Instructors/shops requiring 15+ hours of pool time?

[spankey]

I completly agree with this, after reading all most of the accidents that happen with OW students. I dont want to bash PADI, but it seems to be their students and the students of the zero to hero IDC instrutors. I know 90% of the NAUI OW classes here is South Africa are run over 2 weeks and over 15 hours worth of water skills.

I would suggest that any person thinking about OW takes a longer coruse. People need to get it into their heads that diving is a skill, and no new skill can be learnt in 9 hours.

 

[Lamnid]

I suppose the problem is that loads of people certify on holiday just for fun so they want to spend as little time as possible doing that if they have other stuff to see in the ciuntry. I think it's a good idea though cos I didn't feel entirely confident after my OW class - perhaps they could include a little more.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I think what you're doing is worthwhile but there's more to look at than just the amount of time spent. Though practice time makes a huge difference, you also need to look at what is being practiced and accomplished.

Personally I'd rather see a list of courses that get students doing everything midwater and that have them actually plan and cunduct dives with a buddy (doing a decent job of the whole dive) from start to finish, before the end of the class.

In other words, look at quality as well as quantity.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I guess I'm just trying to keep it simple. I suppose such criteria excludes a lot of great programs out there but I can't really think of a better simple metric. Perhaps number of hours / number of students or something like that but that isn't quite right either (1 hour spent with 1 student probably isn't as good as 2 hours with 2 students). Do you have any advice? I'm afraid if I just ask for a list of good instructors, I'll get all of them as you don't often here how someone thought their training was pathetic.

By the way, thanks for your support.

I understand the delimma, but how is time spent in the pool (as Mike already beat me to it) a good indicator. I can take a class of 8 students into the pool for 15+ hours in a course. I can spend 5 hours working on required skills with them, then a toss a few toypedos, water frisbees, etc, and watch them toss the toys back and forth for the 10+ hours. All the while, they're on the bottom, knees planted. Or maybe they're doing headstands or break dancing on the bottom. That 10 extra hours doesn't do anything to improve the course. The LDS I used to teach with scheduled 10 hours in the pool total. Many of their classes were 10+ students. Each session included play time, and the things I just described is exactly what I saw the instructors I DM'ed for have their students do - toypedos and frisbees. When the students got bored with those, the rest came. The instructors never intervened or tried to get them to practice their skills or achieve neutral buoyancy. And playtime usually only happened during the first session. With that many students, they didn't have time to let them play during the other sessions. Like Mike said, it's the quality that counts. Yes, this is a little more difficult to evaluate, but it's what I believe you're actually looking for.

 

[jbd]

I agree with Mike and Rob above. What is being done is what is most important. Of course learning skills to the level Mike is talking about naturally takes more time.

 

[Tollie]

I understand the impetus for seeking longer preparation times for o/w students however, with respect; I think your emphasis is misplaced. No one really learns to dive in a swimming pool. There is an enormous difference between any o/w environment and a pool. This is especially true if the o/w environment is the ocean.

I think a far better measure would be the number of o/w dives required and what is accomplished on each.

Like Mike F and others have noted what is crucial in o/w training is the smooth and comfortable performance of a diver in mid water while maintaining solid trim and team (situational awareness). This is not teachable in a pool. You can drill students on skills in a pool and if the pool is deep enough (not 8 feet) you can get them to the point where skills and buoyancy are solid but then you need to transition them to the o/w environment.

Another poster also made a great observation about ratios. IHO the real enemy of strong diving education are ratios that are too large and which do not permit an instructor to safely control a class while transitioning skills to the o/w environment.

It’s really what goes on in the class and how the class is taught that makes for great diver education… not time spent in a pool.

 

[ScubaMike14]

I think what you're doing is worthwhile but there's more to look at than just the amount of time spent. Though practice time makes a huge difference, you also need to look at what is being practiced and accomplished.

Personally I'd rather see a list of courses that get students doing everything midwater and that have them actually plan and cunduct dives with a buddy (doing a decent job of the whole dive) from start to finish, before the end of the class.

In other words, look at quality as well as quantity.

Forget the long hours in the pool, get them out in the "real water" and have them do some "real diving". I think that's where the reality of "holy crap, I'm out here doing this for real and better pay attention" comes into play. Anyone who wants to can learn the basic skills in a pool in about 20 minutes. Heck, I have taught friends, girlfriends, etc the basics in the pool at my apartment. But it's when I took them out to dive in say 20-30 foot off a beach that they really began to apply and put those basic skills to use.

I think that there should be an hour or so of lecture, a pool class, then 2 dives. Then another hour or so of lecture, another pool class "part 2" if you will, and then another 2 dives.

Mike Rushton

 

[Dive-aholic]

Forget the long hours in the pool, get them out in the "real water" and have them do some "real diving". I think that's where the reality of "holy crap, I'm out here doing this for real and better pay attention" comes into play. Anyone who wants to can learn the basic skills in a pool in about 20 minutes. Heck, I have taught friends, girlfriends, etc the basics in the pool at my apartment. But it's when I took them out to dive in say 20-30 foot off a beach that they really began to apply and put those basic skills to use.

I think that there should be an hour or so of lecture, a pool class, then 2 dives. Then another hour or so of lecture, another pool class "part 2" if you will, and then another 2 dives.

Mike Rushton

Great suggestion. That's similar to what I'm trying to start up in the way of extended weekend classes. We camp out at the lake, do our material review, complete the first 3 confined water sessions and go diving. The 2nd half of the course works out to a similar schedule. This can be done in about 4 days, but it's 4 long days. But the students are able to apply the skills (most which they never use after OW class anyway) in the open water environment right away, and not worry about them as most do. This allows them to enjoy the dive more and work on what I think are the essential skills of neutral buoyancy and good trim.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I understand the impetus for seeking longer preparation times for o/w students however, with respect; I think your emphasis is misplaced. No one really learns to dive in a swimming pool. There is an enormous difference between any o/w environment and a pool. This is especially true if the o/w environment is the ocean.

I think a far better measure would be the number of o/w dives required and what is accomplished on each.

Like Mike F and others have noted what is crucial in o/w training is the smooth and comfortable performance of a diver in mid water while maintaining solid trim and team (situational awareness). This is not teachable in a pool. You can drill students on skills in a pool and if the pool is deep enough (not 8 feet) you can get them to the point where skills and buoyancy are solid but then you need to transition them to the o/w environment.

Another poster also made a great observation about ratios. IHO the real enemy of strong diving education are ratios that are too large and which do not permit an instructor to safely control a class while transitioning skills to the o/w environment.

It’s really what goes on in the class and how the class is taught that makes for great diver education… not time spent in a pool.

I think we're mostly in agreement here but I want to be a little more specific. I think that what I'm going to say also goes along with what PADI teaches in their instructor training.

Acedemic knowledge is learne in reading and lecture (self study and classroom).
The phisical skills are learned in the pool or other confined water.

The application of those skills is experienced and demonstrated in a real diving environment.

so...I think that ALL the actual phisical skills can and should be taught in confined water.

 

[jbd]

Like Mike F and others have noted what is crucial in o/w training is the smooth and comfortable performance of a diver in mid water while maintaining solid trim and team (situational awareness). This is not teachable in a pool. You can drill students on skills in a pool and if the pool is deep enough (not 8 feet) you can get them to the point where skills and buoyancy are solid but then you need to transition them to the o/w environment.

I disagree. This material can and should be taught in a pool or confined water setting.
It isn't being taught in the resort style or two day type courses because there isn't enough time. The focus in those programs is demonstrating rudimentary mask and regulator skills. Unfortuantely, these resort type courses have evolved into the standard of scuba training. MikeFerrara's OW course what not rediculously long as I recall but the time spent was focused on teaching and learning the stuff he talks about. My OW course is fairly similar to Mike's and I think what both of us have realized is that its just not that hard to teach this stuff in a reasonable length of time.