Today's OW Course

[sabbath999]

I use the mask clearing example a lot but it best illustrates this. If a student clears their mask to demo quality first time out on their knees that is good enough for a lot of instructors. It was and is for my OW instructor. I on the other hand have the time to be sure they have it down by testing them horizontally, swimming, hovering, while sharing air, during a doff and don, a bailout, etc.

This whole "on their knees" instruction thing baffles me... perhaps because that's not how we were taught to dive.

I took a course recently (drysuit) and we were told to go to the deep end to get ready to do some fin pivots and hovering... my wife and I swam down and hovered, waiting for the rest of the folks to show up... and everybody else just swam down, plopped down on the bottom of the pool on their knees like it was some kind of religious ceremony.

Why on earth would you sit on your knees? You don't sit on your knees in the coral?

The place where we took OW only uses the "knees" thing in a couple of instances in shallow water, and then that's over with. Apparently, some people teach entire classes that way.

 

[Diver0001]

If a student clears their mask to demo quality first time out on their knees that is good enough for a lot of instructors.

Not to get in an agency discussion but this generally isn't possible in main stream courses.

To take PADI as an example:

Confined 1: clear partially flooded mask
Confined 2: Mask removal / replacement and no-mask breathing
Confined 3: repetition of previous mask skills at instructor's discretion
Confined 4: removal of mask, swimming plus replacing
Confined 5: repetition of previous mask skills at instructor's discretion
Open water1: no mask skills
Open water 2: clear partially flooded mask, clear fully flooded mask
Open water 3: clear fully flooded mask
Open water 4: mask removal and replacement

Those are the *minimum* standards for mask skills in the PADI system.

I would submit that as a PADI instructor, their system both reinforces and *demands* of me that I view mask clearing as a primary skill and drill it over and over until it has been proven to be "conform standards" almost every time I get in the water with them.

What you're saying about trying it once, getting a lucky bullseye and getting signed off for it isn't possible in that system. I don't know what system you're talking about but I would be surprised if any of the WRSTC affiliated agencies (they account for probably 98% of the scuba training market) do it much differently than what I described above.

R..

 

[sabbath999]

Not to get in an agency discussion but this generally isn't possible in main stream courses.

To take PADI as an example:

Confined 1: clear partially flooded mask
Confined 2: Mask removal / replacement and no-mask breathing
Confined 3: repetition of previous mask skills at instructor's discretion
Confined 4: removal of mask, swimming plus replacing
Confined 5: repetition of previous mask skills at instructor's discretion
Open water1: no mask skills
Open water 2: clear partially flooded mask, clear fully flooded mask
Open water 3: clear fully flooded mask
Open water 4: mask removal and replacement

Those are the *minimum* standards for mask skills in the PADI system.

I would submit that as a PADI instructor, their system both reinforces and *demands* of me that I view mask clearing as a primary skill and drill it over and over until it has been proven to be "conform standards" almost every time I get in the water with them.

What you're saying about trying it once, getting a lucky bullseye and getting signed off for it isn't possible in that system. I don't know what system you're talking about but I would be surprised if any of the WRSTC affiliated agencies (they account for probably 98% of the scuba training market) do it much differently than what I described above.

R..

With all due respect, I see certed divers all the time that can't clear their masks.

I am sure you are a very reputable instructor. Not everybody is... or is even close.

About a month ago I was diving in a quarry and I saw somebody doing mask clearing drills on a training platform. I thought "good for her, that's smart diving". Later, during a surface interval, I mentioned to her that I thought it was really smart to keep up with the basic drills, and she said to me "Yeah, I never really could clear my mask right during class... I didn't really get it clear the three times he had me try it."

Direct quote.

It isn't about the agency standards in a lot of cases, it is about whether an instructor is doing his or her job no matter what agency he or she is with.

 

[Diver0001]

With all due respect, I see certed divers all the time that can't clear their masks.

I am sure you are a very reputable instructor. Not everybody is... or is even close.

About a month ago I was diving in a quarry and I saw somebody doing mask clearing drills on a training platform. I thought "good for her, that's smart diving". Later, during a surface interval, I mentioned to her that I thought it was really smart to keep up with the basic drills, and she said to me "Yeah, I never really could clear my mask right during class... I didn't really get it clear the three times he had me try it."

Direct quote.

It isn't about the agency standards in a lot of cases, it is about whether an instructor is doing his or her job no matter what agency he or she is with.

Yeah. In our day jobs most of us feel like they're living in a "Dilbert" comic sometimes.

The point here is that if an individual instructor is a "Wally" then the agency that defined the standard may not be the reason he's a lazy titt

R..

 

[Ana]

How do you see the current situation when it comes to diver OW certification?

Well, the following quote taken from a different thread on this board is IMO a very good representation of a typical diver. I'm only quoting the portion of the thread that produces loud screams in my head.

Referring to a 135' -140' dive this person said

Be aware that your computer will go into deco on this dive but the dive masters managed the ascent so well that mine cleared the 4 minute stop at 10’ before we got to 20’

Now I've mentioned here in previous posts that I will not share my air with anyone besides my husband or 3 friends I have. The whole board was at the edge of a group aneurysm. However having a diver go with the flow (literally) and put his safety in the hands of the DM's do jour doesn't raise any eye brows.

Seriously? Letting DM's herd you as they please is an OK behavior from a diver? No wonder charter boats hate my guts.

I think THAT is the current state of the divers today, a state that sucks big time, a state that says that people not only appear to not know how to dive but much much worse than that... people that has relinquished their safety and placed it in the hands of total strangers.

 

[rstofer]

I agree, it probably won't.


In scuba, moreover, the liability waivers that are signed by the participants are effective at minimizing legal losses to the insurance company and the instructors.

At least in California, you can't sign away your rights. Waivers are meaningless. Even if the waiver was valid, gross negligence is always an exception. Hard to prove but juries in civil suits are pretty liberal.

So, you think that any number of people dying due to inadequate training can never be a problem?

Did you note the numbers posted from DAN up above -- 87% of deaths for newly trained divers happening on the first day? Does that not suggest to you the possibility that inadequate training is a significant factor in those deaths.

I didn't read that factoid as having anything to do with 'newly trained divers' or that it was in any way related to training. In fact there is nothing in the statement to suggest how it was derived. I took it to mean the 1st of a multi-day resort program. Sounds to me like diving in an environment for which the diver didn't have experience. I guess you could claim inadequate training but you can't claim 'new diver'. But there are many more important possibilities.

I take those purported facts to indicate that nobody over the age of 40 should dive regardless of training. That would reduce 82% of fatalities! Imagine that... There should be a LAW regarding age!

Anybody with more than some arbitrary BMI shouldn't dive regardless of age. Probably people with coronary artery disease should also be excluded.

Long time divers should be barred from diving. This is, no doubt in my mind, a reflection of the increased dangers of tech diving (more likely to be long time divers). Any way you cut it, divers with more than 10 years experience are at higher risk. Maybe from old age, maybe from the types of dives. Or maybe from 'old-timers' disease.

You are LEAST likely to die while doing training dives and far more likely to die doing pleasure or sightseeing dives.

I believe the least likely candidates are those that would be trained in the old fashioned way (kind of like BUD/S without the telephone poles but with the push-ups and running with gear) diving until they reached 40 or 10 years of experience, whichever comes first.

Everybody else is at risk in one way or another.

Citing the DAN statistics is pretty pointless. If you look at what they really say, divers should be young, perfectly fit, not too experienced, involved in training dives and in shallow water. Everybody else should take up golf!

Meaningless statistics, if you want to actually dive.

And no, I don't really get concerned about how many people die while diving. It's better than getting turned into a grease spot on the highway. Or any of a host of other ways of dying.

Richard

 

[Walter]

Yes Walter, for the most part I'd agree; but there is more than one training agency involved, so that's not entirely true.

Excellent point. Some agencies did lower their standards dramatically after that - following the leader.

I've noticed a drop in standards since 1984 as well. One area has been swimming prerequisites as an example.

Yes, some agencies continue to lower their standards, but the biggest drops were prior to 1984 for the leader. Making swimming optional came about with the leader around 2000.

Some courses have become results based with no requirement for a minimum number of training hours.

How many have minimum hours these days? The only one of which I'm aware is SEI. Are there others?

 

[waynne fowler]

business, for the most part, can only go about giving customers what they want. IMO people in general want things easy, fast and cheap. Well the current state of training is moving more and more that way. The funny thing is that the business's have learned to break training up into tiny packages with (if looked at as only part of the whole) very large price tags.

business only gives customers what they demand. I don't see this as an agency issue, I see it as a symptom of humanities inherient trend towards laziness...

R I not just the epitomy of optimizium?

 

[ReefHugger]

The discusssion seemed to have widened to general standards and safety. So here's my .02.

With the exception of only one agency (to my knowledge), the rest, have been promulgating two myths:
1. That after 1st level, they are trained to look after themselves (self rescue).
& 2. That they are safe to buddy each other and go off diving, as long as conditions are similiar to the conditions in which they trained.

Imo, rubbish!!! This approach places no value on experience and assumes correct reflexive actions which have not yet been developed. Removal of these myths would be an immediate step in the right direction. Also, would this not be an incentive for further diving and training after the 1st level? In the agency that I have excluded, a newbie can only buddy with a 3rd level or higher.

I would also like to see 'Advanced', once again to mean 'Advanced'. I have refused many requests from newbies to do advance immediately after OW. My policy has always been get 25 dives first.

Maybe we also need to look at the ratio of DM's to divers on the cattle boats.

And yes, go on any cattle boat and see the prevailing standards. No wonder the DM's like shallow flat bottom sites.

 

[rstofer]

I would also like to see 'Advanced', once again to mean 'Advanced'. I have refused many requests from newbies to do advance immediately after OW. My policy has always been get 25 dives first.

Maybe we also need to look at the ratio of DM's to divers on the cattle boats.

So, you're against the idea of new divers diving with each other but, as an instructor, you don't want to help them advance either. Hm... Who should take on that responsibility/liability? How are they going to safely do those first 25 dives you want to see logged?

Why not just concede that Advanced really just means OW II (like it did in the old NAUI program) and that there is no equivalent of the old Advanced OW. To get that level of training requires not only the existing 'Advanced' but also a few specialties (Deep, Search & Recovery, Navigation). Rescue was the only specialty under the old program.

So, basically, a diver needs to get to MSD level (Advanced plus diving specialties, not Fish ID, etc) + Rescue to be reasonably qualified. It takes instruction to get there.

OW is nothing more than an introduction and instructors should do everything possible to help new divers progress with their training. Abdicating this to other divers and then complaining about the results seems somewhat ironic.

Richard