Where to do PADI IDC

[Paradox]

Currently a DM but definitely want to take my IDC and MSDT. The question is where? Do you have a centre you would recommend and why? I don't really have a geographic preference, so anywhere I can learn and blow bubbles works for me

I'm 59 and have just shy of 200 dives. I originally took my DM to help increase my diving skills and knowledge. Now that I'm pretty much retired. I'm considering advancing my training and doing something to keep me occupied!

Thanks!

 

[tursiops]

Do you intend to use your MSDT professionally, or is it just for your personal satisfaction?
If the former, then do your IDC where you'd like to work.
If the latter, do it where you'd like to spend some time diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

Although I agree with what Tursiops (and it is what I did myself), another choice is to choose a really good IDC center, where you will get really intense training in a hurry. Before people go nuts on what I just wrote, please read what follows.

A DM in the shop where I worked went to such a place for a month, and he came back not only an MSDT, he was a very different diver. The shop quickly made him a full time employee and director of instruction. The problem was he had been trained to teach skills in an incredibly complicated way with students anchored to the floor of the pool on their knees. He let me teach them neutrally buoyant, but he gave us access to that IDCs skill videos, and he felt we should teach DMs that way. I refused to participate in that instruction under those conditions. It was a source of friction for us until I left.

Fast forward another year or two, and everything was different. That same IDC is now teaching all instructors to teach all skills while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim. Their skill videos really, really look good. I would love to teach DMs that way.

I was diving off a liveaboard in the location of that IDC two years ago, and during a dive we did, I saw some of the instructor training going on. It was very solid.

So while there is a definite advantage to local area training, if you pick out the right IDC, one that will teach skills neutrally buoyant and in trim, you could do well there, too.