If you are a new diver, please read this

[RonFrank]

I'm not sure HOW PADI (or whatever agency) can NOT teach gas management. Telling a student to start the ascent at 1000psi IS gas management. Telling a student to reach the surface with 500psi remaining is also gas management. Planning a dive involves gas management. How can anyone teach an OW class without covering these topics?

Gas management is an important part of diving. I can not image ignoring this skill.

Gas management was definitely covered in the PADI OW class I took, but that was over five years ago. I'd like to hear specifically how this was phrased, as it sounds dumber than sticks to even start to tell an instructor to ignore this aspect of diving.

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

It would be better to provide OW students with very simple gas planning guidelines if there is not time to do full gas management.

I would suggest:

At 60 feet ascend if you are at 1400 psi.
At 100 feet ascend if you are at 2300 psi
Don’t go below 100 feet!

That is just boiled down rock bottom. This is simple enough that I imagine it could be fit into the curriculum even if a fuller algebraic discussion can not. Also pretty clearly an other potential objection to a fuller discussion is that not everyone one will follow the math, and if they do not everyone will follow through and do appropriate calculations. It may be better to cut to the chase and provide some guidelines. And suggest if they want to look at ways of extending their bottom time they can take a more complete planning class where they can fine tune the assumptions about SAC rate, tank capacity etc. This is not a dig, but the agencies involved do not seem to be adverse to selling classes. So I doubt recommending a follow up class would be rejected out of hand.

Rule of thirds is simple, and better than having no guideline at all, but is inadequate for two divers to do a slow ascent from deeper OW dives.

 

[eponym]

I'm not sure HOW PADI (or whatever agency) can NOT teach gas management. Telling a student to start the ascent at 1000psi IS gas management. Telling a student to reach the surface with 500psi remaining is also gas management. Planning a dive involves gas management. How can anyone teach an OW class without covering these topics? Gas management is an important part of diving. I can not image ignoring this skill.

I think what we're actually talking about is whether one can teach gas planning. It might seem a fine distinction, I know.

Managing gas happens on-the-fly, during the dive, for instance checking your supply often and starting your ascent when you get below 1000. Gas planning happens on-the-dry, before the dive, when you figure whether your supply is adequate to your planned depths and times and emergency scenarios and you adjust the plan as necessary. As I said earlier in this thread:

It's absurd to tell an instructor he/she may not talk about gas planning. There can be no debate on this. Courses talk and drill and talk and drill how to deal with OOA, but don't spend any time on how to create a dive plan that makes OOA vanishingly unlikely.

-Bryan

 

[Thalassamania]

BTW, ALL what you listed is taught in PADI OW course

The question is not is it "taught" but rather do the standards really insist that things be learned?

Agree; but let's not forget that whomever take up dive "education" is showing up coz he/she wants to and not coz they have to.
pretty much similar to that we're all around here on this board and not on other hobby forum elsewhere.
dive training is not a college degree; heck, even on college degree they don't teach all what you need; it is the person responsibility to pursue further knowledge and acquire/improve his basic skills.

But should it not be incumbent upon the agencies in their standards and the instructors in their practices to cover that which the entry level diver needs for survivial? Should that list not include gas mangement?

My OW PADI instructor forced several students in my course to demonstrate ascents on multiple occasions, not because they were doing skill assessments, but because during other checkout dives he noticed that they were continually "shooting to the surface." Is this something that PADI expects, don't know, but I can tell you it was definitely an expectation of the instructor. He made it known other no uncertain terms that although you have done a skill assessment, it does not stop there and if he feels like you are not doing it properly, he will pull you aside and continue to work with you one it. He was also very adimant about gas management. Not detailed in the respect of NWGreatful Diver docs, but at a minimum managing to the rule of thirds and knowing what we have at all times (continually asking what each student has to validate that we are checking).

I know a lot of this discussion deals with what an instructor can/should be teaching in the classroom, but as it so often pointed out in many of these threads, it goes far beyond the agency to the instructor. We have all seen good divers from every agency and bad ones, but generally speaking, there is a consensus that the instructor is what makes he difference. So to continually point out PADI is creating a false illusion that PADI is the source of all of diving's problems. I have not trained through any other agency, so I could be wrong when I state this, but based on what I have seen/read there seems to be only two agencies that give actual grade cards that document each skill and that is GUE and UTD. All others are a pass/fail with no other details offered. So why continue to single out PADI. Not to mention they are all part of a consortium that establishes minimum standards for training. So they all have a stake in it.

Because PADI was the primary force in reducing diver training from 40 to less than 20 hours and eliminating from the cirriculum items I see as critical, especially gas managment, buoyancy control and diver rescue. PADI is also the "leader" in the idea that if you can do all the skills once or twice you've "mastered" them and never need to revist them, a bankrupt idea that has been shown to be wrong.

I'm not sure HOW PADI (or whatever agency) can NOT teach gas management. Telling a student to start the ascent at 1000psi IS gas management. Telling a student to reach the surface with 500psi remaining is also gas management. Planning a dive involves gas management. How can anyone teach an OW class without covering these topics?

Gas management is an important part of diving. I can not image ignoring this skill.

Gas management was definitely covered in the PADI OW class I took, but that was over five years ago. I'd like to hear specifically how this was phrased, as it sounds dumber than sticks to even start to tell an instructor to ignore this aspect of diving.

I think what we're actually talking about is whether one can teach gas planning. It might seem a fine distinction, I know.

Managing gas happens on-the-fly, during the dive, for instance checking your supply often and starting your ascent when you get below 1000. Gas planning happens on-the-dry, before the dive, when you figure whether your supply is adequate to your planned depths and times and emergency scenarios and you adjust the plan as necessary. As I said earlier in this thread:


-Bryan

 

[maged_mmh]

...
But should it not be incumbent upon the agencies in their standards and the instructors in their practices to cover that which the entry level diver needs for survivial? Should that list not include gas mangement?
...

And so they do. Yes it does; now, if we're talking about gas planning - that's different altogether as Bryan stated above.; not even sure that OW should/could do it, I learned about it well after my OW add 30+ dives.

 

[ligersandtions]

I'm not really sure why this thread got into PADI-bashing (I guess I shouldn't really be surprised), but my guess is that Lynne just wanted to get the word out that you should understand gas management and you should be responsible enough to take the time to do the required calculations and put your knowledge to use.

It is truly unfortunate that a diver had to die, but if their mistake can go on to save others, their death wasn't in vain. Honestly, even if poor gas management wasn't the root cause of the death, at least it gives us a reason to discuss gas management and point new divers toward good resources (like NorthWestGratefulDiver's and Lamont's rock bottom articles).

It's sad that some OW courses don't want instructors teaching gas management....but at the same time, I understand how they wouldn't want to task the new divers even more (finishing up a course in two days doesn't give a whole lot of time for anything....it would be nice if they would extend the length of OW courses AND add in some gas management information). Maybe the best we can do is hope that divers come across threads such as this, that describe the importance of gas management, and articles that describe what gas management is and how to do it propertly.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Or they take a course where it is still taught along with rescue skills, buoyancy control, and proper weighting. Some of us do teach those things because we are required to and because they should be.

 

[bill-da-ho]

Seems to me that it would be an easy thing to add another course after open water and advanced to teach gas management. It would be a win win,,,instructors and lds get to charge for another course, student gets more in depth gas management/planning info.
I'm not saying it shouldnt be taught in open water. I got the 1/3, 1/3/ 1/3 block of instruction, but a mandatory course in between the two courses would be a good thing.
You cant go from open water to DM without some courses inbetween, maybe you shouldnt go from OW to AOW uncless you go thru some other courses. They could even combine it, call it Gas Management/ Advanced bouyancy control??
Just a thought.........

 

[Cave Diver]

Sunday, a diver died at a local site, because she and her buddy ran short of gas at depth, and she ran out on ascent, panicked, couldn't get positive at the surface, sank and drowned.

My husband is taking his instructor course right now, and has been told in no uncertain terms that he may NOT teach gas management at the OW level.

Very sad.

Is there anything in the standards that say you can't teach something about gas management after they've been certified? Say, like a one hour "workshop" or "seminar" or something other than "class"?

 

[Diver0001]

Seems to me that it would be an easy thing to add another course after open water and advanced to teach gas management.

Actually now that you mention it there are several "advanced planning" concepts that could be bundled into one specialty. Something like this would probably become a popular course and would probably take a lot of the thunder out of the anti-Padi rhetoric.

R..