peak performance buoyance

[boulderjohn]

OK. I get that PADI doesn't say you master them. What I don't understand is how it can be called Advanced OW when you can't possibly master any additional skills.

A lot of it is simply history. Start with what I mentioned earlier:

The purpose of the AOW dives always was to introduce divers to different aspects of diving, not to make them masters of any of them. According to the History of NAUI, written by Los Angeles County and NAUI founder Al Tillman (NAUI #1), the AOW course was first created by Los Angeles County because they noted a large number of divers got certified and stopped diving. They thought introducing a number of different aspects of diving would renew their interest. NAUI followed suit for the same reason. PADI came later.

Before the AOW course was created, there were essentially only two certifications offered by the few agencies that existed: OW diver and instructor. When Los Angeles County decided to add a more advanced level of training, it made sense to call it "advanced." Other agencies followed suit and used the same name. Once you have established something like that and certified many thousands of people under that name, it does not make a lot of sense t change the name without a good, compelling reason.

 

[Bladebreaker65]

Love you guys. Simple question can ppb single dive on an aow course be done in a controlled atmo like a deep pool and why? I think there were 2 or 3 actual responses to this. So funny you guts can't help padi/nuwi/sdi /who cares what agency bash in the mean time someone asking an honest question is going WTF.More than once I have seen someone chast someone about using the search function to find an answer instead of posting. How about you start you own thread padi bash
sdi bash or what ever and shift those gripes to them. Face it in my area if you want to learn more Padi is the one most available to everyone I DID NOT SAY THE BEST. So what I am hearing is if you can't do it your way SDI NUWI OR COUSTEAU UNIVERSITY YOU SHOUL GIVE UP DIVEING. How about some honest feed back like doing your ppb ask your instructor about this drill it really helped me.
OK I will kick the lobster crate out from under my feet now (was that a bowline or a sheep head knot crap)

 

[tursiops]

was that a bowline or a sheep head knot crap

LOL. Have a little trouble with your knots (and their names) in your Search and Recovery dive #1?

 

[elgoog]

OP - Wifebuddy and I did PADI AOW a week ago - I don't have the thousands of dives or years of experience to have a meaningful opinion/viewpoint on various agencies and what AOW should or shouldn't look like but I can at least tell you about our experience and how the PPB dive happened. Hopefully it will be helpful ...

In our neck of the woods, pool work for AOW is optional and, from what I've seen, is only offered as an option by instructors and LDSs that have their own pool. The instructor we did it with did not have this facility and we didn't do any pool work. Even if you do a lot of pool work for AOW, none of it is counted towards the AOW itself - you still have to do 5 dives in the ocean/lake/quarry/whatever. So, if you did PPB exercises in the pool, you can't count that as a PPB dive (neither for AOW nor for the PPB specialty if you decide to do it later).
On the morning of the first day (for us, it was emails in the two weeks leading up to AOW), he asked all of us specifically which experience dives we wanted to do and what we wanted to focus on. Of course, deep and navigation dives are mandatory but even for those, he was telling us about various ways we could go about the dive depending on what we found interesting.
All of us decided to do the 1st dive as PPB - it was not implied we should do it. The first thing we did was go in 15ft of water and do an initial weight check to see if we were significantly off the mark for weighting. After that, he had us do descents in 20ft of water and try to come to stop in a horizontal position 3-5ft off the sand - he made me do this more than once. Then came the swim along a line, again 3-5 ft off the sand. What we didn't realize with this was that the line was down a gentle but noticeable slope. None of us adjusted for it and almost everyone had to do it 2-3 times until we got it. Since we had some air left, we did a brief jaunt around the kelp, looked at some pretty fish and then back to 15ft to do a final weight check. We were also expected to try and maintain good buoyancy for the rest of the dives and I was given the "level off" signal more times than I care to remember during the rest of the AOW dives.

I have no idea how other PPB dives or AOW classes are conducted but I was pretty satisfied with mine. I think the important thing is to talk the instructor or LDS ahead of time and find out what options you have available - for pool work, for the dives to do, what you want to do in those dives, etc. Otherwise, you're going to end up doing one of the AOW classes that so many people on SB complain about.

 

[The Chairman]

having a dedicated dive to PPB is stupid in my opinion, all dives should be under the premise of peak performance buoyancy, but hovering in a pool doesn't really do much for you, better to have the real world experience of having to ascend and descend and what not. Plus, depending on the lake, it can be considered a controlled environment. Same for some parts of the ocean actually.

That's some of the most ignorant stuff I've ever read on SB. My trim, buoyancy and propulsion class is a minimum of three sessions and depending on the bad habits, it can be even more. I don't teach PADI, but I refuse to do an AOW without an in pool assessment. I'll try to correct any problems with trim, buoyancy and propulsion in only one pool session, but I'm not afraid to tell the student that they simply need more time. If they work out OK in the pool, I don't mind going to OW, but why put them in an environment that could injure or hurt them if they aren't ready? If they can maintain being neutral in shallow water doing all that I ask of them, then deep is no problem. Ask my students if it's a walk in the park. I can tell you that you'll leave the pool tired and maybe even exhausted.

No, I'm not the best instructor for every diver: just those that want to learn.