97 replies to this topic

[drbill]

Split from Making out underwater - DL

Walter- to get serious for a moment, I agree that SCUBA instruction has declined significantly over the years I've been involved in the sport. When I was certified LAC, it was a 21 hour course plus dives. We had demanding physical tests to ensure we were in good enough condition to dive, we were taught skills including rescue techniques that I don't believe are covered for today's OW certification.

It is great that there are so many more divers these days, but I often worry about how well trained they are. You can get a good instructor (or a bad instructor) through any of the certifying agencies. However if the expectations of the agency don't result in a qualified diver, the student may be ill-prepared.

My dive buddy Karen (who is a PADI and SDI instructor) and I were talking about this concern last night. Skills that were included in my LAC certification are now separate certifications (and revenue sources) for agencies like PADI.

I'm glad my bouyancy skills are sufficient for good kissing, but I mainly use them for video work.

Dr. B.

[Walter]

Skills that were included in my LAC certification are now separate certifications (and revenue sources) for agencies like PADI.

LA County has one of the best programs anywhere in the world. Most agencies based their original courses on the LA County program (or from one that was based on LA County). LA County was there first and has maintained an excellent program since it started in 1954. YMCA was the first non regional agency in 1959. Others followed. In the beginning, most agencies had high standards. Of course, there have been improvements in teaching techniques and we've learned things we can now pass on to students that were simply unknown in the early days.

In the late 70's, some agencies started to move parts of their beginning course to other classes. There's nothing wrong with this concept. The question is how much can you take out of the initial class and still produce safe divers? We find different people have different answers. I personally believe many agencies have gone way to far in that direction.

To make matters worse, IMNSHO, many of the skills taken out of these courses are never taught in subsequent courses.

I'm not impressed with the standards of most agencies nor with the competence of most instructors.

Walter

[drbill]

Walter- certainly agree with your assessment!

I finally got a PADI certification three years ago since there were instructors and DM's who didn't understand my original 1960's LAC certification. I was asked to do too many "refresher dives," wasting one dive in each location that I could have been researching or filming. Funny how all I have to do is show my PADI card and I'm in like Flint.

However, as I said there are some very good PADI instructors (in fact I'm finally going to do rescue and probably DM with one of them this summer). MY AOW instructor in Cairns was also excellent, and I know a number who bring their classes to Casino Point regularly.

This winter in Belize I had an experience with a PADI instructor that blew my mind! Some of you have read this on SB, but I'll repeat it here.

As some of you know, I work on board Lindblad Expeditions 70-passenger cruise ships in warmer locations during the winter. I was scheduled to do six trips between Belize and Honduras. My replacement was a new hire and she was supposed to come on board for my last two trips (10 days) so I could train her. She arrived 7 days late. On our first dive she did not know (1) how to put her personal mask strap on, (2) how to put her BCD on her tank, (3) how to put her reg on her tank, (4) how to purge her BCD to descend, (5) how to control her bouyancy (resulting in her crashing into and breaking large chunks off sheet coral going over the wall), (6) etc. And she wasn't even a blonde (had to get that in).

I saw her cert card. I can't help but wonder how an individual of suych limited (I could almost say zero) skills could be a certified PADI instructor. To me it was quite scary that she might be in charge of leading our divers after I left.

Wow... this was almost entirely a serious post! I'm impressed with my own reserve.

Dr. B.

[chinacat46]

That amazes me to. I thought you had to have a minimum of 100 dives to be a PADI instructor. I would think anybody with that many dives even with just an OW certification would have enuff experience to setup their equipment and have some bouyancy skills. Sounds like she needed the refresher course but she couldn't teach herself.

[drbill]

Yep, given what I observed, I wouldn't have certified her OW if I were an instructor. There is always a chance the certification was forged.

Dr. B.

[Walter]

There is always a chance the certification was forged.

Possible, but not likely. I've known many instructors who are not as skilled as the OW divers I certify. Not being able to set up a BC/reg on a tank and dumping air is pretty extreme.

[DandyDon]

I saw her cert card. I can't help but wonder how an individual of such limited (I could almost say zero) skills could be a certified PADI instructor. To me it was quite scary that she might be in charge of leading our divers after I left.

That's dangerous. I'd suggest reporting her to PADI...

[Coo's Toe]

It's a shame those skills aren't taught better in more OW courses.

Wow, a thread on SD that's actually turning serious! And we're actually discussing dive skills!!! I can't pass up this opportunity, no matter how much fun it is to be a compulsively lighthearted cyber-flirt.

Walter... In 12 words you described the problem that plagues the modern dive industry. I cannot agree with you more

I think it's a shame that someone like Dr. Bill, who took one of the best courses out there, back in the days when training wasn't diluted, and added to that training with many years of actual experiance, is asked to pay for refresher courses just to dive.

I attended a UW treasure hunt yesterday. To register for the event, you had to present a C-card. I presented two, my GUE card ( which I am very proud of ) and my PADI OW card. The lady signing me up looked at the GUE card with a blank look on her face like "what's this?"... then she saw the PADI card and gladly proceeded with the registration. Probably would've had the same effect if I had presented a LAC card.

I was herded through my OW class like a sheep. I had an excellent instructor who tried to augment the PADI course structure with some extra material ( which PADI tends to frown on, by the way ). But truthfully, by the time I completed the course and had my certification, I was woefully underprepared for diving. I treated my card as a license to actually learn how to dive. I read everything I could find, picked some very experianced buddies to dive with and learn from, and practiced the skills that were glossed over in my OW course.

One word that really scares me is "Specialty".

Read the list of specialties sometime... Many of the skills that should be REQUIREMENTS for OW certification are offered as additional classes for additional dollars. They are elective classes, you aren't required to take them. Put another dollar in. Peak performance buoyancy is not an elective skill in my book. Neither are basic rescue skills. I guess thorough instruction at the OW level would cut too deeply into the bottom line, so it's slowly been phased out.

I think a great deal of the problem lies with us, the consumers of dive training. When someone offers a quicker, cheaper alternative, and we choose to take that class rather than a more expensive, time consuming, course, we force the agency offering the better courses to follow suit and abbreviate/cheapen their courses in order to compete. It's simple marketplace economics at work. If the average person looking for OW training were more informed about what good training is ( I certainly wasn't ), and willing to invest the extra time and money for better training, then better courses might emerge once again, like a phoenix, from the ashes of the present wasteland of profit oriented dive training. But when we're all looking for the cheapest offerings, and trying to fit training into our busy schedules without tying up more than just a weekend or two, you can be sure someone will design a course to meet those needs. We asked for it... we got it.

You can hardly blame PADI for giving us what we demanded. Maybe it's time we started demanding more.

[DiveScoop]

Hey Coos,
I was out at the event in Tacoma yesterday also. What did you win?

I didn't dive because I was there to meet with some event sponsors, etc. Did you enjoy the event? Heard the water was like 47 or some other number that literally "puts shivers down my spine".

Scoop

[Coo's Toe]

Hey Coos,
I was out at the event in Tacoma yesterday also. What did you win?

I didn't dive because I was there to meet with some event sponsors, etc. Did you enjoy the event? Heard the water was like 47 or some other number that literally "puts shivers down my spine".

Scoop

I won NOTHING!!!!

I was less than impressed with the event. I enjoyed meeting up with some friends that had booths there, and I was happy to see my friends Bob and Kelly from Anacortes won the $1000, but I really wasn't happy with the underwater side of the day.

I don't think I'll participate next year. Unleashing all those divers on a site at once seems wrong to me, now that I've seen it up close. I found hundreds of critters that were abused in the event. Even the largest sunflower stars were turned upside down by the rototilling action of hundreds of split fins in a confined area. Moon snails turned upside down were everywhere, and one had it's shell crushed open. Terrified fish and gunnels...

Then there was the danger posed to the divers by encouraging so many to be in a limited space fueled by greed. I spent a good deal of time perfecting my underwater kung fu skills, defending myself from flailing hands and errant fin kicks in zero vis.

I think this event really runs contrary to the ideals most of us share as divers. I'm still kind of kicking myself for participating in the organized destruction of a dive site. I don't think I'd do it again, no matter how many trips to Fiji they're giving away. I would be much more interested in attending a dive trade show with drawings, but without the UW treasure hunt. I think I'll write Rick Stratton a letter expressing my feelings on the matter. I assure you you didn't miss much by staying out of the water.

[kevininpo]

CT, l was there too, and won nothing. lt was for me the first dive since breaking my ankle and l had set it as a goal to dive. l agree it was a madhouse underwater, l had told some friends it was like a bluelight special at K-mart. l was pushed, kicked, flailed and ran into. Vis was all of 6". The scariest thing l had heard about was a guy using his dive knife as a pick to swim against the current! l'm glad to have got the chance to dive, and since l didn't have to cut the welded boot of my drysuit, it was a success, but l will not attend this or any similar event again. Too many diver in such a small area is not only cruel to the critters, but is very dangerous as well.

[Diverbrian]

CT,

You stated the problem in a nutshell. Heck, my IANTD card doesn't mean anything to many of the shops and that is the one where I had to perform skills like shooting a bag for decompression without changing depth by more than 10 ft. and a three minute hover. My SSI AOW card, on the other hand, gets me in anywhere that I want.

I did learn basic rescue skills and good buoyancy control in my OW course. We did have to do air sharing ascents and descents with the instructor. This doesn't appear to be the rule, from what I read on the board.

Why is this? The consumers want the fastest and cheapest way to a C-Card so that they can get in the water. Competition among dive shops for classes isn't happening because the saying in the dive industry is that "if you want to be a millionaire in the dive industry, start with two million." The profit margins are just not there to run long classes (which consumers will find another sport before burning a solid five days of vacation for dive classes like I did) or expensive classes ( the other dive shops offer cheaper courses).

Independent instructors are either excellent (as they don't work for a shop because they want to exceed standards and shop doesn't want to spend the money on pool time) or very poor (as they don't work for a shop because the local shop doesn't wish to be responsible for the divers that they have certified). I have seen the results of both extremes. So this the unaffiliated instructor is not completely an answer either.

The consumers in the dive industry are speaking and many times that is a scary voice. Like everything else, most people want fast and cheap. The old standards of treating students like Navy SEALS chased me away from the sport as I already went through boot camp once. I sure as heck am not paying anyone to put me through boot camp again. There is a "happy medium" between these two extremes (modern standards and para-military standards that used to exist). We all have a time trying to see where that medium is which leads to the current debate in dive training.

I am admittedly more lax than most of the "hard-core" pros that tend to post on boards, but I am still not happy with students that can't maintain buoyancy, assemble a kit, clear a mask.... (well, you get the idea) after "completing" OW course.

PS, I hate to ask this as a serious thread is a good thing, but could someone split out the part where we started getting into a serious mode and retitle it into something more appropriate that more people might read. THANKS!

Edited by Diverbrian, 02 May 2004 - 03:10 PM.

[kevininpo]

besides the PADI acronym being "put another dollar in", it also is "pay and dive instantly"...just an addition, CT

[Diverbrian]

besides the PADI acronym being "put another dollar in", it also is "pay and dive instantly"...just an addition, CT

Kevin,

Not to pick you out, because we all starting to do this: In spite of my previous post, I don't believe in going after any one agency. Would it be possible for us to leave the pecking on any one agency to a minimum when nearly all of them (except the tech based agencies) are guilty to some extent of lowering standards.

Thanks,

Brian

[chinacat46]

Another thing is experience over certification. I have a friend who was diving with his daughter. He has been diving for over 25 years and has over 1000 dives but never went past OW. His daughter has 11 dives and she has her AOW. The dive specified Advanced divers only. They were gonna let his daughter go but not him. He talked with them and they finally came around and let him go but then had second thoughts about his daughter. With a lot of agencys you can go right from your OW to AOW but are you really an advanced diver? I think not. Experience is where you become an advanced diver.

Edited by chinacat46, 02 May 2004 - 04:00 PM.