Training expiration?

[PfcAJ]

Maybe partially training people to cave dive isn't such a good idea then?

 

[karstdvr]

Maybe partially training people to cave dive isn't such a good idea then?

Eliminate GUE Cave 1 and 2,go straight to 3

 

[PfcAJ]

The certs do expire. And c3 is imaginary.

I wish c1 was totally temporary. Even though I think the system is the best game in town, it's not perfect.

 

[karstdvr]

Maybe partially training people to cave dive isn't such a good idea then?

Zero to hero has its negative aspects too. The ideal paradigm is get trained at a level,and acquire experience,and then advance.

 

[PfcAJ]

Oh I agree. But having intro, cave 1, etc be the end of the road is bad news bears, IMO.

 

[LiteHedded]

people will exceed training limits. nothing you can do about it.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

people will exceed training limits. nothing you can do about it.

Not all people.

In my opinion most people view the training limits as not arbitrary and trust their instructors to teach them the motor skills AND the thought processes/decision making skills when planning dives.

Of course there are those who know better than their instructors and do whatever they want to do, flying in the face of safety.

If I have a student who displays overtly or covertly the likelihood of violating training limits I will not issue them a certification card. PADI standards state that I have to issue a certification if they complete the skills. NACD, NSS-CDS and IANTD do NOT have this requirement. We are allowed to make subjective judgments that are not necessarily quantifiable on a skills checklist.

 

[ucfdiver]

Oh I agree. But having intro, cave 1, etc be the end of the road is bad news bears, IMO.

Agreed-- I think Intro/C1 is kind of like being released to work with the requirement to complete "follow on training" in regulatory job functions. You're legal to operate, but you do need to be reevaluated for a higher level of competency within a set time period.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If someone is diving beyond their limits then I think that is a problem stemming from their instructor not teaching them to respect limits, not how long they have been intro to cave.

You can't teach somebody to respect anything ... that's something that has to come from within the individual. As an instructor, my job is to teach my students why they should.

(Edit: To qualify that statement, I'm not a cave instructor. The same concept of respect your limits applies to all diving.)

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

Not all people.

In my opinion most people view the training limits as not arbitrary and trust their instructors to teach them the motor skills AND the thought processes/decision making skills when planning dives.

I agree.

There is a character trait in some people that is different, a trait that makes them feel they can transcend those limits, but I think that is a small portion of the human race, let alone the diving community. You see it in a percentage of open water divers, but I think it occurs even less among cave divers.

My theory, explained in too much brevity here, is that experienced open water divers who have done a few hundred open reef dives often have a sense that they have seen it all. They don't see any divers who look much better than they do. If they have any sense of adventure, they will start pushing those limits. Seeing themselves at the top of the diving skill level, they don't see a problem with bounce dives to 300 feet, as in the incident in Cozumel a couple of years ago. When the dive briefing says don't penetrate into the Spiegel Grove, they know that is for the ordinary divers, not them, as happened last fall with the two guys went in at 100 feet, learning on the way out that picking up your line is a harder skill than they thought and can take up all the remaining air in your tank. When the sign at the end of the cavern says don't go any farther without appropriate training, they know that is to keep those beginning divers on the guided cavern tours out, not them.

Someone who has been even partially through a cave diving course has learned something that the other divers have not. They have a much more realistic grasp of where they stand on the hierarchy of dive skills. They have seen skills that greatly transcend theirs. They have been humiliated by their inadequacy as they struggle through early buoyancy, trim, and propulsion instruction. They have seen how confusing a cave can be.

When I was an open water instructor with about 300 dives or so, I was starting to think I was pretty good. I am a far, far better diver than I was then, but I am ironically less confident of my overall skill level now than I was then.