Thank heavens for PADI

[newdiverAZ]

I'm kinda curious about the gue open water course also. If the instructors are gonna fly in for 8 weekends to teach the course that's gonna be quite pricey. I do believe that the instructors are worth the money, but who's gonna want to shell out $4,000 for an open water class?

 

[Beach Bum k10]

Mike,

By the way, you have a few good points, though I disagree with some other.. Thanks for sharing.

When you say ...

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


The book says they have to do mask clearing and removal and all that. It doesn't say that the student has to be plastered to the bottom. That's a choice instructors make.

While the book does not say you have to plaster to the bottom, so? What is your point? I don't quite get what you try to imply.

Safe diving.

 

[newdiverAZ]

And I'm also curious of why, if padi has continuing ed course for the people "who want to go further", why this is a bad thing? I'm a padi diver and my buddy is also, and we are always practicing hovering and trying to improve our skills. I by no means feel uncomfortable in the water at all? Not even in the next to nothing viz of our lakes. People are going to make of an experience what they want to. All you can do is give them the facts and hope the choose the right path, but if they don't it is their choice to make. My instructor taught us not to touch the bottom, that destroying the reef was bad, and many other things, and oh nooo he was a padi instructor.

 

[Blue Space]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
And I'm also curious of why, if padi has continuing ed course for the people "who want to go further", why this is a bad thing? I'm a padi diver and my buddy is also, and we are always practicing hovering and trying to improve our skills. I by no means feel uncomfortable in the water at all? Not even in the next to nothing viz of our lakes. People are going to make of an experience what they want to. All you can do is give them the facts and hope the choose the right path, but if they don't it is their choice to make. My instructor taught us not to touch the bottom, that destroying the reef was bad, and many other things, and oh nooo he was a padi instructor.

Right on the money!!!

 

[MikeFerrara]

I think some are getting the wrong impression, at least as far as what I teach. I don't teach a three month class that requires a student to master a reverse frog kick. I do however attempt to give the student the education that the standards, at least in wording, require. That equates to a solid foundation of good basic skills on which the student can build.

Without that diving is neither safe nor fun which might explain why so few stick with it, though it can help sell advanced classes. Under these conditions it takes a student with real grit to stay with it long enough to learn on their own what they payed for but didn't get. Worse yet, they don't know the difference because they usually have nothing to compare to. It doesn't do any good to turn a student loose to go practice if they're practicing it wrong. They just don't make much progress. How many divers do we have come to this board with dozens of dives and ask questions about weighting, trim and buoyancy control after their instructor answered the question by saying it would come with time? How many divers do you think I see with hundreds of dives who aren't any better than they were when they started? Read the DIRF reports. they see instructors who can't hover or share air without plowing into the bottom. When they say every one is equally as bad regardless of how long they've been diving they're not kidding or exagerating. Divers answer that with "You don't need to be that good to dive on vacation" The truth hurts sometimes.

5th-D is putting more divers through DIRF than most shops are OW, why? Because when divers see how easy and fun diving can be they feel cheated and jump at the chance to learn it.

We've taken something that's really not very good and established it as the norm. It's fast, cheap and easy to get a card and people like that. It sells because we're telling them what they want to hear. The problem is it's a little too good to be true. Oh, they get the card but often they're not the diver they thought they were going to be when they get it.

I don't teach a three month class. I have students in the pool for five nights for three hours per night. Why? because I found that's how long it takes to prepare them for open water without having to chase them to the surface or pull them out of the muck every 2 minutes. I need to see them handle things like a free flow, sharing air or clearing a mask midwater. Why? because when these things happen they happen mid water. I've seen too many people shoot out of the water to their waist or even hauled away in an ambulance after a rapid ascent that started with a free flow. You may never have one but then again you might.

 

[newdiverAZ]

and if not for padi, FifthD would be putting a whole lot less divers thru DIR-F. So GUE should be thankin Padi. Some people want to advance their skills that far some don't.

 

[MikeFerrara]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
And I'm also curious of why, if padi has continuing ed course for the people "who want to go further", why this is a bad thing? I'm a padi diver and my buddy is also, and we are always practicing hovering and trying to improve our skills. I by no means feel uncomfortable in the water at all? Not even in the next to nothing viz of our lakes. People are going to make of an experience what they want to. All you can do is give them the facts and hope the choose the right path, but if they don't it is their choice to make. My instructor taught us not to touch the bottom, that destroying the reef was bad, and many other things, and oh nooo he was a padi instructor.

Continuing ed isn't bad. However, the things that are left out of OW classes are also not required in the standards of any other class. You can go all the way to instructor without knowing what trim is (just one example) or having to demonstrate it. OW is the class that deals with technique. If you didn't get it there you will not get it at all. In the Instructor exam all skills are demonstrated sitting on the bottom. The reason you're not tought to do them midwater is because often the instructor can't do it. IMO, there's not much sense in going to 100 ft in an AOW if you can't hover yet or trying to do complex navigation if you can't stay out of the bottom or stay with your buddy.

You say, all you can do is give them the facts. That's true, but how many aren't given the facts?

There are good instructors, of course. The standards don't require them to be good though and they never had to prove they were good. There are an increasing number of instructors who went to the local quarry and got in their 100 dives by doing 10, 5 minute dives a day. They go demonstrate mask clearing sitting on the bottom in an IE and the next day they're out teaching some one else to sit on the bottom. Then whaen these poor divers have a silly little free flow and shoot to the surface they're here wondering what went wrong.

And BTW, I too am a PADI instructor but the stuff I see every weekend makes me embarassed to say so.

There wouldn't be threads like this if something wasn't going wrong.

 

[MikeFerrara]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
and if not for padi, FifthD would be putting a whole lot less divers thru DIR-F. So GUE should be thankin Padi. Some people want to advance their skills that far some don't.

Good point. If it weren't for those teaching it poorly there would be less demand for those who teach it well. I've said it all along. It's not that GUE is so great, it's that the others are so lousy so they look really good. You can't look good without sombody else to look bad. I think you have it.

 

[newdiverAZ]

I don't see this from any of the instructors that I've dealt with at my shop. They all seem to care. Now most do the skills kneeling, and I can see some benefit to this. Would you want 6 new divers hovering in a lake with 4' of viz while your doing a skill with one?

 

[newdiverAZ]

Question about your classes Mike? And I'm not trying to argue with anyone. what are the first skills you teach in the pool? Do your students just jump in and bang they are neutral and then the do reg recovery? I'm not talking down what you do Mike, cause I believe you are a good diver/instructor. Just curious how you go about doing it?