Cards smards. If you are looking to take customers on advanced sites, go over their logs and take them to an easy site first. It does not take long to see who knows how to dive and those that just say they do.
Advanced diver vs. Advanced training
- Thread starter Pete.the.scuba.ewok
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As the one who was responsible for creating the change that you reference, please permit me to recount what really happened:
First there was one NAUI certification: Basic Diver, forty hours with four scuba dives. Then Advanced Diver was added, twenty-odd ADDITIONAL hours with (if memory serves) eight more dives. Folks felt this was too big a step and that a dive only transition program was needed, this was the four dive (or was it six?) Sport Diver program. Basic Diver gets renamed Open Water One and Sport Diver gets renamed Open Water II. At the same time PADI has embarked on a program of disenfranchising it's instructors, this is done by creating a new type of instructor the "Open Water Instructor" who is the only instructor that can teach the new "Open Water Diver" course, this effectively makes all PADI Instructors who were not certified by going to a PADI Instructor Institute "pool only" instructors. Seeing a chance to sell well against everyone else's progression PADI puts there "Advanced Open Water" in at exactly the same level as the NAUI Open Water II, so now the "Advanced" title is muddy, confused and rather meaningless. So today's "Advanced Open Water" really is a Sport Diver / Open Water II diver, not an "Advanced Diver" as the progression was initially designed. It was much later on that essential skills were offloaded, as Open Water Diver was halved in duration, that these skills were pushed off onto the so called "Advanced" Course.
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Hold on thar' Baba Looey, If'n y'all force AOW divers to really know how to dive what the hell will I get paid for??? 
I am sure we are all good instructors and I am going to be criticized for this however those are my considerations.
Based on my personal experience there is also an issue on running the PADI AOW course itself.
If you look carefully at the performance requirements for each dive and then observe randomly some 10 AOW courses you will notice that instructors seem to take some flexibility in terms of performance requirements.
Examples:
1. How many times the divers are navigating a reciprocal heading on a night dive? Many shops only give the compass for the navigation and the students do not even have a compass during the night dive
2. How many times the student does not return within 8 meters when doing a square patters and the instructor passes the student anyway?
3. How many time the student that does a deep dive and hasn't got a computer is asked to evaluate the ascent rate and compare with 18 meters/minute?
I don't think that doing an AOW class makes the diver an advanced diver but should definitely give the basics to be able to dive independently with a buddy but being too forgiving during the AOW class will actually prevent that and create even more dependency on DMs for those divers.
Based on my personal experience there is also an issue on running the PADI AOW course itself.
If you look carefully at the performance requirements for each dive and then observe randomly some 10 AOW courses you will notice that instructors seem to take some flexibility in terms of performance requirements.
Examples:
1. How many times the divers are navigating a reciprocal heading on a night dive? Many shops only give the compass for the navigation and the students do not even have a compass during the night dive
2. How many times the student does not return within 8 meters when doing a square patters and the instructor passes the student anyway?
3. How many time the student that does a deep dive and hasn't got a computer is asked to evaluate the ascent rate and compare with 18 meters/minute?
I don't think that doing an AOW class makes the diver an advanced diver but should definitely give the basics to be able to dive independently with a buddy but being too forgiving during the AOW class will actually prevent that and create even more dependency on DMs for those divers.
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I got my AOW in a pool from Ralph Erickson and Joe Strykowski.
Of course, that was back before there was air.
Thanks for the historical explanation!
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I'll tell you what I did about it ... and what I have been doing for the past five years.
I co-wrote my own course ... working with another local NAUI instructor who saw things as I did. What we saw was a NAUI Advanced Scuba Diver class that was not designed to turn out self-sufficient divers for our local conditions. So we sat down and devised a class that would address ...
- Dive Planning (how, what, where and why for local conditions)
- Gas Management (you can see the results of that curriculum here)
- Buddy Skills (awareness, positioning, communication and other skills required to be a good dive buddy)
- Buoyancy and Trim
- Navigation (compass and natural navigation, and "mental mapping" techniques)
- Low visibility techniques
- Deep diving techniques
- Search and recovery techniques
The class portion takes anywhere from 8 to 12 hours, depending on the students (classes are informal and "discussion" based), followed by a minimum of six dives ... I've done as many as 14 dives for some classes. Each dive is objectives-based, with exercises designed to help the diver work on specific skills. Buoyancy control and buddy awareness are built into every dive. Skills are done while hovering. There's lots of opportunity to practice mid-water stops and other skills where the bottom isn't even visible. Students learn to deploy SMB's and how to work together to solve problems. Task-loading helps the students learn to focus on things like navigating a course and communicating with each other while holding a specified depth. Students learn how to use reels and lift bags for search and recovery.
This class goes well beyond what NAUI mandates in its own curriculum ... and in fact, once completed, NAUI's Master Diver program is almost redundant. But it does prepare students to dive self-sufficiently in the conditions we have locally, which is cold, current-intensive, and often low-vis (and we don't have DM's here to lead divers around).
Sure you can ... we all do. The important thing is (a) knowing how to minimize the potential for mistakes and (b) knowing how to react to them when they occur and (c) learning from them when they occur.
Most mistakes underwater are easily remedied as long as you remain calm and think through what you're doing. Proaction is better than reaction, and one reason we emphasize experience for advanced diving so much is that it helps the diver develop a context around which to recognize a developing situation and take steps to avoid or correct the mistake before it turns into something more serious.
Sure you do ... at least with my agency.
Every diver is different ... I've met divers with 20 dives who were surprisingly competent, and divers with 200 dives who were not. Log books can't really tell you which is which ... in order to assess any diver's ability, you have to see them in the water.
Furthermore, there are two almost equal components of diving. One is the physical "mastery" of skills, the other is a diver's mental approach to diving. The latter involves both a diver's willingness to learn and their ability to pay attention to what's going on around them in the water. Divers with excellent physical skills and poor awareness or attitude are virtually useless as dive buddies, and will never be ... to my concern ... an advanced diver.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
DevonDiver
N/A
How many times does this topic need to be reiterated?
Are we talking about an 'Advanced DIVER 'level' or the PADI Advanced OPEN WATER certification.
For me an 'Advanced Diver' is someone who can plan and lead dives in difficult conditions and is, invariably, the most experienced diver in a buddy pair/group. An 'Advanced Diver' can select and effectively utilise specific equipment to accomplish dive objectives. They are properly equipped, educated and experienced to accomplish a wide diversity of diving. The BSAC 'Advanced Diver' is the perfect example of this.
In some ways, the Advanced Diver is someone who displays the mind-set, approach and competance of a technical diver - but within the recreational, no-stop, sphere.
The PADI Advanced Open Water qualification is often mis-read/mis-understood. Some people cannot seem to read past the first word ('advanced') and seem to forget that this is still an OPEN WATER qualification.
For me...and given the course content and performance requirements...the AOW course is merely a vessel to introduce a basic level diver to a wider range of underwater activities - developing their experience in a safe, controlled and supervised medium.
Of course, given 5 dives and several hours of theory time with a student, I know that I have the opportunity to dramatically increase their competance as a diver. When running these courses, I don't have a model or 'end result' that I am seeking to achieve...every diver begins the course with varying levels of experience and ability...so all that can be expected is an overall increase in ability and confidence.
For example...on PPB, I've had students who I could teach to perform helicopters turns and remove/replace mask on perfect horizontal hovers...whilst others were just overjoyed to be able to keep of the reef, get their weighting perfected and improve their flutter kick technique. Every individual starts at a different level - mentally and physically. They also have individual goals for the course....and part of the trick to running an effective course is to find out what the students goals are.
My favorite situation is where I have a diver who takes both OW and AOW with me.... I know in these circumstances I can create a confident, capable and well-informed diver in the training time-scales available.
Are we talking about an 'Advanced DIVER 'level' or the PADI Advanced OPEN WATER certification.
For me an 'Advanced Diver' is someone who can plan and lead dives in difficult conditions and is, invariably, the most experienced diver in a buddy pair/group. An 'Advanced Diver' can select and effectively utilise specific equipment to accomplish dive objectives. They are properly equipped, educated and experienced to accomplish a wide diversity of diving. The BSAC 'Advanced Diver' is the perfect example of this.
In some ways, the Advanced Diver is someone who displays the mind-set, approach and competance of a technical diver - but within the recreational, no-stop, sphere.
The PADI Advanced Open Water qualification is often mis-read/mis-understood. Some people cannot seem to read past the first word ('advanced') and seem to forget that this is still an OPEN WATER qualification.
For me...and given the course content and performance requirements...the AOW course is merely a vessel to introduce a basic level diver to a wider range of underwater activities - developing their experience in a safe, controlled and supervised medium.
Of course, given 5 dives and several hours of theory time with a student, I know that I have the opportunity to dramatically increase their competance as a diver. When running these courses, I don't have a model or 'end result' that I am seeking to achieve...every diver begins the course with varying levels of experience and ability...so all that can be expected is an overall increase in ability and confidence.
For example...on PPB, I've had students who I could teach to perform helicopters turns and remove/replace mask on perfect horizontal hovers...whilst others were just overjoyed to be able to keep of the reef, get their weighting perfected and improve their flutter kick technique. Every individual starts at a different level - mentally and physically. They also have individual goals for the course....and part of the trick to running an effective course is to find out what the students goals are.
My favorite situation is where I have a diver who takes both OW and AOW with me.... I know in these circumstances I can create a confident, capable and well-informed diver in the training time-scales available.
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DevonDiver
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diver 85
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