It's nothing to do with being elitist - I tell people not to do speciality courses because they are a waste of money. The best way to learn to dive well is get your basic training done and get out and dive with experienced divers.
Well, that excludes anyone that wants to dive nitrox then doesn't it. Diving with experienced divers is not always an option. And I would rather have actual instruction from an instructor then from someone that has just logged a lot of dives. Everyone has their own opinion on how things should be done, but at least the instructors are following some standard.
And the thought that specialty classes are a waste of money only works for people that don't want to do anything but dive. If your goal however is to become a dive professional, you can't avoid specialties. With that in mind, I think it would be much wiser to have the knowledge that you can learn from specialties as soon as possible. You can't tell me that some of the information you get from a Stress and Rescue course is not of some value to all divers, no matter how awesome you think you are.
I'm not saying that specialties alone will make you a good diver. It is a combination of knowledge and experience. The specialty course give you some knowledge and more dives gives you experience. Without proper knowledge, you can't hone your skills with more dives. It's called "Basic" open water for a reason. With that in mind, people just fall into an AOW cert.
---------- Post added August 1st, 2014 at 11:59 AM ----------
Your example leads me to think that it is truly dependent upon the individual, how they were trained, and how seriously the individual took their training. I agree that someone repeating poor and improper technique over and over on multiple dives will build these deficient skills into bad habits. Conversely, wouldn't you agree that someone who is practicing proper skills and technique will benefit by diving repetitively? Through repetition these newly learned proper skills and technique will become habit. For the latter, I believe that more dives would absolutely make someone a better diver. I agree that the instructor is the key to a new diver learning proper skills and technique, and the need for correcting a diver at the outset when he isn't seeing them is a given.
Yes, if you are practicing proper techniques, then more dives should make you better to a point. There does come a point where you're as good as you get.
What I should have said was that more dives does not "necessarily" make you a better dive.
Of course some skills won't always develop the more you dive if you don't know what it entails. Take for instance a stressed buddy. That is not covered in basic open water instruction, so you never learn to recognize it and therefore can't be more in tune with it. But taking a stress and rescue specialty gives you things to look out for and how to deal with them. Once you have that knowledge, then you can improve you observational skills as it relates to stress.
My main point is that telling people to just go diving and not take specialty classes is foolish. Additional knowledge is never a bad thing and can only make us better divers. And if people are taking specialty classes and diving, they will end up with an advance certification. Having the highest recreational certification doesn't make you a better diver per se, but anyone that wants to advance to the professional level needs to get them.
Or you can have someone like me. I had to take two phys ed classes in college and one had to be an aquatics class. So I got my basic cert for one and my advanced cert for the other. And when I bought my gear package, I got 3 free specialty classes with it, so I made one Stress and Rescue. Wow, I ended up with my Master Diver cert. Does that make me a better diver? No, I fell into the certifications because I met requirements. And of the 7 specialties I currently have, I would have to say that I learned something from all of them that I practice to make myself a better diver.
---------- Post added August 1st, 2014 at 12:09 PM ----------
Anyone saying to wait before you advance levels is just trying to save you money. Us elitists are saying that nothing can replace time in the water, esp. if you can find someone, or a whole club that can act as a mentor.
Number of dives does not make the diver, but experience is wondetful for alowing you to get a feel for things. The first 50 dives will make a huge difference for your comfort and technique with or without classes.
This only applies in theory. I've dove with brand new certified divers (with only their check out dives) that had very good buoyancy control and with divers that have 25+ dives that still can't stop themselves from bouncing in the silt and shooting to the surface.
And let's not forget that most specialties also require open water dives. So by your theory of more dives, specialties can't be bad.
