Why is it so difficult to find a PADI tec rec instructor?

[toby43]

How do you know what level of experience they brought over? How do you know they didn't just do the minimum and then cross over? How do you know the people getting trained now have less experience?

Errr I think its just his opinion...as we all know like arseholes, everyone's got one

 

[rjack321]

How do you know what level of experience they brought over? How do you know they didn't just do the minimum and then cross over? How do you know the people getting trained now have less experience?

If you just finished your TDI instructorship why would someone suddenly cross over to PADI? (ditto any other agency)

I have seen the phenomenon Andy is describing with several agencies. There's a certain pool of divers who stick within their own agency from start to finish and are rarely exposed to anyone or anything else. The most sheltered are divers who do OW through DM, AI, and instructor all with the same shop/instructor/course director!!! Needless to say they don't turn out very well rounded.

 

[DevonDiver]

How do you know what level of experience they brought over? How do you know they didn't just do the minimum and then cross over? How do you know the people getting trained now have less experience?

Those are my personal observations. As I said... very general.... but it's what I notice as a trend. I am not saying that there aren't good instructors being trained nowadays... nor that every tech instructor 1-2 decades ago was awesome.

But I do see tech divers... instructors...and instructor-trainers nowadays who are well below what would have commonly been expected in terms of skills, knowledge and experience a decade ago... I see 'tech centers' popping up everywhere.... and more-and-more 'qualified tech divers' being refused diving as a result of unsatisfactory check-out dives.... I see divers doing tech as 'just another specialty course'... and tech instructors selling them tech on that same basis...all done, of course, to the bare minimum agency standards, dives and timescales (achievable by lowering performance standards expectations....i.e. fuddling 'mastery').

Next week.... I will be assisting a Tec Trimix Instructor Trainer with improving his buoyancy/trim/fundamentals. He has a career total of ~50 deco dives.... but has qualified tech instructors.... who have qualified tech divers.... go figure.

 

[mdb]

The whole "Tech" thing is a farce; fostered by ego and some kind of "we are better than you " attitude

More training, more advanced diving, different techniques for wrecks, enclosed spaces, deeper dives that is all relevant.

Experienced instructors with many dives under their well worn weight belts can and do produce very good Divers.

The good and comfortable divers are just that. The so called "Tech" label is just a label.

We are just SCUBA divers, happy to be so, no labels need apply.

 

[oya]

I will be assisting a Tec Trimix Instructor Trainer with improving his buoyancy/trim/fundamentals. He has a career total of ~50 deco dives.... but has qualified tech instructors.... who have qualified tech divers.

This makes me throw up in my mouth with anxiety a little.

The whole "Tech" thing is a farce; fostered by ego and some kind of "we are better than you " attitude

More training, more advanced diving, different techniques for wrecks, enclosed spaces, deeper dives that is all relevant.

Experienced instructors with many dives under their well worn weight belts can and do produce very good Divers.

The good and comfortable divers are just that. The so called "Tech" label is just a label.

We are just SCUBA divers, happy to be so, no labels need apply.

The last sentence I agree with. It is just a recreation and therefore all "just scuba diving," even at the "highest" technical levels.

However, the rest of it makes me a little nervous and dangerously teeters on the edge of the kind of culture/behavior where some old-timer who has a thousands of dives and thinks they know it all tells people who don't know better to follow him/her into a place where NONE OF THEM belong and ALL OF THEM die.

 

[DevonDiver]

The so called "Tech" label is just a label.

We are just SCUBA divers, happy to be so, no labels need apply.

Isn't "SCUBA divers" just another label?

If not, then why don't we have a forum to discuss 'diving' issues such as 'how to perform a full pike and two twists from a 10m board?"

Diving is just diving.... no need for a label.... springboard or scuba.... happy to be so.

Don't sweat the labels.... but don't get your panties in a twist when people use them to clarify and illustrate the specific activity being conducted or discussed...

 

[mdb]

This makes me throw up in my mouth with anxiety a little.



The last sentence I agree with. It is just a recreation and therefore all "just scuba diving," even at the "highest" technical levels.

However, the rest of it makes me a little nervous and dangerously teeters on the edge of the kind of culture/behavior where some old-timer who has a thousands of dives and thinks they know it all tells people who don't know better to follow him/her into a place where NONE OF THEM belong and ALL OF THEM die.

With proper instruction I think we all belong in open water enjoying the great serenity of diving.

Definitely different levels of instruction for various levels of diving.

A nice warm water vacation dive, a deep cold water wreck, a cave dive, they all require certain levels of training.

I have several thousand dives in warm water and cold, in wrecks and deep, I do not consider myself any great diver.

I am fortunate to have had many very good instructors over these years. I just do not like labels.

 

[oya]

With proper instruction I think we all belong in open water enjoying the great serenity of diving.

Definitely different levels of instruction for various levels of diving.

A nice warm water vacation dive, a deep cold water wreck, a cave dive, they all require certain levels of training.

I have several thousand dives in warm water and cold, in wrecks and deep, I do not consider myself any great diver.

I am fortunate to have had many very good instructors over these years. I just do not like labels.

Yes. Open Water. That requires specialized training.

Caves, deco, wreck penetration: these are the realms of so-called "tech diving." They require specialized training, too.

Just because some instructor is adept with one does not automatically make them adept at another. Just because someone's weight-belt is well-worn doesn't make them a good instructor at everything, or even a good diver.

If it's the labels that make you uncomfortable, think of them as specialty identifiers.

There are only a handful of technical instructors to whom I would send people. That doesn't make them the only instructors in the world capable and it isn't because I'm part of some exclusive cadre... it's just because they are the people that I know personally would train people well enough to stay alive in challenging and dangerous conditions.

 

[mdb]

Yes. Open Water. That requires specialized training.

Caves, deco, wreck penetration: these are the realms of so-called "tech diving." They require specialized training, too.

Just because some instructor is adept with one does not automatically make them adept at another. Just because someone's weight-belt is well-worn doesn't make them a good instructor at everything, or even a good diver.

If it's the labels that make you uncomfortable, think of them as specialty identifiers.

There are only a handful of technical instructors to whom I would send people. That doesn't make them the only instructors in the world capable and it isn't because I'm part of some exclusive cadre... it's just because they are the people that I know personally would train people well enough to stay alive in challenging and dangerous conditions.

Nice post, well said..

 

[stuartv]

Here, you either do it in zero visibility

If you have a good instructor, and you pass the course in those conditions, you will probably be well-qualified to do those kinds of dives just about anywhere (within reason)....

I have done most of my training in cold, dark, low-viz quarries. I think I'm a better diver for that. I'm also glad I haven't spent any vacation time sitting in a classroom or doing training dives.

Also, if you do TDI Adv Nitrox and Deco Procedures as one course (which is how it's commonly taught), you'll be at the same level as after doing both Tec 40 and Tec 45. If your shop doesn't teach tech courses, then why worry about staying with the shop's agency? If your shop does teach Tec 40 and Tec 45 and it's just the local conditions that put you off doing it with your shop, then okay, I fall back to my previous comment. Training in tough conditions is not necessarily a bad thing.