I took it when I was 16 in '81. It was a college class at the University of Tampa and I got in because my biology teacher also helped teach the course. Similar to the above references although I don't recall all the physical aspects. It was a number of weeks with a lot of pool time. It was a great intro. We did compass work, zero viz buddy breathing (taped off our masks), breath of life (in water), CPR, and I do recall a real test that you had to get a passing grade on. I guess this explains why I'm confused about what people call AOW today. We also had 6 OW dives (2 at Crystal River, 4 in Key Largo).
NAUI, Old School
- Thread starter Heffey
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There was AOW and a few others but not many.Scuba:
What we are getting to is when you got out of the old school you were in good condition to save yourself AND your buddy if needed.
People werent so gear reliant as they are now. Back then it wasnt a matter of what you would do if you had a gear failure. It was a matter of what you would do when you had a gear failure.
Failures were a lot more likely to happen and regs failed closed instead of open like todays do. So as a result we learned how to leave the bottom and just go up.
We didnt have specialties like Boat diving, dry suit or most of the dozens of other card collecting courses. I guess they figured if you could get into the water from the shore or a dock, you could fall off a boat just as easy. Dry suits didnt need a course as very few of us had them and it wasnt much more than an inner tube with no filler or exhaust.
Regs had one or two hoses. One hose was just that, a first stage, a hose, a second stage and nothing more. A double hose had one for air in and one for air out. Some did have a plug for Hooka hoses and that was it.
BC? A lot of people today say we were foolish for not using them. It was just like the Vikings invading other countries with rowboats. They might have used motorboats had they been invented at the time. But they werent so they couldnt have been used.
Currents: People were trained how to use them to their advantage and not fear and fight them.
The list can go on and on but basically the classes of old taught one how to dive in a wide variety of conditions and handle a wide variety of problems. Todays classes teach almost perfect conditions with very little chance of problems. Then you can pay for the added instruction geared towards your safety.
Gary D.
serambin
Guest
Heffey:
I certified in 1975 (I think) and do not remember anything that tough. Maybe nightmares fade with enough time.
Stan
Scuba
Contributor
serambin:
Oh,oh. Or could it be a case of "its the instructor that matters"? Some things never change.
As a new instructor, I'm already a bit irritated with what seems like absurdly lax requirements of students. When I decide to teach privately, I'd like to be able to offer a class for students who want something challenging, and not just a pretty card for sale. For those of you who had old school training, what parts of it would you say benefited you the most as a diver?
Wayward Son
Contributor
The biggest thing to me was the time spent in the water getting redundancy on basic diving skills. I audited a PADI class last year when my wife finally decided to learn to dive & took it. Now, don't think I'm picking on PADI. It's the only current one I can comment on bc it's the only one I've actually sat through. My guess is that most of the other agencies are likely similar in approach now.
The knowledge taught is considerably less, especially diving physiology. I'm not entirely sure how important this is, but they have really simplified & reduced this part of it. The term 'dumbed down' comes to mind.
But what really bothered me about the course was the speed at which one goes from blank slate to open water checkout dives. This is a 2 week class, 2 evenings a week. You teach yourself the concepts, show up for class & take a written test. Then it's on to the pool. No snorkeling skills were taught (they were back in the dark ages).
4 pool sessions in 2 weeks & you're supposed to be ready for checkout dives that weekend & certification.
She wasn't, and half her class (10 people counting me) were not. From comments made by the instructor, this appears to be typical for this shop. About 1/2 the class will finish & graduate in the 2 weeks, the other half will sit through one or more courses again until they either get it right or quit. And to make it worse, her instructor only 'encouraged' her in one way: to quit. When she had difficulty with a skill, he did not make any effort to find out what the problem was, what she was doing wrong & correct it. If I had not already been an experienced diver (I'm not an instructor) & able to help her solve these problems outside of the training sessions, she never would have become a diver. As it is, she finally made it (also by changing instructors, the next guy was better at this) & is very glad she stuck with it to do so.
Each pool session went like this:
Instructor demonstrates a skill. Each student in turn does it. More than once if they don't get it right, but as soon as they did it one time correctly that was it. On to the next student, then the next skill. Then that skill would not be revisited until the checkout dives, and on the checkout dives they were expected to do it even better than they had in the pool. Which I thought was pretty tough, considering that they had no opportunity to practise the skills.
When I took my training, we were in the water every week for a while. The basic skills were done many times prior to the checkout dives.
I don't think most recreational divers benefit from being put through a simulated Navy SEAL set of drills. I'm sure that doing them does help develop confidence, but I don't think it's really that relevant to recreational diving. I do think they stand to benefit with better education on the physiology & physics of diving & particularly with more pool time in order to not only learn how to do the skills, but to do them enough so they stick.
The knowledge taught is considerably less, especially diving physiology. I'm not entirely sure how important this is, but they have really simplified & reduced this part of it. The term 'dumbed down' comes to mind.
But what really bothered me about the course was the speed at which one goes from blank slate to open water checkout dives. This is a 2 week class, 2 evenings a week. You teach yourself the concepts, show up for class & take a written test. Then it's on to the pool. No snorkeling skills were taught (they were back in the dark ages).
4 pool sessions in 2 weeks & you're supposed to be ready for checkout dives that weekend & certification.
She wasn't, and half her class (10 people counting me) were not. From comments made by the instructor, this appears to be typical for this shop. About 1/2 the class will finish & graduate in the 2 weeks, the other half will sit through one or more courses again until they either get it right or quit. And to make it worse, her instructor only 'encouraged' her in one way: to quit. When she had difficulty with a skill, he did not make any effort to find out what the problem was, what she was doing wrong & correct it. If I had not already been an experienced diver (I'm not an instructor) & able to help her solve these problems outside of the training sessions, she never would have become a diver. As it is, she finally made it (also by changing instructors, the next guy was better at this) & is very glad she stuck with it to do so.
Each pool session went like this:
Instructor demonstrates a skill. Each student in turn does it. More than once if they don't get it right, but as soon as they did it one time correctly that was it. On to the next student, then the next skill. Then that skill would not be revisited until the checkout dives, and on the checkout dives they were expected to do it even better than they had in the pool. Which I thought was pretty tough, considering that they had no opportunity to practise the skills.
When I took my training, we were in the water every week for a while. The basic skills were done many times prior to the checkout dives.
I don't think most recreational divers benefit from being put through a simulated Navy SEAL set of drills. I'm sure that doing them does help develop confidence, but I don't think it's really that relevant to recreational diving. I do think they stand to benefit with better education on the physiology & physics of diving & particularly with more pool time in order to not only learn how to do the skills, but to do them enough so they stick.
OP
Heffey
Contributor
My instructor and his partner had a few friends die in dive accidents and it definitely impacted the way they taught.serambin:
Even at the time my buddy and I would joke about our militant dive instructors.
Jeffrey
Drgnfiend
Registered
I must say as someone who got certified within the past two years the course was much simplier than I expected it to be. The classroom portion of my NAUI cert for BOW was practically a no-brainer. The in-water however wasn't as lax for those of us that the instructors knew were planning on doing further certs, but for those that weren't and just wanted BOW it was still simple. For those of us moving onto more certs or wanted to do more than typical resort dives we didn't just do a skill once in the pool and that was it, we did it multiple times, and we had to do it perfectly. In the pool I had my air shut off on me several times without any warning (last time I checked you don't get a warning in real life), and had my mask flooded or completely removed on more than one occasion. For those that weren't moving past BOW it was the do it once and you're good to go.
Four of our students didn't pass the testing for various reasons, but it took the instructors quite a bit of time before they were willing to give up on the students.
All in all as I said it was much easier than I expected. I'd heard horror stories from people who have been certified for quite sometime about when they got theirs so I was quite surprised.
Four of our students didn't pass the testing for various reasons, but it took the instructors quite a bit of time before they were willing to give up on the students.
All in all as I said it was much easier than I expected. I'd heard horror stories from people who have been certified for quite sometime about when they got theirs so I was quite surprised.
OP
Heffey
Contributor
#1 - Time in waterTheDom:
My last NAUI Scuba Diver course was 6 days of classroom and pool instruction. Out of those 6 pool sessions there was probably only 20 minutes where I had the chance to independently work on my skills. All the rest of the time was spent watching demonstrations then performing the new skills. There was some redundancy but not much.
I remember having to drink a bottle of coca cola and eat a banana in the pool as part of my check-out 'final exam'. I took my NAUI class back in 89 when I was in university.
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