what/how to say 'wtf are you doing?'

[PfcAJ]

Ah, but here's the rub. And many of us, including myself are guilty of flipping to the convenient side of this training vs. mentoring coin.

If you don't have the training, how do you know if you're being taught by a good mentor? Just because he hasn't gotten himself killed yet? Because he has cool gear? Because...? Mentors can be a great thing, but they aren't independently evaluated by others, so who is to say if they're great or not?

On the other hand, when you get training from an instructor you do so with a certain degree of confidence that someone has evaluated his teaching methods and found them acceptable. Otherwise he wouldnt be allowed to issue cards, wouldnt be able to get insurance, etc. Still, some do fall through the cracks and run substandard classes. (Which getting back to the original gist of this thread I think we have a responsibility to call those people out as well).

So is there a perfect balance?

I think so. I think the balance is to learn the basics from an instructor. Let them build the foundation of things you need to know, sort of like a paint by number set without the color code. You can see the picture but everything is black and white. Then a mentor helps you fill in the colors to make the picture uniquely yours, but you still know enough to stay inside the lines.

That said, I've seen some instructors teach the most asinine things to students. The level of goobery taught by some of these guys really is beyond the pale.

 

[LiteHedded]

I think you're trying to make this a dichotomy, and it isn't.

"Training" does not always come with a card. If it did, I wouldn't be doing ANY of the dives I currently do. I trained/mentored with some exceptional divers, and I do dives WAY past my c-card with cave instructors on a fairly regular basis.

The peacock lady totally and ridiculously violated many "rules" of cave diving. She KNEW to always have a continuous guideline, and chose to downright ignore it. The two guys at School Sink were in over their head, and there was no mentorship taking place, only hip shooting. They knew as well. The guy at Vortex had to shimmy the gate to do dives, because he KNEW it wasn't allowed.

Going off by yourself and breaking "limits" can certainly get you kacked, as you don't know what you don't know. However, and experienced mentor can teach the skills and procedures needed to do the dive. Not everything in diving needs a class. Hell, I'd still be diving a wetsuit if that was the case.

maybe you ought to take that class

 

[Cave Diver]

I think you're trying to make this a dichotomy, and it isn't.

"Training" does not always come with a card. If it did, I wouldn't be doing ANY of the dives I currently do. I trained/mentored with some exceptional divers, and I do dives WAY past my c-card with cave instructors on a fairly regular basis.

The peacock lady totally and ridiculously violated many "rules" of cave diving. She KNEW to always have a continuous guideline, and chose to downright ignore it. The two guys at School Sink were in over their head, and there was no mentorship taking place, only hip shooting. They knew as well. The guy at Vortex had to shimmy the gate to do dives, because he KNEW it wasn't allowed.

Going off by yourself and breaking "limits" can certainly get you kacked, as you don't know what you don't know. However, and experienced mentor can teach the skills and procedures needed to do the dive. Not everything in diving needs a class. Hell, I'd still be diving a wetsuit if that was the case.

No. I'm not trying to make it a dichotomy. I'm saying that the two compliment each other as pretty much a yin and yang to make a good diver.

Mentoring helps get your ready for more advanced training. Taking advanced training presents things to you in a structured manner. Mentoring helps organize and round that structure out. The two are intertwined and its difficult to make a distinction where one stops and the other starts.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Ah, but here's the rub. And many of us, including myself are guilty of flipping to the convenient side of this training vs. mentoring coin.

If you don't have the training, how do you know if you're being taught by a good mentor? Just because he hasn't gotten himself killed yet? Because he has cool gear? Because...? Mentors can be a great thing, but they aren't independently evaluated by others, so who is to say if they're great or not?

On the other hand, when you get training from an instructor you do so with a certain degree of confidence that someone has evaluated his teaching methods and found them acceptable. Otherwise he wouldnt be allowed to issue cards, wouldnt be able to get insurance, etc. Still, some do fall through the cracks and run substandard classes. (Which getting back to the original gist of this thread I think we have a responsibility to call those people out as well).

So is there a perfect balance?

I think so. I think the balance is to learn the basics from an instructor. Let them build the foundation of things you need to know, sort of like a paint by number set without the color code. You can see the picture but everything is black and white. Then a mentor helps you fill in the colors to make the picture uniquely yours, but you still know enough to stay inside the lines.

A few years back I lost a friend because his mentor ... an instructor ... assured him it was OK to dive beyond his training. There was a rather long thread about it in the Incidents and Accidents forum at the time.

He was told it was quite OK to do a bounce dive to 200 feet on a single tank and air ... after all, it's just a simple bounce dive ... what can go wrong?

They found Chad's body in the mud at 205 feet about 10 months after the dive.

Been thinking of him as I've been reading about this fellow at Vortex ... there's a lot of similarities in their age, and no doubt their motivation for doing the dives that killed them ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Cave Diver]

That said, I've seen some instructors teach the most asinine things to students. The level of goobery taught by some of these guys really is beyond the pale.

Amen!

Going back to the original question do you tell the diver their instructor is an idiot?

Do you tell the instructor?

 

[ucfdiver]

Amen!

See post #34. Once again, common sense should have been considered before training.

 

[ucfdiver]

Amen!

Going back to the original question do you tell the diver their instructor is an idiot?

Do you tell the instructor?

I've reported stupidity during courses to the agency president and have been told "Yeah, he teaches odd stuff, but he's been around a while, so we just hope word of mouth weeds them out".

 

[LiteHedded]

Apprentice is practically the same course as full cave. Look at the standards and there's really nothing different.

The linked thread proved that full cave divers can't calculate stage math, either. It SHOULD be included ala GUE Cave 2, but it's not, so I stand by nothing makes stage diving any different between full cave and apprentice. Heck, rent LP120's and cave fill them and you're doing the same dive as the typical lp104's+stage.

apprentice is dumb.

 

[LiteHedded]

I've reported stupidity during courses to the agency president and have been told "Yeah, he teaches odd stuff, but he's been around a while, so we just hope word of mouth weeds them out".

ok then. what are their names?

 

[limeyx]

Let's review the deaths.....

Replace mentor with instructor, and we're back to the same point.

Keep dancing dude.

EDIT:
You really dont see the irony here ?
You just pointed to a BUNCH of people that made dumb decisions and paid.

But somehow it is (was) OK for your buddy to do 1/3's and jumps on a Basic certification card ? Thats not a lack of common sense ?