To those considering an OW class...

[rescom]

Let me tell you that my business partner and I were headed to Australia for a liveaboard and his jealous wife decided she wanted to go and became certified to do it. When she was "certified" for open water and stepped foot on the boat her dive log read two dives. My business partner was forced to break all the rules because he was forced to set up her equipment, read her gauges, and hold her hand the entire time they dove, because the organization who deemed her certified gave her a licsence that allowed her to jump in at the Great Barrier reef. What the certificate should have said was that she was able to breath air in a very controlled environment of 80 degrees with 100% visibility, no current, and no fish life that would shock her into a state of panic. I ended up having a great vacation with someone other than I intended after spending numerous years training and learning new skills to be able to safely enjoy. Although there are undertones of jealousy i my statment, I still am making the point that there should be more classroom for open water certification unless the organizations make discovery diving an actual certification.

 

[rhadamantus]

i guess the issue is that some people try to get certified without doing any preparations before it nor they do so to jump into the band wagon. i agree that classroom sessions are important, and much much needed especially if you never made any readings or preparation before it. but as with my experience, lots of questions were raised up when i was doing the confined water diving already. thats where u get to compare what uve read about and what is actually happening.

and as with most things we do in this life, experience is the best teacher.

 

[namabiru]

But if it hadn't been for a "study before you get here and then when you get here we'll do classroom work and diving" setup for me, I would have never gotten to learn how to dive in the first place. There's no way I could swing the cost or the time of a long-term diving course with being back in uni. now.

However, a weekend of tourist diving in a quarry or down in Mexico, where I can look at things and most importantly practice is feasible.

But becoming ai good diver doesn't just mean you take the OW course and then expect to be pro. Getting that card meant I *could* go diving, and practice my skills. Going with AOW to get more experience certainly doesn't make me an advanced diver. I'll readily admit that. I won't get good until I can get in the water on a regular basis, and can practice.

But at least I know what to look for, and what to work on.

I think, though, that people who don't keep up their knowledge during long surface intervals (3 months for me) are only giving themselves a disadvantage. At least doing some swimming, or armchair diving (I've really gotten into reading wreck diving accounts!) will help keep you in the loop.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I don't think the point of this thread was to extend classroom time as much as it was to extend confined water time. Self study is great. I do most of my courses as self study courses. It does require a commitment from the student diver to study the materials before the course. But if that's done, then the classroom session can go much more quickly. I spend more time in confined water than I do in the classroom. I cover what's necessary in the classroom, but the teaching occurs in the water. That's where it should occur. Standing in the water with gear on helps make the student diver comfortable with the new gear he/she has on. It get you in the water where you want to be in a scuba course.

namabiru, you're right, getting in the water on a regular basis is the way to improve your skills. You should join us at Lake Pleasant sometime. We'll be there this weekend if you're free.

 

[WVDiverDude]

QUOTE
I don't think you are going to change the "do it now, do it fast, do it cheap" mentality of many people looking for OW certification. Therefore you will not change the agency viewpoint about it. They will provide what the customer wants, within their ability to escape liability.

What would be nice is if someone would provide real classes for those of us wanting to upgrade our initial OW training and improve our skills. That might be something of a niche market, but it would be a valuable offering that is not currently available on a broad scale. It doesn't take long after OW certification to realize that there is still a lot to learn. I would think that anybody who went into it with a serious intention of really diving would be thrilled to find out that there was a next level class that might actually teach them something useful. I know that some might argue that DIRF is just that, but it misses the mark as far as mass appeal. I think the Essentials class sounds like what I was looking for, but with only one location that makes it localized for the most part

walt1957,
I do have such a class. It is intended for people who realize that their current level of skill isn't quite enough and they want a more efficient way to improve beyond self discovery of the skills in an ungiuded way.


I Agree with walt: quick and easy is always going to win out; HOWEVER: the secret is to provide the OW diver with the most important skill: to recognize his limits and have the good judgement to stay within them. Then, secondly, provide quality advanced instruction/certification for those divers when they want/need it-- just my two cents

JBD tell me more about your class -- i am interested

 

[sambolino44]

I agree with everything you said except this part:

There is really no blame to assess here as the free market defines the programs and it is the people who have no idea the requirements of OW diving that are the consumers and thus drivers of the market forces.

I always thought that the agencies were a counter-force to the free market. If the free market was allowed to control things, there would be no agencies; anyone could dive if they had the money. It's always been the agencies' duty to provide standards and controls which will keep divers safe, so that the government won't step in and start setting the standards. When the agencies let the standards slip, there's nothing standing in the way of letting a cert being so easy to get that it's meaningless. The next step will be divers getting injured, lawsuits, and the agencies being replaced by the government.

So, my response is: yes, there is blame to assess here, and it goes to any agency which has used the excuse of needing to make money to lower their training standards. Which is probably all of them. In my not-so-humble opinion.

 

[scubasherry]

This was an interesting thread to read.
I was given my open water card without even completing one of my open water required dives. I did not prove that I could do all my skills every time I was in the water, confined or open…..I was given my C-card in front of a whole group of people while camping at a quarry. It surprised me, I was not expecting to receive it and I know I did not deserve it……and all the clapping and congratulating I did not have the guts to say anything. And yes an untrue version of a dive was signed off by this instructor. It’s pathetic. I am pathetic for allowing it.
After coming back from a nearly failed attempt of a dive vacation in Cozumel I tried to talk to the instructor about problems I have, I have tried to talk to the shop owner about problems I have and they are always more interested in hearing themselves talk than listening to me. I read an article in the August Dive Training Magazine geared toward instructors about the importance of listening…. To bad they don’t read it.
I once confided in a friend from the dive shop that I had not done all my check out dives and that I felt cheated, as if I had not gotten enough education or practice. That it was too rushed and that is part of the reason I am so uncomfortable. She was appalled and said the instructor would not have passed me unless he knew I would be a good diver. She hasn’t spoken to me since. I got the same reaction from another couple of people that I told who are divers at the same shop. You just don’t say anything unless it is good or you get shunned. Lesson learnt.
I have dove 2 times this summer. I could only log one of them. I am scared, I am not comfortable and I don’t like being cold.
So take an already short class… and make it even shorter by not making the students do everything they are supposed to do. Then apply to that someone who is apprehensive and nervous about the sport and you get me…… an unqualified diver with all this expensive dive gear and I am afraid to use it.
If they had a longer course I would take it. I almost feel I should just take the whole open water course again maybe with a different agency and see if that makes me a better diver. How can I take an AOW course without being confident of the basic skills I learned? Wouldn’t I be totally in over my head? (no pun intended)

 

[TSandM]

Sherry, it sure sounds as though you ought to take OW over again, with a different shop at the very least, or find a good instructor and do some private lessons until you feel more confident with your skills.

Just a quick note to the people who are posting that they took an abbreviated class and are perfectly happy with it . . . I'm going to sound like somebody's grandmother here (and I guess that's okay, because I AM somebody's grandmother), but I would have said what you're saying when I finished my OW. I thought it was a great class. I really liked the instructors and thought everybody took lots of time with me. I didn't realize how bad my skills were, and I didn't appreciate the holes in my training (like the fact that I never successfully carried out a descent without hanging onto my instructor's BC). It was with subsequent diving, and eventual exposure to a much higher standard, that I was able to look back and say that I should not have been passed out of OW without further work.

 

[rhadamantus]

ive worked hard on earning my OW considering I have only two weekends to complete the course. ive read the book over and over again before i even started the class so when i sat down in the classroom, i watched the video, go through some wrap up with my instructor and got the theory done, we spent most of the teaching in the pool already. i was lucky it was just me so the pacing of the course was my call.

now, ive got a lot of fun dives after it and i did them with confidence. though most students generally would prefer to always get their first few fun dives with someone who taught them the course, you would know you have been taught well when you can go and dive with a different DM afterwards. (oh back here we cannot dive without a DM).

 

[jbd]

JBD tell me more about your class -- i am interested

To me it is a basic OW course. I pretty much follow the general NAUI format as far as overall "layout" and content of the course. I do focus much more strongly on bouyancy control and trim and consequently do some things differently than what I learned as an AI or in my ITC. I guess the biggest difference is that I get the students hovering as quickly as possible and continue skills learning/practice while hovering.
For example, the first session in the water involves snorkleing/skindiving skills in which one of the things taught is mask clearing. The second water session is on scuba and includes mask clearing starting out lying on the bottom of the pool at the shallow end. The third water session is on scuba and includes mask clearing practice but now it is done while off the bottom wherever one is in the pool/water column and while doing other tasks. By the end of this session most people are capable of removing, replacing and clearing the mask while performing a reasonable hover i.e not moving up or down by more than a few feet from the starting point. From this point on task loading & new skills, while maintaing bouyancy control and trim, is increased in small steps throughout the remainder of the course.

Sorry I was late responding to this--been gone for a week. If you have any other questions feel free to ask or send a PM.

jbd