Instructors/shops requiring 15+ hours of pool time?

[MikeFerrara]

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

where I disagree here is that I don't want to take a student into OW until they have mastered the basic skills. Specifically, if a student can't do a nice controled ascent/descent staying with and aware of a buddy and perform commonly required skills midwater with some degree of control and again while maintaining contact with and awareness of a buddy, I am not taking them into an environment where I may have less control. OW is where they gain experience doing what they already know how to do and not where they learn the nuts and bolts of how to do it.

 

[loosebits]

As I mentioned, my criteria was a bit simplistic and not completely adequate. I can't go back and edit the subject now so let us just say shops/instructors/organizations that by somehow going beyond the standards defined by the agencies are able to consistently turn out divers that look more like this:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=2109168&postcount=20

than this:

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/55157/cat/514