Training can you do too much too soon?
- Thread starter Melanie White
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lamarpaulski
Contributor
I think you’re good. Cozumel diving really can benefit from Nitrox and it can tend to be deep. Makes sense to get training and supervision in those areas.
Fish ID was an option as one of the specialties for my AOW course. It didn't tell me where to hike (dive) to find them, what they ate, or what time of the day to search for them. It gave shapes of the families, markings and names. That was about it. Now..., I did not take that specialty as I felt I could learn more on youtube than in the course. Things could have changed from four years ago, or there could be more in a "full fledged course". But, I still think I could learn more on youtube than going to Panama City, FL to take a fish ID course.
Or join REEF and watch some of their many fishinairs which are videotaped. Then join one or more of their regional discussion groups on facebook and discover that fish sex is messy and there are all sorts of hybrids and anomalies. When they just cast their heritage into the ocean who knows what all mixes with what. Fun to watch the pros discuss and debate what is and is not a species and what are and are not identifying traits.
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McGlencoe
Registered
Learn all you can at a pace you can understand and process the information. You'll find the more classes you take, the more you'll learn and the more comfortable you'll be in the water.
The neat thing about taking more classes is you can choose different instructors and learn who you like to learn from.
The neat thing about taking more classes is you can choose different instructors and learn who you like to learn from.
I understand what you are saying and I appreciate that in your case the added value of the fish-id adventure dive was minimal to the point of being wasted time. In my case I took a bunch of "diving" specialties (S&R, wreck, deep, nitrox, navigation) etc. because I wanted DIVING skills. I never took any of the "cool-things-you-can-do-while-you're-under-water" specialties or the "try-not-to-be-such-a-klutz" specialties because I was only interested in the diving skills.
I think you are like me where it relates to which specialties you find valuable. What I am trying to impress upon you (up to now unsuccessfully -- but maybe on the 3rd try I'll be lucky) is that OTHER people .... people who are NOT like you or me .... WILL get enough out of it and be satisfied. In other words, the fact that you didn't like the fish-id specialty is about you, not about the specialty. I didn't take it either because I didn't think there was any added value to me after having dived with a marine biologist every Sunday for 5 years.... and that's fine. To someone else, it's an eye-opener.
This is the reason for the cafeteria model. People's interests are all different and people's goals are all different and PADI tries to cast a wide net to be able to service all of those people (and yes, to make money from it).
I don't believe for minute that anyone thinks that all specialties are relevant for all divers. Like I said above I never took a photography course because I've only been underwater once in my life with the intention to take pictures. For me that specialty has no value at all. But for someone who is interested in this and wants to shorten the learning curve (which is all a specialty really does) then there is value there.
This is also why I don't see it as a money-grab. Quite the contrary. PADI offers courses about topics people want to learn about. They don't FORCE specialties down your throat. If you see value and you want to take a specialty in order to shorten your learning curve then they have something for everyone. If you don't want to take a specialty then they don't care because all of the specialties are about topics with peripheral or tertiary importance with respect to core skills.
Therefore they can focus the core course (particularly the OW course) on what a diver REALLY needs to know to get started and not muddy it up with a bunch of skills and knowledge that are lower priority. This is the opposite of a money grab. If they wanted to do a money grab then they would organize the training to make specialties mandatory so that ALL divers needed to funnel through them and pay for it.... but they don't do this, do they?
R..
Too bad SB doesn't have sarcastic font.
I'm not sure what danger there is in mis-identifying a fish (unless you're grabbing an electric eel. But, we will ignore the no touch training). So, I see a lot of benefit in a lot of training modules. I don't see it in fish ID or even photography - and I like to use my GoPro. But, as Diver0001 has pointed out, some may want to pay for what I consider to be fluff. Not fluff in the sense that it's useless, but fluff in the sense that I don't need to pay $100, $150, or more in order to learn how to push a button. Yes..., I know there's more to it with positioning the strobes so you don't get a lot of floaties in the foreground and the such. But really, it's not all that tough, especially with a GoPro and a handheld flashlight - which is about as much as I'm going to spend and carry in my luggage.
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