Where is your money going?

[rstofer]

If you are new to diving, often it is hard to learn things as you don't know anybody more experienced to teach you (this was my experience). So many new divers keep paying for courses that are most likely unnecessary. However, look around for clubs/people that are happy to mentor new divers and you can get a lot of help without course fees from others (this is my approach now!). Many skills can be learned easily from a more experienced diver, as opposed to doing a course about it (night, drysuit, navigation PADI-style specialty classes come to mind...)

My concern about the mentor idea is that you can only learn what they know. You don't get the benefit of a fully reviewed course of instruction. There's no written material and no knowledge reviews. Now, if that mentor happens to be an instructor and the instruction happens to completely follow a known course of instruction then you get a bargain. More often than not, it's "just do what I do".

Around here it doesn't matter what your buddy teaches you about Nitrox, you can't get a fill without a recognized card. Same thing with deep and night dives from charter boats; no card, no dive. For these types of dives, an AOW is usually adequate.

One thing about our litigious society, we practice self defense. Businesses implement policies that attempt to keep people from hurting themselves.

I'm not a fan of the 'mentor' concept. It might be useful for polishing skills but I don't think it is a good substitute for more formal training.

Richard

 

[copter53]

would i have to take a drysuit course so as to use or rent one

 

[El Orans]

is it just me or are the cert agencies just stealing our money

We just signed up for a NAUI Intro to Tech course (approx. USD 490, fills included).

It's a six day course so that would amount to USD 80 per full day of instruction and diving.

I consider it stealing but I'm quite certain we'll get away with it.

 

[3000psi]

would i have to take a drysuit course so as to use or rent one

It would be advisable. If you opt not to at least try one in a pool first.

 

[drdaddy]

would i have to take a drysuit course so as to use or rent one

Are you serious, or are you just trying to get some cheap entertainment? Using a drysuit without proper training can very likely lead to your hanging upside down and drowning!

At this moment I want to pick one of those "dork" smilies or the "popcorn" one, but I don't want to be disrespectful.

Going beyond your training is a sure way to die.

drdaddy

 

[Damselfish]

i just paid $120 for a nitrox course that is really a 15 minutes quiz, paper and pencil.

Some classes may not be worth the money, and if you really spent only 15 minutes you didn't get your money's worth. One assumes you got a book you studied (a book which someone had to develop, by the way.

This is a little like like saying a $500 software package should only cost $1 because that's what the CD costs.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I'm not a fan of the 'mentor' concept. It might be useful for polishing skills but I don't think it is a good substitute for more formal training.

Richard

This is where I have an issue.
I've seen too many instructors doing too many things that I and many others consider not necessarily the optimum way of doing things simply because that is the agency standard. For example: Students entering the water from a beach starting high and dry with their fins on facing each other and side stepping down into the water. I've seen many get rolled this way and become helpless in the surf zone. Instead, it would be so much simpler to wade into the water waist or chest high and put your fins on and go.
The other that comes to mind is the overweighting issue that seems to plague OW training. There are other things beyond this.

There are many very excellent instructors out there, I was lucky that I had some great ones that went way over and above the required material and injected much of their life long learned knowledge into the class that most people would never get. It is this special information that can get passed on to a new diver from a student of one of these great instructors. It just so happens that the instructor I had moved away so his knowledge is not available locally any more.
However, wordwide I suspect there are more instructors out there that probably know less common sense things in diving than some very experienced regular divers that weren't constrained by agency rules and were able to figure things out and improve on techniques and gear choices because they were independant. These are the mentors that can show new divers way more than a high percentage of the "new age" instructors.

 

[SteveAD]

This is where I have an issue.
I've seen too many instructors doing too many things that I and many others consider not necessarily the optimum way of doing things simply because that is the agency standard. For example: Students entering the water from a beach starting high and dry with their fins on facing each other and side stepping down into the water. I've seen many get rolled this way and become helpless in the surf zone. Instead, it would be so much simpler to wade into the water waist or chest high and put your fins on and go.
The other that comes to mind is the overweighting issue that seems to plague OW training. There are other things beyond this.

There are many very excellent instructors out there, I was lucky that I had some great ones that went way over and above the required material and injected much of their life long learned knowledge into the class that most people would never get. It is this special information that can get passed on to a new diver from a student of one of these great instructors. It just so happens that the instructor I had moved away so his knowledge is not available locally any more.
However, wordwide I suspect there are more instructors out there that probably know less common sense things in diving than some very experienced regular divers that weren't constrained by agency rules and were able to figure things out and improve on techniques and gear choices because they were independant. These are the mentors that can show new divers way more than a high percentage of the "new age" instructors.

Neither donning fins on land and waddling in nor over weighting are part of any agency standard of which I am aware. While both are coomonly seen and commonly taught, they are the individual instructors interpretation of "appropriate entry for prevailing conditions" and "proper weight check". Most agency standards (with a few exceptions) actually allow the instructors a fair bit of latitude in terms of how something is taught.

 

[RonFrank]

Are you serious, or are you just trying to get some cheap entertainment? Using a drysuit without proper training can very likely lead to your hanging upside down and drowning!

At this moment I want to pick one of those "dork" smilies or the "popcorn" one, but I don't want to be disrespectful.

Going beyond your training is a sure way to die.

drdaddy

I've taught several people to dive dry, for FREE! If one is an experienced diver, diving dry certainly does take some practice, but is hardly dangerous. The least experienced diver I mentored had maybe 25 dives, and he did very well.

I walked through the materials in maybe 15 minutes. 45 minutes later, the diver has done their first successful dry dive. 5~10 dives later they are generally proficient, and comfortable with a drysuit in the water.

There are only a few key things one needs to know to dive dry. Practice is the key, and with that just having a good buddy keep an eye out is sufficient.

I wonder what would happen if I walked into my LDS to rent a drysuit. I've done well over 100 dry dives, but I don't have the cert.

 

[Sas]

My concern about the mentor idea is that you can only learn what they know. You don't get the benefit of a fully reviewed course of instruction. There's no written material and no knowledge reviews. Now, if that mentor happens to be an instructor and the instruction happens to completely follow a known course of instruction then you get a bargain. More often than not, it's "just do what I do".

Around here it doesn't matter what your buddy teaches you about Nitrox, you can't get a fill without a recognized card. Same thing with deep and night dives from charter boats; no card, no dive. For these types of dives, an AOW is usually adequate.

One thing about our litigious society, we practice self defense. Businesses implement policies that attempt to keep people from hurting themselves.

I'm not a fan of the 'mentor' concept. It might be useful for polishing skills but I don't think it is a good substitute for more formal training.

Richard

So do you think then, that people should have to pay for a course for any new skill they want to learn? Such as night diving? Or diving with a drysuit? Different fin kicks? Those kinds of skills to me do not require an instructor in my opinion. There are many skills where one would benefit from an instructor but not all.

would i have to take a drysuit course so as to use or rent one

It depends how comfortable you are in the water. I didn't take a course myself and so far I'm still alive. Basically I read a whole bunch about using a drysuit, bought one and went out under a shallow pier and practiced the skills.