When did the breakdown in training occur?

[Eric Sedletzky]

I was there for the second half, I know the stories from the first half.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s the recreational diving community, took the knowledge base and skills that were being used by the research diving community in its 100 hr program for entry level divers and started using that to qualify recreational instructors. In the same time frame the 40 hour program (no hours for open water dives) was becoming standard both for shop cards (shops issued their own) as well as for the programs of the newly created agencies. In large part this was an outgrowth of the National Diving Patrol column that grew into NAUI in Skin Diver Magazine. Standard texts then were Science of Skin and Scuba (then New Science ...) and the U.S. Navy Diving Manual.

The first change was to add required open water dives, and they became part of the 40 hour requirement. In the late 1960s through the mid 1970s NAUI was the dominant agency with a very rigorous ITC that still closely resembled the Scripps Model 100 hour course with teaching theory and course conduct topics added in. PADI grew their instructor base by issuing cards, first for $10.00 and later $25.00 to anyone who could make the claim that they were already teaching diving ... all it took was a personal letter stating that you have taught diving in the military, at a shop, at a school, just about anything. Well ... though the late 1970s the number of training fatalities soared, PADI's response to this was to do something unheard of, create two levels of instructor (back then, hard as it may be to believe, there were two certifications, Basic Diver and Instructor ... that was it). So PADI created the Open Water Instructor, thus demoting all of their previous clients to confined water only instructors. It took a few years, but this did bring the training fatalities down from (If memory serves) sixty odd to the more typical twenty odd.

Things settled down, DEMA was formed, and in the early to mid 1980s DEMA asked each agency to identify a few instructors who were to experiment with a new format, an 18 hour, 4 dive course that was supposed to breathe new life into the moribund diving industry. I was one of the instructors asked to try the course out. I ran two sessions, I found it to be woefully inadequate for training divers for temperate diving, and that was what I report back, in person, to DEMA at a meeting at one of those La Hacienda hotels near Los Angeles. It seemed to be a dead issue, but in retrospect it is clear that PADI had decided, in advance of doing the research, that they were going to embrace the reduced program and with DEMA's help, shove it down the the throat of an unsuspecting public. The result is a classic study in the effective marketing of an inferior product to an unsophisticated public.

It wasn't a few shops and instructors, it was US Divers and PADI that made it happen.

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you so much.

I'm thinking that the crash course has in the long term had more of a negative effect than a positive effect.
It seems to me that if divers were trained better and more comfortable in the water through better swimming skills (getting in shape) and better rehearsed skills maybe they would stick with it rather than get stressed out every time they try and dive to the point where they say forget it. I see new open water divers green as hell who some of which probably just started to do water work (not naturally water people) trying to get into the water at Breakwater, clumsy as hell, falling all over themselves, overweighted, stuffed into overstuffed gear, overheated, totally stressed out, this can't be fun. I think most of them just are determined to get through the class so they can get to Hawaii or wherever and never again have any plans to dive cold water ever again.
I think it's a shame. Even if they just did an open water acclimation session with just skin diving gear and got them to freedive a little even if they weren't that good at it would be a huge benefit before being thrown into the ocean for the first time with all the heavy gear.

I think there should be maybe two different levels of open water, level one and level two.
Level one would be exactly what they teach now and that's what would be required to get on any boat in a tropical location.
Level two would be open water, advanced, and rescue along with a thorough knoledge of skin diving (breath hold) and other advanced techniques like buddy breathing, full mask off ascents from deep with a buddy, maybe a gear exchange. I know with some of these jumping through hoop skills they would never be used in real life, but they are good skills for comfort and stress management.
I don't see anything wrong with swimming skills. They get you in shape and if someone has trouble swimming they should be worked with and taught until they can swim adequately enough to pass. To eliminate them I think is bad.
Of course the level two class would be a lot more time and money but I think there is a hunger for something more challenging.
I look at the recent popularity of DIR style fundies classes taught by GUE and UTD. They are not cheap or easy and there is not guarranty of passing but they do turn out first class divers with skills way beyond what is offered by the others.
I'm not into DIR myself, but I'm just saying.

I think if there was an option like this when I got certified in 1998 I would have been all over it.
But then I was trained by an ex Navy diver through PADI. His curriculum was not your average PADI class today. He had us out there doing skin dives to 30 feet with no weight belt, and there still was a swim test. The mask off exercise in 47 degree water wasn't just rip it off and put it back on as fast as you can and clear it, no. It was rip it off and sit there for many breathing cycles. He would hold up a few fingers in front of your face and he wanted you to hold up the same amount so he knew your eyes were open. He told us we were lucky with our swim test, back when he did it they would make them hold onto towels and do the crawl with a towel in each hand.