lermontov
Contributor
Id add that formal training is information and in time it becomes understanding- the style of teaching that 'this is the correct way ' is too narrow and rigid.I have. There is a lot one can learn outside of formal training.
Actually the part of diving I enjoy is the tinkering- i learned sidemount from tech instructor and spent the next 30-40 dives fine tuning to fit me, did the ER course and then set up spreadsheets and formulas to make it all make sense. The path of discovery and development is for me the most interesting part of a finding a new hobby/sport -as long as the base lines are sound, on the flip side ive seen some instructor squash all the light out of students eyes by filling them with such dread that they seem in constant fear theyre going to die if they dont follow every directive given by them.
I come from a background of professional mountaineer - we didn't have an equivalent PADI or TDI book to refer to we taught what was considered a safe technique but we always prefaced our instruction courses by telling students that we would teach them sound practice but after a year or two active mountaineering we would expect tham to have fine tuned their own style -as mentioned earlier get the base lines right -build on that.