Video from a Training Dive with John Chatterton

[ChuckP]

The fundamental implication here is that the students you see in the video are going to translate into the poor divers who frustrate several members of this thread in the caves of North Florida. But I think the point has been made pretty clearly that we left the course with a good understanding of what to improve and none of us have any intention of being those people. So on a practical level, what did Chatterton fail at in his attempt to produce good divers? Who's to say he didn't look at us as divers and make a conscious choice about what level is wisest to hold us to at this moment with all the context required to understand what types of divers we will become?

Do you believe I am wrong about our ability to improve and we will never learn what you describe? Or do you believe it is not possible for someone like Chatterton to use judgement in that way? Please remember that a certification card (particularly the Adv Wreck one) is a token, it's not the goal of diving or learning. We all know people who hold many cards but we wouldn't want to dive with, and people who earn cert cards and then never learn a thing again. One of the great things I learned from my time with Chatterton was it's possible to spend fifty years diving, learning every day. I believe we should be talking about if an instructor is good at making better lifelong divers, not if any particular training dive someone did was perfect.

Amen!

PS - Enter openings like the dog house head first as there might be a big green moray eel ready to bite one of your fins!

 

[chillyinCanada]

Agreed! There's a bit too much chest thumping going on in here. Go do the dives that Chatterton has done. Then come back and show us your video.

 

[ChuckP]

“I,_Chuck Prottengeier_, believe that going fully on your knees to pick up and drop a stage bottle is acceptable scuba behavior and can be actively taught in advanced scuba classes when it absolutely doesn't matter so that one can focus and learn more about the tasks at hand and learn from the many challenges that do matter.

If you feel that you need to "fit in", be told what gas to breathe, be told how to rig your gear and basically in an essence, some non thinking clone - I'd maybe look for one of them 3 letter cave agency guys to teach you - they know it all and have thought of it all so you won't have to. You're probably not up to the challenge anyways.

Go lay on your picnic tables and practice your frog kicks......................

 

[JohnnyC]

Agreed! There's a bit too much chest thumping going on in here. Go do the dives that Chatterton has done. Then come back and show us your video.

That’s not a good argument. Being accomplished has absolutely no bearing on one’s ability to be a good teacher.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Many people think he's a good teacher. He doesn't teach what you teach nor apparently, your style, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good teacher, teaching his style.

 

[Marie13]

Go lay on your picnic tables and practice your frog kicks......................

Which 3 letter agency are you referring to? TDI is 3 letters, too, and @abnfrog had me practicing my kicks on a table (happened to be a clean motorcycle lift ) in his garage during ITT. Helped a lot.

ETA: we all know I’m not a Kool Aid drinker, but I have no issue borrowing something if it works for me.

 

[ChuckP]

Which 3 letter agency are you referring to? TDI is 3 letters, too, and @abnfrog had me practicing my kicks on a table (happened to be a clean motorcycle lift ) in his garage during ITT. Helped a lot.

I know, it's purely a reference to a funny class. There's a time and place for many things - frog kicks are absolutely one of them even if you look like a child frog doing it (me, not you) - at 130' with a 25 minute bottom time, I'd rather play flash cards with an instructor soaking in important info verses spending minutes correcting someones trim.

And besides, his was a motorcycle lift, not a picnic table - much easier for height impaired folks to work with!

 

[Scuba-74]

That’s not a good argument. Being accomplished has absolutely no bearing on one’s ability to be a good teacher.

It may have little bearing on one’s ability to be a good teacher, but it absolutely has bearing on one's ability to choose what's acceptable and what's not in diving in general, and in class in particular.

Based on what I know about John Chatterton, he has basically seen it all, and done it all. I don't think many people sign up for his class to receive your typical run of the mill TDI-SSI-GUE-DIR (insert your favorite 3-letter acronym) instruction. So if I ever have means to afford his class, the more of the "generally accepted theoretical diving practices" he chooses to substitute with his own time-proven methods and techniques, the better.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . .
Based on what I know about John Chatterton, he has basically seen it all, and done it all. I don't think many people sign up for his class to receive your typical run of the mill TDI-SSI-GUE-DIR (insert your favorite 3-letter acronym) instruction. So if I ever have means to afford his class, the more of the "generally accepted theoretical diving practices" he chooses to substitute with his own time-proven methods and techniques, the better.

Should you sign up for it before you have gotten all you could get out of the run-of-the-mill 3-letter acronym training?

 

[JohnnyC]

Many people think he's a good teacher. He doesn't teach what you teach nor apparently, your style, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good teacher, teaching his style.

You’re putting words in my mouth. I have never made a comment about what I personally think of his teaching. I can if you’d like, but I don’t think it would benefit this conversation at all.

I’m just pointing out your argument is a false equivalency. But for what it’s worth, and this is not specific to this situation, teaching poor practices out of “style” doesn’t mean an instructor is good. It doesn’t mean someone teaching best practices is a good instructor. In the same vein that someone who has great accomplishments outside of an academic environment doesn’t mean they are a good teacher, nor does being a good teacher mean you would be capable of achieving the same accomplishments as anyone else.