Diving Classes Then and Now

[Rich Keller]

I did a quick search but couldn't find a thread; found some other interesting ones, though. I was discussing the length and content of my daughter's recent OW course to a friend of mine who was certified in the 80's. He went into a gentle tirade about how he had to go to "weeks of courses" and do a bunch of underwater skills, etc. I didn't catch all he said, so I'm curious how the OW training (PADI/NAUI) may have changed over the last couple decades: has it been "watered down (no pun intended)?" Thanks.

It has been watered down. In the 70s about 1/4 of the people who started the course did not finish. Now almost no one fails because if they fail they do not buy more equipment. The focus then was safety but that takes a backseat to profits now. If you combine todays OW and AOW you get what OW was 40+ years ago.

 

[Hawkwood]

Haha!

I for one wouldn't be diving if I didn't have it "easy". I tried in the early 70's, but could not swim well enough for the underwater laps.

Ended up waiting until my mid 40's.

Aaarhh! We had to swim 3 miles, wearing a 20lb weight belt, up hill, before we were even allowed to see an aqualung in those days.

The instructor used to thrash us with rolled up copy of Skin Diver just for having the temerity to exist. One guy in our class was set fire to for asking a question; whilst we were underwater!

It took three and half years to qualify just enough to be allowed to use a snorkel; another six months and we were allowed to use the snorkel in the water.

Today's divers don't know how easy they've got it.

 

[Dhboner]

When I compare the training I received in 1973 compared to what my two sons received in 2009, the difference is night and day. My course (which was PADI and Association of Canadian Underwater Councils, combined) closely resembled what Jim Lapenta is teaching now. Blacked-out mask and then locate and don gear...rescue scenarios...multiple finning and entry techniques, complex deco and repetitive dive calculations etc. Both my sons went on to take additional training through GUE and TDI and both are safe competent divers but their open water course was "Coles Notes" compared to what I went through all those years ago. Oh and it was uphill both ways going to school every morning too

 

[azmodan50]

It's the same with SSI. There are a number of skills that are not taught anymore that were 20 years ago when I certified. Some are taught, but not required for certification.

 

[flyin01]

Why do you think a night dive should be mandatory?

I didn't say it should be mandatory but it does make the class more challenging and has been removed.

 

[Scott]

I didn't say it should be mandatory but it does make the class more challenging and has been removed.

Night Adventure Dive has NOT been removed. Right there in the IM, page 77.
You can make it "mandatory" if you choose, and many do, then there are only two electives.

 

[descent]

... I'm curious how the OW training (PADI/NAUI) may have changed over the last couple decades: has it been "watered down ... ?

A huge amount of the instruction has been split up into separate courses.

I like the idea of "splitting up" and "focusing in". Separating the basic sections from the advanced is a way to keep classes focused, and also allows the instructors to sell a wider variety of classes.

So then, which subjects did we have in decades past that are now only ever offered as the most rudimentary, ghostly kind of overview or utterly absent?

I was only being semi-frivolous when I mentioned harassment as a missing piece. People don't enjoy getting smacked on the mask hard enough to turn their head around, having their regs tied into knots, being dragged face-down across the bottom of the pool by their tanks, etc. Lawyers go into a catatonic state when they read an outline of it.

I can't imagine this kind of training coming back in any form.

 

[flyin01]

Night Adventure Dive has NOT been removed. Right there in the IM, page 77.
You can make it "mandatory" if you choose, and many do, then there are only two electives.

I believe back in the early 90s the night dive was required. If I am wrong I am sure I will be corrected but I don't have a IM that old.

 

[Hawkwood]

I didn't say it should be mandatory but it does make the class more challenging and has been removed.

Understood. There are a number of places in the world were running a night class is difficult. Where I am, night classes in the summer often have stretched well past 1:00 a.m. due to how late it takes to get dark.

---------- Post added March 13th, 2015 at 05:36 PM ----------
That is a major reason it was removed from a requirement of AOW.

 

[agilis]

Aaarhh! We had to swim 3 miles, wearing a 20lb weight belt, up hill, before we were even allowed to see an aqualung in those days.

The instructor used to thrash us with rolled up copy of Skin Diver just for having the temerity to exist. One guy in our class was set fire to for asking a question; whilst we were underwater!

It took three and half years to qualify just enough to be allowed to use a snorkel; another six months and we were allowed to use the snorkel in the water.

Today's divers don't know how easy they've got it.

I like the thrashing with Skin Diver magazine, if only to impress upon students how the term itself was originally used. Hyperbole is always fun. The reality is that doing a dozen or two easy laps in perfectly level water with no weights (and no mask,snorkel or fins) was a prequalification for most students. In my class there was an amputee for whom the requirement was waived. His scar tissue still had a touch of lividity even after a couple of years, but this was 1972 and there was a lot of that going around back then, and no such thing as wounded warrior programs.

We did have to learn how every bit of equipment worked, how to do easy repairs for simple things like free-flow and cylinder o ring failures, how to achieve neutral buoyancy finger to finger with another student, rising and sinking slightly as we breathed in and out, how to take everything off and the put everything back on again underwater, over and over again, until it became effortless, and a few other things.

I especially appreciated the technical and theoretical aspects, since I had already been diving for a few years, solo, self-taught. There was some harassment during basic certification, like pulling the regulator out of a student's mouth. I could handle that, since it had already happened to me naturally in a debris field under a bridge, but I wish I had been prepared for those kicks in the head that happen when diving with badly trained stupid people.