What is typical in an open water course these days?

[TMHeimer]

It is simple, everybody needs to learn it and get good at it. This whole “let the DM do it for me, that’s what they’re there for” is ridiculous.
It’s not like they are being asked to strip all the second stages, gauges, and hoses off the 1st stage and re-assemble everything every single time.
It is not hard to drop the bc down over the tank, rotate it into place and lock it down, then put the reg assembly on the tank, hook up LP hoses, and pressurize it to check everything. It should take less than five minutes. Every diver needs to know this.

The process is simple. For me it's always remembering the order of things. Putting the O2 bottle in shape for use is also simple, but I'm not gunna remember how to do it by watching and doing it once in the Rescue Course and same a few years later in the DM course. So I got the owner to go over it and I wrote down the steps. Still review this occasionally though I don't own an O2 kit. Same could be said for doing CPR once every 2 years and expecting me to remember how to do it correctly after one go through.

 

[bmkj02]

I recall mine about 10 years ago took longer and that was with PADI. My daughter took hers bout 6yrs ago and my son took his this year and it was with SSI and it was basically over 2 weekends. A couple pool sessions and a couple river sessions and that was it. Think it needs to be longer and smaller classes IMO

 

[berndo]

This whole “let the DM do it for me, that’s what they’re there for” is ridiculous.

I don't think I have actually ever seen that, I think.

 

[boulderjohn]

That was a typo. Haha. I meant 80 minutes.

OK, so where did you come up with 80 minutes?

 

[Germie]

OK, so where did you come up with 80 minutes?

Just an average I see that is got for an course. Don't call the rental hours of the pool, but the real time that is spent in the water.

Setting up equipment is super simple, you just need to do it a couple of times. Some do it after 1 time, others need 5 times, but then everybody can do it. Only after a course it still must be done, and not a dm that takes it over.
But this is a typically dryrun that is practised in a course. The same with hand signals .

Making a course longer, yes, it will improve the overal results of making a better diver. But diving is also a lot practising, so things you can do yourself. And the most important thing is that if you make a course longer, the commercial chimney must smoke. So that means the price will rise. And also the time needed. 3 days is for a lot of holiday-starters doable. But if you make it 4 or 5, you will loose customers.
Also for clubs, if a course takes 6 months, what is quite normal here, you wll not attrack some divers. Or divers run away when it takes too much time.
I started after a commercial ow (3 weekends) with 2*/aow with a club. 3 months later it was still not finished, it was still not officially started. So I did in 1 weekend an aow course. Then I started the 3*/dm course. 6 months later only theory was done, so I finished my dm course in 1 weekend somewhere else. And then the club started complaigning. But why? I did nothing wrong, I just wanted further.

So yes, you can improve the level when finishing aow. But does this mean statistics show lower accident levels? And do you still teach the same amount of courses? Of will you loose customers? If I course did not cost 450 in my time, but 600, I would not have started diving, I simply had not that money at that time. So don't look at the level after a course, also look at accidentstatistics and the commercial part.

 

[boulderjohn]

Just an average I see that is got for an course. Don't call the rental hours of the pool, but the real time that is spent in the water.

I can't imagine getting through the required skills in 80 minutes, no matter how fast you go. YOu would have to skip some. Since you say you see an average of 80 minutes, then there must be some shorter than that. I therefore infer that you are seeing classes that intentionally skip required skills.

I also can't imagine you are seeing a lot of classes to form that average, so I infer that in your immediate neighborhood, the instructors you see at work regularly violate standards by skipping required skills.

Setting up equipment is super simple, you just need to do it a couple of times. Some do it after 1 time, others need 5 times, but then everybody can do it.

This is an example of skipping required skills. You are saying people do not need to do required skills. Is that your own approach to instruction?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I don't think I have actually ever seen that, I think.

I have.

 

[Belzelbub]

My OW courses were not typical. Original course was via a PADI shop, and so far below standards it's ridiculous. My second OW course was in the other direction. NAUI/YMCA/CMAS course and well above standards. But neither of those are what you should expect.

I recall mine about 10 years ago took longer and that was with PADI. My daughter took hers bout 6yrs ago and my son took his this year and it was with SSI and it was basically over 2 weekends. A couple pool sessions and a couple river sessions and that was it. Think it needs to be longer and smaller classes IMO

Curious. As we are in the same city, but my daughter's courses were a bit different. Both with a local SSI shop in 2015 and 2018.

There courses were more or less as follows:
e-learning at their pace.
Review in classroom and written test.
Pool sessions (4 sessions, and I believe over two weeks, a fifth session was possible if instructor deemed necessary)
OW dives over the following weekend.

In both cases, there were situations that resulted in pretty much double the pool sessions. Oldest daughter had OW checkouts delayed due to weather, instructor had her join the following class, so she re-did the pool sessions. With younger daughter, had some challenges with OW dives, so had to reschedule those as well. There was a bit of a gap, so the instructor wanted a few more pool sessions.

 

[Germie]

I can't imagine getting through the required skills in 80 minutes, no matter how fast you go. YOu would have to skip some. Since you say you see an average of 80 minutes, then there must be some shorter than that. I therefore infer that you are seeing classes that intentionally skip required skills.

I also can't imagine you are seeing a lot of classes to form that average, so I infer that in your immediate neighborhood, the instructors you see at work regularly violate standards by skipping required skills.

This is an example of skipping required skills. You are saying people do not need to do required skills. Is that your own approach to instruction?

Since when do I say skip required skills?
I don't say that.
But to set up your equipment, it is no rocket science. It is a monkey see-monkey do and most divers can do it after 1-5 times theirselves.

And there are divers that can do all the skills in less than 80 minutes. There are naturals in diving. It took me in a 1:1 course when I did my ow 12 minutes, just monkey see, monkey do. So the next time you do it again, but further my course was doing diving, just diving.
BUT, you also have divers that need a lot of time, that even cannot clear a mask after 20 dives.
On average 80 minutes is not enough. That is what I also want to say. I always do easy the minimum amount of dives and divetime when teaching, 2-4 times is also not strange to me. But I also like to be in or under water, so there is no rush. If someone needs some more time, no problem. I am not teaching for a divecenter, so can do it without pressure from above.
I just ask if the average person can learn diving in 80 minutes pooltime and 80 minutes divetime? Some agencies don't mention an amount of pooltime, only required skills in confined water.

 

[berndo]

And there are divers that can do all the skills in less than 80 minutes. There are naturals in diving.

Good and talented students can definately get through the skills in 80 min but I think it's bit of a rush. I wonder what John does with them for 8 hours. Some older instructors do a lot of story telling and over-explaining... I've seen that and it costs a lot of time.