Unless Mr. Robert Marks, known to you all as "pir8" here on SD and other boards, somehow fails his instructor written examination (which could happen because an employee at a PDIC dive center stapled some pages upside down) he will not only be an instructor with PADI, but with PDIC International as well. One of Bob's career goals is to become an instructor with every agency (minus maybe one or two), but by joining PDIC, he has opened the door to be part of the Universal Referral Program. Bob and I are both part-time instructors at Lehigh Valley Dive Center close to Dutch Springs and the dive center has actually been doing universal referrals since becoming a NAUI facility.
I've been bugging Bob to do a crossover, or in his case, to pick up PDIC as an agency for a couple of years now. The first reason is that Bob isn't an arrogant egomaniacal tech-oriented @$$hole, but he is one of the few instructors and wreck divers in the northeast who knows what he's doing (even when it's not pretty
), yet can teach and convey information with charm and pizzaz. Despite being a wreck diver, cave diver, and one of Dan Crowell's (famous east coast boat captain, tech diver and deep ocean film-maker including credits for Deep Sea Detectives) trimix graduates, Bob is a humble down-to-earth guy and makes diving fun for his students. I think we both learned a few things from one another during Bob's class. The first thing I learned is that if you're going to teach someone coming from PADI the PDIC system, it is a lot easier to train someone such as our very own consummate gentleman, Mr. Jamie Extract (now a PDIC instructor and affiliated with Hollywood Divers which is a DIR shop that sits right next to Vivid Entertainment -- talk about paradise! DIR people! Not the adult film company! Please! Get your priorities straight!) if that diver has left the PADI compound. Why? Well... Bob was in class with another cave trained diver who is a PADI DM and also becoming a PDIC instructor. This student regularly helps with PADI courses. I must say they show the same team spirit and team thinking that would make a GUE instructor proud... or... well... maybe not. But, they were certainly on the same page!
PDIC tends to have a bit more skills for the students to learn than PADI. A joint question shared by both Bob and his teammate was, "How can we teach all these PDIC skills in the shorter time frame we have in the class and pool?" PDIC is set up where the student attends a class session followed by the pool session that corresponds to the academic knowledge presented in class. Normally, at the open water level, the student learns about how PDIC presents Learning to Dive, Snorkeling Physiology and Snorkeling Habits or Techniques, after watching a video, and then does the in-water training in a pool or confined water following the classroom. PDIC allows the diver to then do Open Water I: Snorkeling or wait and do those skills after SCUBA pool training when going to open water. There are at a minimum 5 class and pool sessions before 5 open water dives - 1 snorkel and 4 SCUBA including rescue. At PDIC headquarters we teach 6 to 8 class and pool sessions so the students don't feel rushed. Bob explained that the PADI classes he teaches normally is done with 3 class sessions back to back, then followed by three pool sessions, and then they do their open water dives. This is due to the cost of the pool time which just about every instructor faces and I realize that having our own pool at PDIC HQ allows us a bit more freedom, but I also know we've rented pools at local colleges and have conducted our classes the same way, but usually tried to finish with 6 class/pool sessions rather than 8. Bob and his instructor candidate buddy both seemed equally concerned with getting the PDIC system completed in 3 class and 3 pool sessions.
I was like, "C'mon guys, yeah, you'll probably have to rent the pool for another couple of days, but your student will get more out of it and you could always charge more for the class." Then, his buddy (who wants to remain nameless for now) told me how much her shop charges for the open water course... I SO HAVE TO RAISE MY PRICES!!! Anyway, they both seemed pretty skeptical about that as a business decision. Who knows? They might be right?, I thought to myself.
THEN... we went underwater. It was late in the afternoon and I was hoping that we could finish Bob's evaluation skill set. I wanted him to teach REGULATOR CLEARING three ways (1. hum 2. purge 3. swish), MASK CLEARING by (1. flood mask below nose and clear 2. flood mask completely and clear 3. remove and replace mask and clear), ACHIEVING NEUTRAL BUOYANCY, SHARING AIR SWIMMING ALONG BOTTOM THEN TRANSITIONING INTO A BCD ASSISTED ASCENT, and finally an EMERGENCY ASCENT. Five skills, right? Wrong, Trace! According to their PADI training that was about 9 or 10 skills that Bob would be tested on in the water. So, what? Right? Well... I was really low on gas. I had like 300 or 400 psi left in my twin AL80's. I figured being the superbly trained PADI pro's they were they would cruise through that skill set in 10 - 15 minutes. Wrong, Trace!
We descend to the training platforms in approximately 30 feet of water and Bob takes his instructor position kneeling in front of his "student." Expertly, and with the stuff of legend (no, seriously he even has personality when demonstrating), our intrepid hero proceeds to demonstrate how to flood and clear the face mask. His student copies his noble skill and proceeds to inject some personality into her own mask clearing. Then, it happens... once she's completed her skill, Bob shakes her hand. Bob then demonstrates how to totally flood and clear a mask. She does it as per Bob's example. Bob gives her a high five. He then shows her how to remove and replace her mask. She manages to do it! WOO-HOO double high five!!! Somewhere in this process of high fives, low fives, high tens, low tens, hang tens, behind the back, funky chicken end zone shuffles, and all manner of congratulatory daps I began to realize, This is taking longer than I thought. I checked my air and realized that it was down pretty low and that it was time to employ some tricks of the trade and get high to conserve air. I guess all those daps reminded me of the sixties? I ascended a bit and continued to watch this 10 - 15 minute dive move over the 30 minute mark. But, finally, with my regulator drawing hard with each breath, Bob finished the skills satisfactorily and without any permanent tendonitis or fractures from all that slapping!
Upon surfacing, I congratulated them (probably in a far more lukewarm way than they had grown accustomed), but I had to question all that excitement over mundane skills. "She cleared her freaking mask, Bob," I said, "she didn't score a touchdown!" Bob laughed and explained to me that PADI instructor candidates get points in their IDC if they show some form of positive reinforcement. Holy crap! Was she not loved as a child or something? He then explained that those five skills I assigned him were really a lot more because in the PADI IDC each building block to the whole would be a skill in itself that an instructor candidate might be assigned and evaluated. Who knew?
So, one of the major differences between PDIC and PADI is how that positive reinforcement will be delivered. PDIC HAS LESS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT AND WE CAN TEACH MORE SKILLS IN THE SAME TIME FRAME!
Today, Bob did his snorkeling skills and he passed them after some work!
One of the skills we do is to have the student simulate an emergency ascent by freediving down to the bottom, spit out the snorkel mouthpiece (PDIC ditches the regulator in favoir of maintaining the open airway and doing a "blow and go" while humming -- we also hum whenever the reg is out of the mouth to make that a habit), begin humming and remove and drop the weightbelt away from the body before kicking for the surface while looking up and then flaring out at the end of the ascent. I had retrieved his weightbelt on a previous attempt, but as he watched him he believed that he could retrieve it too which he did! Good job, Bob! High five! After a couple attempts which were okay, he demonstrated the skill to absolute perfection! What does a man get in a PDIC course after making several freedives to 30 feet and simulating an emergency ascent? "Good job, Bob! That was perfect! Now, you can go get your weightbelt."
I've got to work on my people skills.
After that Bob decided he wanted to try a little freediving for the first time. His following dives placed him at 40, 50 and 55 feet. Good job, Bob! I managed to give him a handshake instead of telling him to go dive to 60 feet. I think some of his PADI-ness is rubbing off on me.
Now, I just need to teach him to say, "YOU CAN DIE IF..." rather than "YOU CAN GET HURT IF..."
I keep going easy on these instructor students. I think I'm getting soft in my old age?
Good job, Bob!
to PDIC Notice positive reinforcement?
Soon, Bob will be bringing his special gift of joy to divers from all agencies who may wish to do a universal referral and the industry will be better for it.
Bob, don't screw up your exam. And, practice that one-legged surface dive before we bloody well rip one off and give you no choice! Ah... the warmth of PDIC.
Edited by TraceMalin, 20 August 2007 - 07:22 AM.
