Redundancy Required for Decompression Diving?

[lermontov]

I have. There is a lot one can learn outside of formal training.

Id add that formal training is information and in time it becomes understanding- the style of teaching that 'this is the correct way ' is too narrow and rigid.
Actually the part of diving I enjoy is the tinkering- i learned sidemount from tech instructor and spent the next 30-40 dives fine tuning to fit me, did the ER course and then set up spreadsheets and formulas to make it all make sense. The path of discovery and development is for me the most interesting part of a finding a new hobby/sport -as long as the base lines are sound, on the flip side ive seen some instructor squash all the light out of students eyes by filling them with such dread that they seem in constant fear theyre going to die if they dont follow every directive given by them.
I come from a background of professional mountaineer - we didn't have an equivalent PADI or TDI book to refer to we taught what was considered a safe technique but we always prefaced our instruction courses by telling students that we would teach them sound practice but after a year or two active mountaineering we would expect tham to have fine tuned their own style -as mentioned earlier get the base lines right -build on that.

 

[admikar]

What utter nonsense! "Volunteers" are better than pros because pros are conflicted in their brand loyalty. The prejudice is an insult to decent professional instructors.

I wager you get as much pressure and B.S. from some (note: some, not all) volunteers as from some (again, some, not all) professionals.

In other words, the stated arbitrary division is wrong. Try dividing along the lines of: instructors who shill gear vs. those who don't, or other more realistic choices.

Agree. But the same should be said regarding comments about "all the modern agencies are safe and clubs are not so much". Do you agree?

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Maybe I am just
being dense on this issue. But, what is the 'message' that you think would be subtly transmitted by the instructor you mention? Was the comment to you made in some kind of negative, whining way?

Not sure where you got that - maybe I did a poor job in my explanation.

I have several rigs / gear items that are not in any brand line that my (current) shop carries. In part, I have many of them because they were in a brand line that my former (now closed) shop carried. I choose not to use them in my teaching of shop classes, simply as a matter of respect for the business interests of the shop. That doesn't mean they are better than, or worse than, the brand lines that my current shop carries. The fact that business is involved doesn't affect my assessment. Frankly, if I thought one of those 'non-shop' lines was somehow conspicuously better / safer / more functional than anything my current shop carries, I would have no reservation about telling student that. But, I also have no problem telling a student that I prefer to use brand lines that my shop carries, that we carry good gear, and I have ready access to those brand lines at very favorable prices, so it makes sense for me to use those brands.

What I am suggesting is if your shop does not carry a line of gear and the shop does not want you showing/talking about that line of gear then you are in fact not presenting all the facts or options to the student. The student will never know what gear is out there and what may or may not be best for them. They will however most likely go with the "expert" opinion of the instructor.
What I am suggesting is the omission of information can be construed as transmitting subtle messages that certain gear may not be up to par. Because my LDS only stocks the best gear...
I would like to think all instructors/shops have the students best intentions at heart. But that does not always seem to be the case. Are all major brands essentially just as good as any other brand? You could say that they are but why omit or steer a student away from a certain brand? $$$? That is all I am saying - an independent instructor may or may not do the same thing. But an LDS that is pushing instructors in a certain way certainly is doing it...

 

[DevonDiver]

What utter nonsense! "Volunteers" are better than pros because pros are conflicted in their brand loyalty. The prejudice is an insult to decent professional instructors.

It really panders to gross negative stereotypes ... and such stereotyping normally stems from some desire to justify ones own worth.

I'm surprised that the lame old 'warm water instructors aren't so good as cold water instructors' line hasn't also been rolled out yet...

For professional instructors making a real career in diving, reputation is everything in a competitive market. Both in terms of attracting students and in seeking (and keeping) employment.

There's good and bad instructors in every aspect of diving - pro or amateur, warm or cold water, X, Y or Z agency...

Bad instructors give bad information for a variety of motivations. It's not simply restricted to commercial reasons. There's plenty of ignorant, naive or egotistical instructors out there... pro or amateur... misleading divers on a myriad of issues.

Propagating negative stereotypes in the dive community is just another example of unethical and ignorant self-serving diver/instructor behaviour....

 

[sunnyboy]

I was writing a big long reply to Basking Ridge Diver and realised there's no point. Your mind seems obviously closed on this topic, so further debate seems pointless.

I know some really good instructors who will give students the benefit of their years of experience without considering what some shop sells - the offer the benefit of their experience because we've all wasted money on crap gear, and because the students DO ASK US. You want us to just shut up and not answer them?

Andy, perhaps I should have better stated my point this way: "What utter nonsense to suggest that volunteers are better than pros because pros are conflicted in their brand loyalty." Anyone can be conflicted by brand loyalty. When offering gear advice, volunteer instructor and pro instructor are an incorrect set of categories, IMO.

 

[lermontov]

Not sure where you got that - maybe I did a poor job in my explanation.



What I am suggesting is if your shop does not carry a line of gear and the shop does not want you showing/talking about that line of gear then you are in fact not presenting all the facts or options to the student. The student will never know what gear is out there and what may or may not be best for them. They will however most likely go with the "expert" opinion of the instructor.
What I am suggesting is the omission of information can be construed as transmitting subtle messages that certain gear may not be up to par. Because my LDS only stocks the best gear...
I would like to think all instructors/shops have the students best intentions at heart. But that does not always seem to be the case. Are all major brands essentially just as good as any other brand? You could say that they are but why omit or steer a student away from a certain brand? $$$? That is all I am saying - an independent instructor may or may not do the same thing. But an LDS that is pushing instructors in a certain way certainly is doing it...

I think thats a bit naive- its a commercial operation selling a brand the instructors are ambassadors of that shop. If I had a shop and found out my employees were steering customers away id sack them. Anyone in a position to spend $$ is surely astute enough to work out how commerce works. Have you ever been to any retail oultet to be told the competitor has a better product

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

I think thats a bit naive- its a commercial operation selling a brand the instructors are ambassadors of that shop. If I had a shop and found out my employees were steering customers away id sack them. Anyone in a position to spend $$ is surely astute enough to work out how commerce works. Have you ever been to any retail oultet to be told the competitor has a better product

All you are doing is proving the point. What is best for the instructor or shop wins over the student or customer - sometimes they may line up and sometimes buyer beware...

 

[KenGordon]

In the U.K. there are very few true professional dive instructors. By that I mean people that do it as their job, not just being paid to teach on an adhoc basis when student are available and otherwise having a 'proper' job to actually pay their bills. There is a grey area of people that work in a dive shop and teach some of the time.

I suspect that the same is true all over the world. Mostly paid instructors are guides, shop people or relatively new. Those with a stable track record teaching full time for many years are few and far between.

I meet a good number of students trained by 'professional' instructors in holiday resorts. They might be being paid but half of these students elect to start again from scratch as they are not at all confident in their training. Whether that is because the instructors are rubbish or because of the time allowed and group sizes I have no idea.

Dive training is too cheap to support proper professionalism. By the hour a top U.K. instructor costs less than having my car serviced at a back street garage. For the last course I did the cost of the instructor was only about 60% of what I spent (allowing for accommodation, petrol, site entry and gas) and probably 35% of the actual cost to be once I'd taken a couple of days off work.

Having said that, the margins on training are much better than on selling kit. So if a shop has decided to have staff it pays better to use it to train than sell. So it would seem that having a reputation of being honest and being prepared to say that brand X that they do not carry might suit a student better is likely to pay off.

 

[Freewillow]

There is some truth in what you are saying about CMAS. However, when one understands that you are a professional instructors - therefore need to make a living - and most CMAS instructors are volunteers, your opinion can be taken with a bit of salt

Can you perhaps explain this statement a bit more? I don't understand how the views of an instructor charging a fee for his/her effort, and an instructor providing the same effort on a voluntary basis, differ in their validity, or how they should be taken,, simply because of the type of compensation (monetary vs personal satisfaction). I am not disagreeing (or agreeing), I just don't understand the comment.

He is implying the professional has a vested interest, therefore a conflict of interest, in what he says, whereas the volunteer can be trusted to speak honestly and truthfully. This is rubbish and irritating.

Tursiops, If you read my original post, you can read that I am not saying that DD is wrong, on the contrary. So I believe that the term "rubbish" and "insulting" are grosselly inappropriate.

@ Colliam, let me take an example in order to explain what I said: In the States, you have few individuals that turns between 3 jobs back and forward: President of Goldman Sachs type of bank, personal Advisor to the President and then Professor of Economics at Yale or Harvard. When I am looking at what such an individual is doing or saying, I always keep that in mind because he is, by nature proned to be biased. This does not imply that everything that he is saying is wrong or immoral

In the case of an instructor that so visibly advertise for his school ,

I take exactly the same approach. He was a "Pro Deo" volunteer instructor in a CMAS organisation and implies that such organisations are outdated and not safe when it comes to deco training.

I do not know BSAC - his former "house", but I know the FFESSM and the LIFRAS, two of the 100+ affiliates of the CMAS. For him to say bluntly that these federations do not take into account modern findings in their approach is a "gross negative stereotype"

When I am reading the following quote:

It really panders to gross negative stereotypes ... and such stereotyping normally stems from some desire to justify ones own worth..

I have to agree with DD: such stereotyping normally stems from some desire to justify ones own worth - business in this case.

Again, I am pretty sure that DD is a great instructor , I have learned a lot from reading most of his posts. Most of the time he is very right In this case, I just have a little doubd

 

[Roger Hawthorne]

The french FFESSM is hardly CMAS's poster child for modern decompression training though, is it?

AFAIK their three star certification is still 60m on air with no accelerated decompression procedures, no training in the use of twins or other "technical" equipment and, without a special instructor, all training dives shallower than 40m.

I do not know BSAC - his former "house", but I know the FFESSM and the LIFRAS, two of the 100+ affiliates of the CMAS. For him to say bluntly that these federations do not take into account modern findings in their approach is a "gross negative stereotype"