What things did you look for in your Scuba instructor?

[Fishkiller]

When you decided to get into SCUBA what things did you all look for in your instructor? Did you just get the instructor that the Shop had at the time? Did you seek out your friends and get their recomendation for an Instructor?

Were you impressed with your instructor? did they do a good job not only with you but with the other students in the class? after completing the class would you recommend your instructor? Have you found another Instructor for your continuing education?

many questions let me read your thoughts

 

[martinjc]

I was new to this area, and there is only one LDS within 1/2 hour of home, so I pretty much took the instructor assigned by the shop on the dates I wanted the class. I was, however, very impressed with my instructor and the way he handled the class during lectures in the pool sessions, so much so that I was disappointed that he was not working on the weekend that I did my check out dives. I was happy with my check out dive instructor and DM as well - very competent - and have recommended them to others in the area who were looking for an OW class.

I am taking 2 non-diving classes with my LDS this winter (Medic First Aid & Equipment Specialist) and will probably take AOW with them in the spring/summer.

 

[Scottri]

I just went instructor shopping for a Divemaster class. I "interviewed" all of the local ones and went with the one that I thought showed the most professionalism and had a personality that I respected. I will be spending 6 months in the program so I wanted to start off right. As far as my open water instructor I asked all of the certified divers that I knew and got their opinions. Since I knew nothing about diving at that point I defered to their judgement and it turned out to be a great choice. He was an outstanding instructor and I feel like I was much better prepared than people I know that had other instructors. His approach was much more skill intesive then trying to sell gear. As a result when he suggested gear I usually took it to heart.


Scott

 

[ScubaScott]

I pretty much had one choice. Only 1 dive shop in town, with the owner being the instructor. I've found out there are instructors in town from another cert.agency, but gave up their shop for whatever reason. I was very nieve when I first started, thinking one was the same - I just wanted to get under the water. Thankfully and luckily, I've found a good one. She wasn't one to screw around during class time or pool time- social time was after the pool session at a nearby watering hole. Skills and safety were the main concerns. When the class was done, I felt about as comfortable as one could feel when I did my OW. She has since become a good friend with an invaluable amount of wisdom and advice. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to shut up and listen to others!

 

[Lost Yooper]

Originally posted by ScubaScott
I pretty much had one choice. Only 1 dive shop in town, with the owner being the instructor. I've found out there are instructors in town from another cert.agency, but gave up their shop for whatever reason. I was very nieve when I first started, thinking one was the same - I just wanted to get under the water. Thankfully and luckily, I've found a good one. She wasn't one to screw around during class time or pool time- social time was after the pool session at a nearby watering hole. Skills and safety were the main concerns. When the class was done, I felt about as comfortable as one could feel when I did my OW. She has since become a good friend with an invaluable amount of wisdom and advice. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to shut up and listen to others!

To all,

The instructors cert. doesn't necessarily mean squat as far as their real level of knowledge of equipment, physiology, or most anything else for that matter. I advise everyone to not place a whole lot of weight on their advice (as their motives and their own knowledge base are often quite questionable) without significant follow up research on your part.
Most of the instructors I have met, dove with, and been around are extremely narrow minded and are only willing to learn and accept what their certifying agency is willing to say (often without question) . On top of that, their real diving experience apart from certifying, is often quite lacking. Most of them have managed to log thousands of dives, but the vast majority of them being repetitive shallow water training dives. Granted, they may be good at what they do -- pushing students through -- but do they have any "real" diving experience to pass on to their students? Quite often they don't.

Just be careful not to be overly confident in what a "biased" and likely ignorant (in some fashion or another) certified instructor has to say. Do your own homework and quiz the heck out of them. With a little homework, you can find out what they really know and what they don't know. Knowing what questions to ask and to whom to ask them to is the most important part of gaining knowledge. Wrong, skewed, or misleading information can be as bad for you as not knowing anything sometimes.

Take care.

Mike

PS. To better answer your question, I had to unlearn more than I learned in my recreational classes (as have those I dive with and learn from). Be wary.

 

[detroit diver]

I was so excited after doing a "resort course", that I signed up without doing due diligence and got what the shop gave me. As we (my son and I) were doing a private class, we had a lot of attention.

That said, I think I received one of the best instructors out there. He dives a couple of times a week, and has probably 1200 or more dives under his belt. Cave. Commercial. Trimix. You name it. VERY willing to pass information along and I've picked up a boatload of information from him.

That was a year ago. I am now diving with him weekly, and he has become a good friend.

When I hear some of the horror stories out there, I realize how lucky I got.

 

[Dee]

Beast and I knew only one diver who lived about 2 hours from us when we decided to get OW certified. We went to the only dive shop we knew about and signed up. Looking for and interviewing instructors never crossed our minds. We were extremely lucky. Our Instructor was a Course Director, and active diver outside the shop, whose main goal was to thoroughtly teach the class, not push us through it in record time. Back then, we had a total of approx. 20 hrs. of pool sessions and 20 hrs. of classroom.

Since then, we've gotten recommendations from other divers, interviewed Instructors, and changed dive shops several times. When we decided to go to Divemaster, we went with the Instructor (shop owner) whose philosophy we agreed with and whose dive shop worked the best with students before and after classes.

 

[chepar]

I too, got lucky. My homeowner's association is always starting up programs/classes at our rec center (golf club, martial arts classes, swim teams, music lessons, dance lessons, you name it) and they offered a SCUBA certification course. I had always wanted to try, but until then always thought I could do it "sometime soon". Classes and pool sessions 5 minutes from my house had great appeal, but at the time I thought of convenience only and really didn't consider the quality of the instructor I was getting.

However, now I can appreciate how lucky I was - he was a great instructor - very patient, knowledgeable and informative. In his instruction he also gave a lot of "real life" stories of things he had done as a less experienced diver that he learned from. Probably one of the things I most liked was that he didn't feel compelled to push a certain brand of gear or disparage or bad mouth other dive shops and certifying agencies and their methods (unlike other places I have spoken with since).

I plan to take my AOW course with him later this year.

 

[Fishkiller]

What questions would you suggest on asking a prospective Instructor?
What qualifies as "Real Experience"?

Thanks again

 

[Lost Yooper]

I don't believe it's an easy task to find an extremely knowledgable OW instructor. For most people, there probably isn't a whole lot of choice in the matter. Asking specific questions of an instructor may be hard -- especially if you don't know what questions to ask much less the answers.

Basically, any instructor who is "qualified" by an agency should be able to teach people how to breath underwater. It's not too difficult. The difference is in the details and the standards to which each individual instructor will hold you to. The difference may be in the little addititional information that instructor passes on that isn't a part of the curiculum.

Ultimately, (and this is only my opinion) I would look for an actively diving technical diving instructor. S/he would have to be more familiar with decompression theory, equipment configurations, and diving physiology than your average run-of-the-mill "PADI" instructor.
Why a technical diving instructor? Because this instructor should have well surpassed the skills of an ordinary OW instructor and with a ton of highly stressful experience to pass on to his/her students. There's a lot of finer details that a highly experienced/knowledgable technical diver can pass onto new OW students so they can make the most of their time in the water. Disclaimer: not all technical instructors necessarily know the right answers either. The technical diver instructors I know hold even their OW students to a much higher standard than the OW instructors I know. Good high standards will equal better OW divers.

For most people, though, the best you can do is get certified and do a bunch of learning on your own (like everyone here is doing). Learn from (and dive with) people who know more than you or your instructor and apply it as best you can.

Mike