PADI Certification too quick?

[Potapko]

I have enjoyed reading these posts and so now, here is my 2 cents. Being a new diver with only 30 dives including certifications I cannot speak from experience about diving but perhaps can add a little experience from life. I'm an old man at 43. I posted on another thread how bad my Owlasses were. I did not post that to blame my shortcomings on my instructor. Rather only to express a little humor and read of others experiences with the same type.

Taking the OWD course did not "teach" me how to dive. It introduced me to the necessary skills needed to dive. Going to 12 years of school+6 at university did not "teach" me how to do my job, be a parent, a friend, and so on. The time spent there was supposed to teach me how to learn. In school we were introduced to facts. In the beginner scuba classes I was taught facts and introduced to new skills and given the opportunity to try them out in a "safe" environment. I could learn the facts from the book, jump in a pool and try it, and still not be a diver. The training (imo) gave me the C card so i could start diving. Get the tank filled as someone put it. Now I can get out with experienced divers, or on my own in the pool or some other controlled environment, and learn how to dive. The class was the introduction, the learning takes place every time I get in the water.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate being able to read the experiences of you far more highly skilled divers on these pages. Why? It shows me what I need to learn. It tells me where I am lacking. Thanks for sharing your hard earned wisdom with us "newbies"

Just my personal ramblings,

 

[Boogie711]

Gee, do I detect some bitternesse here?

You tell me Lead Carrier - what part of that paragraph is incorrect?

I'm not bitter - I'm just jaded and cynical. I think what PADI has done to the dive "industry" is shameful.

Heck - just take a look around Scubaboard. There was a thread a few months back asking whether or not a person should buy full foot or open heel fins with booties for a tropical vacation they had planned. One poster - with a PADI Project aware icon as his avatar (!) said "I like open heel fins with booties. The booties protect my feet from the reef."
:11:

Sad, sad, sad, sad.... and it's continuing everyday.

 

[BIGSAGE136]

Seeking NAUI Master certification. Please PM pertinents.

 

[plcmd]

Seeking NAUI Master certification. Please PM pertinents.

Try posting your request in a thread that pertains to NAUI, or better yet. Create a new thread that has something to do with NAUI. If you dont know how to create you own thread talk to snowbear.

 

[BIGSAGE136]

thanks

 

[beachcomber]

I am PADI and SDI (Scuba Diving International, the org that doesn't dwell on the tables and requires computers) certified --. For SDI open water, we (my family) did the book work at home (4 hrs). Then 6 hours of class room, two 4 hour sessions in the pool, four lake dives. Then for Advanced open water we had to log at least 25 dives.

My first dive after the initial four certification dives was in ten foot seas, twenty-two miles out, 80' down--well at least I lived to tell about it.

Beachcomber

 

[tracker]

I learned from military instuctors. Very fast, very hard. Haven't dove for a long time but have wife read this board like I am and she will have advanced insight other than her class as to the importance of safety and planning. Dive SAFE.

 

[northwind]

Geez,

I don't know if I was in a PADI course in '84 or I reported to SEAL training by mistake. I can't remember how long the class was, but i know it was a couple nights a week for quite a few weeks.

My instructor was a hard a**. We would regularly have our air shut off, masks yanked off, regs ripped out of our mouth, etc... He would throw our mask, fins, and BC/tank/reg into the bottom of the deep end and tell us to swim down there and suit up.

I remember sitting in the deep end of the pool breathing from a K valve without a regulator (not really a practical skill, but interesting)

I watched the instructor punch a guy in the stomach during a pool dive because he refused to stop holding his breath. (I think that that guy washed out).

A prerequsite for passing the class was being able to recall from memory all of the no-deco limits from surface to 130'.

Now I am in no way saying that phisical abuse of students is acceptable behavior, but this guy was an old school diver and his position was that the things he was teaching you were life and death, and dammit, you were going to get it right before you passed his class. His biggest point was that panic was the enemy, if you could not deal with the bull**it he threw at you with out loosing your cool, then you weren't ready to become a diver.

This is obviously the far end of the spectrum, and probably 1/2 to 2/3 of the class washed out. I am curious to hear oter peoples experiences from that era, was this type of training closer to the norm at the time, or was my instructor just a loose cannon? If this is what every prospective diver would have to go through, I don't imagine that our sport would grow very rapidly.

 

[alemaozinho]

Sadly enough, this is done all the frickin time. And then those future split-fin, poodle-jacketed, air2 and ankle-weight wearing rototillers go out and start their DM training while wondering how to put 30 pounds of lead in their BC...They dive using their air-integrated computer to plan dives, and wouldn't know a dive plan if they fell over one.


... Then they become instructors after 16 ocean dives and 84 quarry dives, with an average depth of 39 feet. And the cycle begins anew.

It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

you propably speak of your past experience when you learned how to dive aye?You put everyone in the same pocket,thats wrong!You have to crawl before walking and you surely forgot the time when you where crawling! : Peace

 

[mossym]

Geez,

I don't know if I was in a PADI course in '84 or I reported to SEAL training by mistake. I can't remember how long the class was, but i know it was a couple nights a week for quite a few weeks.

My instructor was a hard a**. We would regularly have our air shut off, masks yanked off, regs ripped out of our mouth, etc... He would throw our mask, fins, and BC/tank/reg into the bottom of the deep end and tell us to swim down there and suit up.

I remember sitting in the deep end of the pool breathing from a K valve without a regulator (not really a practical skill, but interesting)

I watched the instructor punch a guy in the stomach during a pool dive because he refused to stop holding his breath. (I think that that guy washed out).

A prerequsite for passing the class was being able to recall from memory all of the no-deco limits from surface to 130'.

Now I am in no way saying that phisical abuse of students is acceptable behavior, but this guy was an old school diver and his position was that the things he was teaching you were life and death, and dammit, you were going to get it right before you passed his class. His biggest point was that panic was the enemy, if you could not deal with the bull**it he threw at you with out loosing your cool, then you weren't ready to become a diver.

This is obviously the far end of the spectrum, and probably 1/2 to 2/3 of the class washed out. I am curious to hear oter peoples experiences from that era, was this type of training closer to the norm at the time, or was my instructor just a loose cannon? If this is what every prospective diver would have to go through, I don't imagine that our sport would grow very rapidly.

sounds like seal training to me!! punched in the stomach? i understand this is life and death, but wasn't the point in doing it to enjoy it and have fun?