Boring Anecdote Part: Spring 1999
I had a very good YMCA/CMAS instructor who spread the course out over 8 Mondays with a lot of pool training. He was also an intense dive-fiend.
The first day was intro to dangers and an in-water physical test (25 m on a breath, swim a bunch of laps non-stop, swim in place for a while, ya know). The next 6 weeks were 2 hours classroom with a test, 2 hours in the pool. The final week was in water emergency practice including jump in the water, get your gear and put it on at 15'. It doesn't seem like much, but it's good anti-panic practice. Finally, I spent 2 days repeating the training in 30 fsw, before being certified. That should have prepared me for my first dive right? Oh, hell no. It took me over 30 dives to even LIKE diving. Of course, now I love it.
My Point:
The extra time to read, recall, and practice adds greatly to learning. It simply can't be done in 2 days (or even 4 days IMO). There is also a post-mortem to the in-water practice where you can combine the classroom learning with the practice and have little neurotic mind games like -- If your beloved wife kicks you in the face at 60 feet, dislodging your mask, regulator, and senses, instinctively recover.
The process of moving information to the long term memory takes weeks; diving should be instinctive and that takes much longer. Based on personal reflection, I'd like sound, well-rehearsed fundamentals before ever diving. Eventually, I'd like rock-solid fundamentals and instincts. Until then, my naturally high level of anxiety makes me practice emergency procedures my first dive of a trip (kind of a waste, huh?).
EDIT: Legal disclaimer. The post was more or less what I'd like to hear before I took OW training. Kind of noobie-to-noobie. Read Diverbouy's comments to follow. My experience is only OW and I am likely to be wrong, but willing to learn. Intincts seems to me to refer to equipment loss, recovery, OOA and emergency surfacing in OW conditions as covered in OW training.
