Becoming an instructor without any real dives

[Eric Sedletzky]

Yes it is but not recommended as far as I am concerned. Everyone pursuing leadership roles should have plenty of independent dives under their belts.

Well of course, I know that.
The reason all this came up is because we were discussing someone we know who became an instructor only a year after being open water certified. The only time this guy was in the water was with a class. Next thing you know he's an instructor.

 

[Dive Junky]

The scenario was involving an instructor doing the bare minimum number of dives. I.e. 100. Very few people after 100 dives would have what I would consider 'good' experience. 100 dives is not very many at all.

I don't think 100 dives is many either especially considering that most divers get these dives in under extremely desirable conditions. 100 dives in the Carribean pales in significance to 100 dives off the Northeast coast of the US. I guess that is something to take up with our certifying agencies.

I was just making it clear that diving while teaching students is much more stressful, educational, and enlightening than REAL DIVES. If I had a choice between an instructor that did all 100 of his dives while in classes or teaching classes compared to an instructor with 100 REAL DIVES I would hands down pick the first instructor.

 

[Dive Junky]

Well of course, I know that.
The reason all this came up is because we were discussing someone we know who became an instructor only a year after being open water certified. The only time this guy was in the water was with a class. Next thing you know he's an instructor.

I guess he had a goal, set his mind to it, and accomplished it. As I said before, yes it is possible.

 

[Sas]

I don't think 100 dives is many either especially considering that most divers get these dives in under extremely desirable conditions. 100 dives in the Carribean pales in significance to 100 dives off the Northeast coast of the US. I guess that is something to take up with our certifying agencies.

Well I can see your point. However, I am not sure an instructor with 100 dives only would be successful at all in a place where the diving is challenging so I am guessing most divers that do 100 dives and become an instructor straight away work at easy dive locations? I could be wrong about this but generally in places that are challenging the diving population is smaller and reputation is quite important. People planning to learn locally may do a little bit more research than those who get certified on holidays as they have more time. People just would not take seriously, hire nor recommend new divers to go see an instructor with 100 dives for a class it would seem. Locally I just have not met any instructor with less than a few hundred dives at the least, most of my instructors have done thousands of dives. My instructor that had the lowest number of dives still had around 900 dives under his belt in all kinds of conditions.

Perhaps in vacation type places where people get certified on holidays, an instructor's industry reputation is not as important?

I was just making it clear that diving while teaching students is much more stressful, educational, and enlightening than REAL DIVES. If I had a choice between an instructor that did all 100 of his dives while in classes or teaching classes compared to an instructor with 100 REAL DIVES I would hands down pick the first instructor.

If I were forced to (I would never learn from an instructor with 100 dives in reality), I would pick the latter, holding their training and other things constant. To each their own

 

[sunkmail]

Well of course, I know that.
The reason all this came up is because we were discussing someone we know who became an instructor only a year after being open water certified. The only time this guy was in the water was with a class. Next thing you know he's an instructor.

I've seen this too. I went on dive with a new buddy that was in process of going straight for her DM, then instructor.

It was her first "fun" dive ever, and she was a 'rescue' diver. Once I saw her walking on the sea floor with the tips of her fins, I quickly lost a lot of respect for the dive shop that trained her, and for the PADI system. I did a few dives after that with her, and others. It wasn't a whole lot better.

Real world dives and an open mind to those more experienced than yourself are very good skills to have.

 

[Dive Junky]

Well I can see your point. However, I am not sure an instructor with 100 dives only would be successful at all in a place where the diving is challenging so I am guessing most divers that do 100 dives and become an instructor straight away work at easy dive locations?

Yes I would agree. But I also think an instructor should teach only in the environment in which they are used to. If by chance they need to relocate they should become fully experienced with their new location before ever teaching students there.

All in all I would agree with you that a good instructor and leader should be well balanced in their dive history and experience. Fortunately neither of us had to choose an instructor that lacked either one. This is why would should all interview a perspective instructor before choosing them.

 

[Dive Junky]

And this exactly the problem, when pool class, then kneeling on the bottom doing basic skills is the most difficult dives an instructor does.

I know a kid who went from about 3 dives post-class to becoming an instructor. Nice guy, and he's really good with the students. The environments are controlled - the pool, the standard OW class dive sites... He is never asked to do much more than that, and that's what he's trained to do.

I like the guy. But he's not a "diver", he's an instructor.

I DM with my instructor buddy doing tech classes. Intro to trmix, advanced rec trimix, that kind of thing. It's fun, and it takes totally different skill sets than real diving. But it's not the most difficult diving we do, by far. And diving with our students is a lot of work, but I wouldn't call it brutal.

Just MHO.

An instructor shouldnt be teaching just OW students and he shouldnt be kneeling on the bottom but for ten minutes of only one open water dive with his student.

They should be teaching Advanced, Nitrox, Rescue, Master Diver, etc. They should be teaching things from navigation to buoancy to shooting lift bags to emergency procedures to hunting to conservation to I could go on all night.

I wouldnt call it brutal either. That was only an exaggeration. I love diving and I love teaching people to dive. My point was simply that when you spend your time demonstrating and performing the above skills for your students it MAKES you a better diver as oppossed to REAL DIVES where when such skills are not used you become rusty.

 

[Thalassamania]

It's rather rare but some people can be really good instructors with only a few dives, a lot depends on how much they are challenged by the courses and their environment.

Most of my instructional staff were either old time divers with thousands and thousands of dives or relative newbies, often with under a hundred dives (nice to not be stuck with agency crap). The key is figuring out how to transfer the wealth of experience of the old timers to the new guys ... but, surprise, surprise, that's what instruction is all about. But then there are very few instructors that I've met that actually know how to do that, and even fewer course directors. Besides the agency course formats and training techniques don't lend themselves to it either.

 

[mikemill]

Thinking about this and really it isn't different from a lot of other teaching. I know some professors that have never left academia in their entire career. How many K-12 teachers have any real world experience?

Though of course one can argue that the transfer of knowledge doesn't require a lot of experience but the transfer of skill does.

 

[Dive Junky]

Thinking about this and really it isn't different from a lot of other teaching. I know some professors that have never left academia in their entire career. How many K-12 teachers have any real world experience?

Though of course one can argue that the transfer of knowledge doesn't require a lot of experience but the transfer of skill does.

Sort of like on the job training.