matt_unique:
Genesis it is clear from your posts you are against traditional training. Fine, I can respect your opinion. What I don't understand is why you are against training so vehemently - seemingly for the sake of being against training rather than to acknowledge the benefit. There IS benefit to traditional training, to say otherwise does not recognize fact.
I agree with some of your points, specifically that the greatest responsibility lies within your own (self) education and attitudes. A good student can make a bad instructor provide good instruction.
As I read your posts it reminded me of my flight training. I read everything, visualized the maneuvers in my head, passed the FAA tests of course, physically practiced the maneuvers (sorta of like air guitar in your chair), etc. To then say I or anyone else could go out and safely conduct the maneuver without a trained expert there to physically show you/correct you is total nonsense. There are some aspects of diving that are exactly the same. To be fully training and prepared you need to see it done, you need to have the benefit of a trained professional right there to correct you if you go to grab your 80% 02 mix for a deco stop at 130', or to correct some of your gear configuration, or to return to my flight example you need the instructor there to stop you from spinning the aircraft when you are trying to execute a stall.
Once you have some level of dive proficiency you should absolutely be able to determine a good instructor. To learn something means you have to "trust" somebody else and that includes the authors of the books you are reading. As a diver with some measure of skill you should have the tools to find a good instructor - referrals, description of dive experiences, gases used, depths, gear used, etc. Ask questions then compare those answers with another professional to make sure they add up. This is a good source to start as well. For deco diving I would probably look to a more targeted source like the Deco Stop however.
--Matt
Flight training is entirely disjoint from dive training.
Among other things your flight instructor is certified by someone who has
no connection whatsoever to the business of selling his services. That is, the fox
does not guard the henhouse in flight training - either for your instructor OR for you, as a student. Indeed, when you are signed off as a pilot, you get signed off by a flight examiner - not an instructor paid by the shop that you just bought the training from.
This is
not true for any level of dive training. In each and every instance, the instructors are "certified" by folks who have too many inherent conflicts of interest to be able to provide an objective view, and at no time are they subject to outside, independant review.
You bring up an interesting situation - grabbing the wrong bottle at 130'. If you do that, then by definition you have failed to learn what you need to know. There are protocols that will prevent this - and there are instructors who don't use or believe in them! There are also instructors who think that dropping deco bottles in the ocean on a penetration dive is a reasonable thing to do. I disagree, and point to the list of people who have died as a direct result of having done so as justification for my position. They say "but you can't get in there with that profile" and I say in response "if so, then I'm not GOING in there!"
Where I find fatal fault with the current means of dive instruction is that (1) the fox guards the henhouse, which means there is zero outside accountability for either instructor or student, and (2) the instructors and agencies have rigged the game (through the waiver system) so that even if they are woefully incompetent you can't use external process to force a correction of the situation for that particular individual.
As such I refuse to play, and instead choose to make the effort to learn what needs to be learned without the unholy influence and
risk that this rigged system is designed to offload on my shoulders. If I am going to take this risk
by every agencies' design then I am going to do so
without feeding the dragon that has caused the situation to exist, since I see no material difference in the risk profile in taking this path, and I
do see benefit and
decreased risk to a path of incrementalism that I simply cannot achieve with
any formal dive training path. Once I reach the point where I am comfortable doing what the class was to have taught me, I no longer need the class.
This then reduces me to choosing whether or not to "buy a card" down the road - and
that decision is one based purely on access considerations. That is, if I must to get into some place or on some boat that I wish to go use, then my hand is forced and I must either comply with what I perceive as an extortion racket or forego that dive. But by that point I'm already doing the dive(s) that people say I need the card to do - and the fact that I haven't killed myself is pretty good evidence that I have indeed learned the material.
No, perhaps this path is not for everyone. But I will note that prior to the card-selling era we are in now, essentially all divers followed this path.
