Ok So be it. I am breaking my own rule about even reading threads that start out with, Whats the best fins, or whats the best BC or whats the best tires for my car or whats the best oil for my tractor, ect...ect... I never fails, every forum regardless of topic has to hash out this stuff. I have been all over the world traveling to SCUBA related destinations and have met people that have been certified by agencies I haven't even herd of..... snip.....
I'm reading a lot of frustration and anger here but not much in the way of actual facts.
One thing I do agree with is that there is generally some "tension" between the needs of instructors to create skilled, competent divers who enjoy the sport and the needs of shops that need people to buy things in order to survive.
However, I, in no way, see a lack of common ground. For example, when I teach OW, I do (if I do say so myself) a good job of preparing people to dive safely and enjoy themselves. The LDS also gives me more than enough room to do this. I also push new students to become and to remain active. This is important for them, especially in the beginning, to get experience for their own safety and development, and also for the shop that will be more than willing to facilitate them by offering gear that suits their needs.
In other words, as an instructor,
I don't sell gear. I never have. I make it clear to my students what options they have and I SELL becoming an active diver because this is what I believe in. It turns out that the shop I work for likes this approach because they can sell con-ed and stuff to divers. We also have a retention rate well above the industry baseline. Why? because people took a diving course because they thought it was going to be fun... and we make damned sure they're having fun. It's really that simple.
As for money; yes, at helicopter level money is important, but it isn't "all mighty" in the diving industry. What I see around me is that the diving industry is FULL to the brim of enthusiastic people who love this sport and are trying to make work out of their hobby. The reality is that they need to make a certain amount of money in order for them to continue doing what they love. But NOWHERE in the diving industry do I see anyone, at any level, thinking that making money is a goal in and unto itself.
I don't know what you do for work but I used to work in finance and believe me when I say that companies that see making money as their primary goal will not involve themselves in an industry with such thin margins. The real "money" people are all about swindling, deception, and even fraud, right from the lower executive level and up. If you spend much time with these managers, you'll also realize that there is something really wrong with them. It seems as though the finance industries attract sociopaths like flies to ****. Lots of good people work for things like banks and insurance companies but they work to support the greed of their executive. I think if many people who work at banks actually met and spent much time with their executives that they would probably quit out of fear of getting infected with the same disease. Personally, I'll never work in finance again because I don't believe that stealing from the poor and giving to the rich is right. That's
real greed, and
nothing even remotely like this happens in the diving industry....
at all.
You seem to be seeing greed, but I would submit that what you're seeing is low-level panic, the panic of knowing that it will only take 1 or 2 bad seasons to make your business go tits-up. Some people do strange things because of that, but at its root, it's not cynical, it's fight or flight. The primal instinct to survive.
R..
---------- Post added April 25th, 2014 at 01:43 PM ----------
Second YOU stated that PADI was "no friggin way" the largest in scuba market share - YOU said it. So-Where's your proof? I cited what's out there- what data do you have that contradicts?
The numbers may lie but they would seem to suggest that PADI controls 75% of the recreational market. That would make them bigger in terms of numbers of certs in any case, than all of the other agencies combined.... and by quite a margin at that.
Being the biggest doesn't necessarily mean that you are the best, however. If you were to objectively compare PADI's OW course with the GUE or the scripps method then I don't think PADI would come out on top. However, they are probably the only recreational agency that makes good on their mission statement...."the way the world learns to dive".
R..
---------- Post added April 25th, 2014 at 01:51 PM ----------
PADI recommended the 60ft/min (18m/min) ascent speed. It has never been proven.
Let me qualify this. When the RDP was developed it was tested with a representative cross-section of people.... Old/young, thin/fat, fit/unfit. They used 18m/min as their ascent rate and during testing there were ZERO incidents of DCS.
It was real research, done by real scientists and it proved that this ascent rate was reasonable when using the tables.
I think what you meant to say is that it wasn't proven that 18m/min was the BEST ascent rate. I think that's probably true. But they did prove that it worked.
Tom Mount is a specialist of spiritual healing or something like that
. He is not a mathematician. But he has a point and his words are very worth reading. Once you helplessly look as your buddy slowly but unavoidably goes into panic, then hyperventilates and passes out, you start to appreciate the "mental things".
I don't know him except for exchanging a few posts online over the years. I didn't want to give anyone the impression that the IANTD books are useless, but they're a dense and difficult read (at least the versions available when I did my training). Tom Mount may be an outstanding individual (I do get this impression) but as someone with a basic understanding of educational theory who makes his living "communicating", I can safely say that he should have hired an expert to write for him.
R..
