is impossible to say what, if anything, is missing from your course. I don't know your instructor or what he includes in his class. I do know what PADI requires him to teach. That, IMHO, isn't enough. You might have an excellent instructor doing an outstanding job. The odds are against it.

jepuskar,

Question everything.

colise,

"PADI has certified over 10,000,000 divers? well this should tell you something..."

It certainly does - they are fast with no quality. Quality takes time.

"Don't judge a race or a country by a bunch of individuals you know..."

Good point and you shouldn't judge an agency by a bunch of divers you know. Judge it by it's standards.

"Over 10000000 can't be wrong"

Why would you think that?

"Fly Eastern Airlines"

Haven't they been out of business for 15 - 20 years?

Knavey,

You are correct, most will take the cheapest, fastest course they can find. They are welcome to do so and noone here is disputing that right. OTOH, some few individuals do care about quality and will do some research to find the best course available. They should have the right to have information available to them.

"Me, I just want to have fun, see some fish, catch a lobster, maybe find an old anchor. I neither want nor need to put on a skills demonstration every time I dive."

Me too. I enjoy diving, I have fun with it. OTOH, I'm not ½ a breath from panic. If I had the training PADI standards require, that's exactly where I'd be and I wouldn't be having fun, I'd be scared to death every time I got in the water.

 

[Lawman]

drives some of you nuts to realize that
without PADI you would be hanging around
the YMCA with a pool full of naked little boys
waiting your turn to teach this years 3 students
how to dive. No PADI, no LDS, boats, divers,
or dive resorts. Diving would be fighting it out with
curling for attention.

 

[jepuskar]

No matter the context Lawman, I just dont see 'naked little boys' sticking around much longer....lololol...I think that will get yanked....

nice visual though, had to re-read it. Ok, maybe I shouldnt say nice visual..well anyways, I hope you understand.

Walter, I do question just about everything, but there comes a point when questioning too much is detrimental and non-productive. Doesn't seem like much fun to me.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Knavey once bubbled...

That being said, I respect your opinions on a lot of things LDS related because of what you have been going through with the store. You have a perspective that brings a lot to the forums because of the experience that you have.

I have the opinions I have because I have seen so much of the results of typical dive training and I have seen the results of the alternative.

I just believe it is a bit niave to think that every wanna be diver is going to do the amount of research that most of us would do prior to doing something new in scuba now.

I don't think that at all. However, with adequate information up front some will. Those are the ones that concern me the most.