The Padi No Fear Diving Specialty Course

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@ flots am

About Safety.... in the PADI No Fear Diving Course...

Safety was a huge topic when I designed this Course....
The supervision of Clients is set up in a very close "frame"...

The maximum ratio ("Ratio") diving students to an instructor
for all training dives is 4 student divers per instructor (4:1).
During all dives, the instructor must be in the water and
supervise the dive-activitys... directly.
The ratio of 4:1 can be increased, by the use of a "certified assistant".
The maximum ratio diving students to "certified assistant" is 1:1.
The maximum number of participants is limited to 6 people.

Nearly no other dive course offer such a close supervision for dive student´s...


&....
I don´t have to fear nothing about PADI.... & the legality of my PADI course...
because I´m "The" PADI No Fear Diving Instructor... :D

I'm glad you said "nearly" since I work with "healthy" people at ratios of 2 students to each staff member. The idea of taking people with "issues" such as:

Indications for Ergo- therapy can be mental, psychosomatic, neurological / orthopedic.
For example:
[h=3]Mental disorders[/h] Hyper activity, anxiety disorders, addictions, neuroses, psychosis, borderline, personality disorders, depressions, eating Disorders, mental disabilities, etc. [h=3]Field of psychosomatic disorders[/h] Sleep Disorders, oncological diseases, pain syndromes, psycho- vegetative disturbances, contact - and communication disorders, work interference, Burn-Out-Syndromes, headache, migraine, etc. [h=3]Range of neurological / orthopedic diseasess[/h] Brain disorders, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatic diseases, fractures, joint pain, atrophy, peripheral paralysis, sensory disturbances etc.

into the water at any ratio above 1:1 gives me the willies.
 
@ Thalassamania....

me to...
:wink: so I also normally would not like take more then 2 Client´s with me...

This are just the maximum ratios ... according to the PADI standards of the course ...

I also never took 8 people for one open water course ... even it´s according to the standards...
But It´s the personal choice of ever single PADI Instructor & maybe some of them are more brave then me :wink:


 

Please read the bog with more attention...

OK, I read your bog.

Hyper activity, anxiety disorders, addictions, neuroses, psychosis, borderline, personality disorders, depressions, eating Disorders, mental disabilities, etc.
Field of psychosomatic disorders
. . .
Sleep Disorders, oncological diseases, pain syndromes, psycho- vegetative disturbances, contact - and communication disorders, work interference, Burn-Out-Syndromes, headache, migraine, etc.
Range of neurological / orthopedic diseasess
. . .
Brain disorders, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatic diseases, fractures, joint pain, atrophy, peripheral paralysis, sensory disturbances etc.

That's really all I needed to see.

flots.
 
About the PADI- "No fear diving" Course...
This PADI-No Fear Diving specialty course is especially created for people with fears and concerns in context with scuba diving & water (Hydrophobia).
The PADI- NO FEAR DIVING specialty course aims to appeal to divers who feel insecure under water for various reasons.
This course puts the diver himself at the center of attention, supervision and reflection, with all his individual & personal wishes, handicaps, needs and goals.
Interesting idea. Can an individual who has genuine fears about being in the water, and specifically underwater, learn to overcome those fears and enjoy diving, safely? If we believe that experiencing the beauty / magnificence / whatever of the underwater world is a worthy pursuit, and finding ways to help people achieve that goal is a useful endeavor, then I applaud the OP for developing a(nother) approach to help people do that. This thread is interesting, but also confusing for many reasons. Unforutnately, English is not the native language of the OP, and notwithstanding his claim on his website to 'speak . . . fluent English', there are issues of spelling, grammar and syntax, and content which may have gotten in the way of understanding.

What I THINK I understand is that the OP has created a course that helps people who have fear and anxiety about diving, to overocme those fears so they can dive comfortabvly and safely. Frankly, that is an admirable goal, and an effective course would be valuable. I presume from the various posts that the OP has submitted a Distinctive Specialty application to PADI, and it has been approved. Congratulations to the OP.

The problem I have with the thread is that it doen't necessarily help the rest of us, since the OP apparently intends to be 'THE' (only) instructor for the course, and does not want to 'give away' the outline. Fair enough. It is his intellectual property. But, I have to then wonder, why post anyhting about it on SB, exceopt to generate advertising. If that is the case, I guess that is fine as well. I must confess, however, that I am left, by the post as well as the information on the website, a bit in the dark.
Difefrenttherapy:
@flots am

Please read the bog with more attention...

No Fear Diving is as Scubadiving Course & no
psychotherapy....

& I´m a Ergo. Therapist & I´m practicing Ergo.-therapy .... this is something very differnt.. like Different Therapy....
confused.gif


Please read in http://differenttherapy.com/index.ph...at-it-is-about
The concept is potentially intriguing, but confusing for many reasons, and the comments from flots am are not at all unreasonable. For example, even after going to the website, I am not sure I understand what 'Ergo.-therapy' actually is. There seem to be several things that the course DOES NOT relate to:
SOFDiver:
I guess such a course is necessary if an instructor certifies a "diver" who is not competent or confident.
The point appears to be to help the dive student, who would / could not otherwise become certified because of fear / anxiety, overcome their fear and anxiety and achieve certification. The majority of instructors I know would not certify a diver who is not 'competent' - cannot meet perfomance standards - nothwithstanding much of the training-bashing that goes on on SB. And, while divers who are not 'confident' might become certified, they then would become part of that group of OW drop-outs that we wring our hands over in many SB threads.
nimoh:
If PADI were to approve this course, they would be admitting shortcomings in their OW program.
rhwestfall:
so, you have re-packaged "continuing education" under another "specialty" to offset the ever apparent weakness of the current basic system.... oh good heavens.... another band-aid on a gunshot wound.
The course also does not appear to have anything to do with shortcomings of any particular agency or traing curriculum. And, it appears (althoughy I may misunderstand the OP's comments) to have already been approved by PADI.
Lorenzoid:
Doesn't something similar already exist, called AOW?
I don't see this as an alternative to, or subtitute for, AOW. Someone who has signficant fear and anxiety MIGHT actually be able to complete the performance requirements for five Adventure dives required for AOW. But, those dives would not necessarily address the underlying issues that would then preclude the diver from enjoying the activity going forward.

Having said all of this, my question for the OP is, 'What is your point in starting the thread? Your description in the initial post does not characterize what you actually do in the course, your website doesn't really illuminate what your 'different therapy' involves, you apparently intend to remain the only instructor for this Distinctive Specialty. So, why are you telling us what you have told us? Or, am I missing something?
 
I am greatly concerned about the idea of working with a phobic diver on anything other than a 1:1 basis.
 
I don't care how you slice it, IF (and I still call BS on this one) PADI does stand behind this, then it proves that there is absolutely nothing they will not do to get more money from a person.
I don't understand how PADI really gets money from this? They get the processing fee for a card. What else do they get? Unless they are actually publishing a book or video.

---------- Post Merged at 07:39 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:37 PM ----------

It does raise visions of the Fin Donning Specialty, the BC Power Inflation Specialty, etc. I suppose you could break the process down into ever-smaller, separately purchased pieces to the point of absolute absurdity. I'm aware that some think that is already well underway.
I seriously need this class! With my new drysuit and liner I can't seem to bend my knees enough to get my fins on and off. Very embarrassing and downright dangerous when trying to beach dive!
 
I am greatly concerned about the idea of working with a phobic diver on anything other than a 1:1 basis.

I've had two students in the past who I would have referred to such a course if it had been available.

The first one was a diver, a person with 250 dives and a DM rating, who had experienced a fatal accident and had stopped diving for a period of time. When she decided to get back in to diving she came to the shop where I was working and they asked me to "handle" her. They often ask me to handle "unusual" cases and there is nothing special about me that makes me qualified for this.

The other one was a diver who every other instructor working at the shop had already given up on. The diver was a friend of one of the DM's and she was absolutely determined to get certified but she had (it turned out after the fact) a rather peculiar way of learning things that didn't fit in the way most of our instructors were teaching and she was *very* nervous underwater. Once again I was asked to handle it because it was an unusual case and not because I have any special skills.

In the first case, the DM, she was completely sorted under water and I could add nothing in terms of her diving. The problem was that everything about diving brought back memories of the accident and even the smell of the diving gear was enough to make her start crying to begin with. What she needed was a trauma counselor, and she was, in fact, seeing one, but it wasn't over. She was determined to take up diving again but needed someone to talk to. What I ended up doing with her is asking her to tag along with scuba reviews that I did on a regular basis and then after everyone went home we stayed for a while longer at the shop and just talked. Actually, she talked. All I did was shut up and listen, and it did seem to help her. After a while she thanked me and went back to diving with her friends like she did before. I would have loved to have been able to refer her to a course like this with a specialist. In this case a 1:1 ratio would not be necessary.

In the case of the nervous OW student with the odd way of learning the approach was very different. To start with our first "lesson" didn't even involve doing any skills. I thought since she's so wound up about being rejected by the other instructors that I would go do something fun with her so we went to the pool and just threw an under water frisbee around for while and then went to a cafe across the street and just had a coffee and talked. What I wanted out of that, of course, was to dig into her head. In this case, I said to her pretty much literally, that instead of telling her what she had to do for me (or the course) that I wanted her to tell me what I could do for her. This lead to me understanding her peculiar learning method and over the course of the next 2 lessons we tried to apply it and refined it somewhat so that I was teaching her how she wanted to learn it. That didn't solve her fears though (it did help) and for that I just took a lot of time.... and I mean a LOT of time. I did 20 pool dives with her and another 20 in open water, all 1:1, before the fears had abated to the point where she was diving normally, enjoying it, and able to handle surprises (to a degree). I did, actually, discuss with her on more than one occasion if diving was "worth it" for her but she was completely determined to learn it and wrestled her way through a lot of anxiety to get to the point where she relaxed and could dive normally. We also spent a LOT of time discussing "comfort zone" and how to respond if she got outside her comfort zone. This student could have really benefited from working with someone like the OP instead of me, because while I'm a good instructor, I'm no counselor. In the end I was very proud of her and her accomplishment but I was happy when she got to the point where I could certify her because she was starting to do things like bake me muffins and it was making my wife nervous :D

Something worthy of noting is that the student I just described was "anxious" but not phobic in the classic sense of the word. I think if her fears had been any worse that there is no way I could have taught her how to dive.

I *did* have someone for an intro dive who was phobic once. Thankfully she told me about it and told me that she wanted to learn how to dive in order to get over her fear of water :shocked:

I took her to the pool, again 1:1 and we went to a shallow part that was only 90cm deep. After 1 hour of work I had her to the point that she was able to put the regulator in her mouth and lay on the surface with the BCD fully inflated and breathe. At the end of the session I deflated her BCD and she sank to the bottom in this 90cm of water and didn't fly into a blind panic. To the contrary, she came out of the water so energized that she was almost literally bouncing and wanted to sign up right then and there for an OW course. I told her, as politely as I could, that I didn't think it was a good idea but that if she went to swimming lessons and came back with a swimming diploma that I would try to train her. She agreed and left (I thought) determined to sign up for swimming lessons the next day. I never did see her again so I don't know if she did it or not. I'm guessing she didn't.

The point is, having had that experience, the diver with "angst" problems was trainable but the truly phobic one had no chance at all of learning how to dive.

And that's where I have to scratch my head about this "specialty". Because specialties are intended for divers who are already certified and while I could easily see it being applicable to the DM in the first story, or even the diver in the 2nd story as an intermediate step before taking AOW, the truly phobic diver simply would never be certified. It's literally impossible to certify someone who is phobic because if you follow standards they can never "master" a skill (the definition of mastery is "comfortable", "fluid" and "repeatable"). As long as they are actively phobic they can never be comfortable. At least that's my take based on the one example I have to draw upon.

R..
 
Nice work, R. :) Good on you too, for making the distinction between trauma (which your DM had) and phobia, which is completely different (I used the words too loosely in a prior post). I'm glad the DM made her way back.
 
...
I seriously need this class! With my new drysuit and liner I can't seem to bend my knees enough to get my fins on and off. Very embarrassing and downright dangerous when trying to beach dive!
Walk into the water with the fins in your hands till you can float on your back while donning them. Much easier, especially if you have spring straps too..
 
For what it's worth PADI had this to say:
Yes, this is a legitimate distinctive specialty that Oliver Radosav is offering. It has been approved by PADI.

Any other agency, and I'd be surprised.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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