Things Scuba Instructors teach that are either bad or just wrong.

[DirtFish]

Overweighting was the biggest problem I saw when I certified. I didn’t realize it until a few years later. I thought maybe that was just how it was done in scuba, I didn’t know. I was already a freediver.
They loaded us up so much that we were planted firmly on the bottom in the pool and on the ocean floor. The instructors reasoning was that he wanted people to be able to sink feet first when they dumped air and not float away when doing skills along the rope. I felt like it was a balancing act between all the ballast weight and the air cell of the BC, and the diver wearing this contraption was just along for the ride. Buoyancy was now controlled with buttons like an elevator ride. This mentality was never corrected by any later instruction. Not until individual divers figured out it was wrong was it corrected. Many probably never figured out to correct it. I was lucky that I dived with a guy who straightened me out on weighting. The final understanding about proper weighting came when I decided to take up no BC diving in my vintage pursuits. I found I was pretty much right back to freedive weighting except with a tank on my back. Pretty simple really.
Shop instructors will also tell you about all the gear you need to buy so you look like a Christmas tree. They must get commissions for gear sales. Vintage diving and minimalism goes straight against this philosophy.

It's all about the training agency and the instructor. My daughter went thru her Recreational Diver cert with GUE. As a critical observer I was very impressed. First thing taught in the pool was mask clearing in the shallow end, second thing was buoyancy, third trim and from that point on all skills were performed while horizontal in the water. For her final skills testing they had to perform all skills in trim without moving more than 18" in the water column.
Three months ago we (wife, daughter and me), were diving at a famous dive resort in Roatan for a couple of weeks. The resort PADI dive instructor was teaching a group "buoyancy and trim" class with some of the people on our dive boat. When we came across them during our boat drop off dive they were all 9 of them including the instructor on the bottom on their knees in a circle. WTF

ps. Eric, I see that the price of stainless steel is starting to drop, finally

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It's all about the training agency and the instructor. My daughter went thru her Recreational Diver cert with GUE. As a critical observer I was very impressed. First thing taught in the pool was mask clearing in the shallow end, second thing was buoyancy, third trim and from that point on all skills were performed while horizontal in the water. For her final skills testing they had to perform all skills in trim without moving more than 18" in the water column.
Three months ago we (wife, daughter and me), were diving at a famous dive resort in Roatan for a couple of weeks. The resort PADI dive instructor was teaching a group "buoyancy and trim" class with some of the people on our dive boat. When we came across them during our boat drop off dive they were all 9 of them including the instructor on the bottom on their knees in a circle. WTF

ps. Eric, I see that the price of stainless steel is starting to drop, finally

I was certified PADI 1998. No GUE on the west coast then. So knees it was for us.

I can get stainless now for about $4 lb for rems at one of our local suppliers. I would have to cut all the stuff in-house. Winter time work!

 

[Angelo Farina]

I was trained in 1975, mostly using the ARO (CC pure oxygen rebreather).
It was always perfectly neutrally buoyant.
But the perfect trim, for us, was VERTICAL.
And fine motion all around in every direction was done with the hands opposition propulsion (what synchro swimmers use).
Kicking was severely prohibited...
Was this "bad" or "wrong"?
I do not think so. Different equipment, different purposes, different training...
Most of the things discussed in this thread look similar to me: different things for different goals, each can be right or wrong depending on circumstances.
I did never think that there is just one "right" way, we should be flexible and adapt everything to the requirements.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

A second thought...

What clearly happened in the FaceBook discussion is that people did not want to read through the long list of replies, so they just responded to the initial question as if they were the first ones to respond. Thus, the presence of clear and articulate responses to the contrary had no effect on them.

You do sometimes see this on ScubaBoard. When a discussion gets to the fourth or fifth page, you will often see someone make a post starting with something like "I haven't read the other posts, but...." What often follows is misinformation that has already been introduced and then thoroughly debunked. I often wonder if the person who wrote that ever goes back, reads the thread, and is then thoroughly embarrassed. I doubt it. I bet they just go on to other threads, convinced they have just added positively to the collective scuba mind.

I wrote a post on this many years ago. I called it the "I can't be bothered to read" syndrome.

Sometimes the threads explode and before you know it they are 5 or 10 pages long. To read through all that takes time and you have to pull on your rubber boots so you can wade through all the BS. A lot of people don’t have the patience to read through 70% crap to get one tasty morsel of good information. So it’s hard to blame them. The secret is to catch those threads fast and be one of the first responders. Kind of like getting tickets early so you get a good seat.

 

[mcohen1021]

We were at the lake teaching an open water class, when a girl's 2nd stage started free flowing while we were standing there at the surface

My instructor said "hit it.."

The girl didn't understand so I went over and took her 2nd stage and banged it against my open palm, and it stopped free flowing

[redacted by moderator]

 

[TMHeimer]

Sometimes the threads explode and before you know it they are 5 or 10 pages long. To read through all that takes time and you have to pull on your rubber boots so you can wade through all the BS. A lot of people don’t have the patience to read through 70% crap to get one tasty morsel of good information. So it’s hard to blame them. The secret is to catch those threads fast and be one of the first responders. Kind of like getting tickets early so you get a good seat.

Yes. And if you're off the grid for a while (like I just was for 2 months), you may want to respond to an OP without reading those 5-10 pages.

 

[Jeff_O]

We were at the lake teaching an open water class, when a girl's 2nd stage started free flowing while we were standing there at the surface

My instructor said "hit it.."

The girl didn't understand so I went over and took her 2nd stage and banged it against my open palm, and it stopped free flowing

[redacted by moderator]

The covers over the second stage mouthpiece to also hold them to a BC D-ring are great for keeping sand and grit out of an octo. They make it so you don't have too look to find the octo either. They would most probably also have free flow not happen as its sealed off?

 

[Wibble]

Unclean! Unclean!

Pee valves and associated plumbing?

 

[SlugLife]

I find the general culture of "you need a certification to fart in a wetsuit" to maybe take things too far, and that is frequently pushed by the dive-agencies.

There are ways to safely pursue independent learning. and yes, those ways may be more frustrating, time-consuming, and have some safety concerns.

 

[NitroxSam]

Yeah. I dive NitrOx in a pool as well. Old cells aren't as elastic as younger cells. What doesn't go in, doesn't have to come back out.

I certainly feel students that learn to kneel are disadvantaged.

I don't use it in the pool, but everywhere else...oh wait...not in the bath or hot tub...lol.