The Knowledge and Skills of the Divemaster

[TMHeimer]

As you mentioned, the NAUI MSD may be a way to go. Or mentors and lots of reading. DM course will polish your skills to "demonstration quality" for sure, but it costs money. You can do this nowadays with internet videos. Doing skills "perfectly" tends to vary from one instructor to another anyway.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I was the typical casual scuba diver (<20 dives a year) until I retired. Then I kicked it into high gear (>100 dives a year). My goal now is to experience new adventures, new challenges and continuous training and improvement of skills. I now regularly solo dive (with the certification). I public safety dive and on occasion perform technical diving (with advanced nitrox/basic deco certification). I am cautiously learning wreck exploration from the experts.

It seems like all the public safety divers and technical divers that I dive with are also dive masters. In most cases they were divemasters first. I suspect that my colleagues have fundamental skills from their DM training that I am missing. I would like to gain the knowledge and develop the watermanship sills of the dive master but I don't have interest in teaching basic scuba or running a dive shop, etc. I suspect that I could take the DM course without the internship elements (and obviously not get the DM certification). Would there be another way to obtain the knowledge and watermanship skills of the divemaster? I was thinking that the NAUI master diver course which involves written course work and several training dives might be close to what I am looking for. Suggestions? Thanks.

The NAUI Master Scuba Diver program is, to my concern, the best class NAUI offers at the recreational level. If taught properly (this is an important caveat with any class) it is thorough, comprehensive, and trains you on divemaster-level skills without the leadership component which is endemic to the DM program. It is specifically designed for people who want to gain these skills but have no interest in becoming a dive professional.

That said, I also agree with those who recommend the GUE Fundamentals class ... although I'll add you can gain similar skills in a well-taught Intro to Tech or Cavern class if those are more accessible to you.

I initially took the Fundamentals class shortly after becoming a NAUI instructor (which means I'd already taken the NAUI Master Diver, DM and instructor courses) and was surprised by how much I learned from it. So much so, in fact, that I took it again a year later (because I didn't pass the first time around), and got even more from it.

Just keep things in context, and remember that even the best classes are still an artificial environment that don't really teach you skills so much as they teach you the right way to learn them ... the real learning comes once class is over, and you begin to apply what you learned in the real world ... diving and repetition are the real way to learn scuba skills ... go diving, often ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Michael Guerrero]

I thought the only skills you pick up as a divemaster are how to carry an endless supply of tanks, deal with students constantly trying to kill you, and make no money?

You can go straight to technical diving without being a divemaster. Divemaster simply puts you on the path to being an instructor, thereby turning your hobby into a profession and ruining it forever.

 

[BlueOcean2015]

If you do not want to teach, but want to improve your skills why not take a BOE class from innerspace explores? Then you will learn to get your foundamentals right.

 

[Bob DBF]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the comments. To answer Lorenzoid, if you'll allow the tautology, I don't know what I don't know. For example, in spite of having several specialties and many years of diving, I am often surprised to learn a very useful tip from other divers that I didn't encounter in my courses. To make my diving safer and more enjoyable, I like to learn as much of this 'collective wisdom' as possible. Regards.

Then keep diving with different buddies, just because you learned something from them does not mean that they learned it in a class, or it would be taught in the class that you take. All of these classes have manuals and can be found on the internet, read them through and see if there is enough reason to to take the whole class. If not, you can hire an instructor to teach you the portions that you would like help with. The question is whether you want to use your time and money to get a cert that you don't seem to need, or continue on to your goal with a bit of instruction along the way that would not have a card attached.



Bob

 

[radtype]

My wife and I went through the PADI DM course. We had a couple of instructors we worked with and learned a lot. Working with the students was the best part