To those considering an OW class...

[MikeFerrara]

jbd, I'm sorry that's been your experience with novices. I guess I've been lucky. I've tried to escort a couple of new divers with really execrable skills -- One I told, after 30 minutes of being unable to get him close enough to neutral to be able to swim underwater AT ALL, that he should go take a refresher course, which he eventually did. But otherwise, we've been able to make progress, and everybody (without exception) has had a good attitude about wanting to improve.

I think mentoring is both necessary and wonderful in the diving world. I don't think many of us could afford to pay an instructor to do the number of dives with us that it takes to reach solid competency in basic skills. (I certainly couldn't!) Generous experienced divers with the patience to do some guiding are a critical component of the process. Of course, it's nicer for the mentor if the student comes with some basic skills (it's hard to dive if the novice can't swim underwater ).

Mentors are great but the education system can't assume that every one will be mentored.

While the idea is great, they are certainly not necessary. I had diving peers who were others with experience comparable to my own for the most part. We didn't have the internet then so most of what I consider good diving, I invented. Of course others invented it before me but I didn't know it. LOL

Over the course of my diving, especially my technical and cave training, I have had the chance to dive with some divers who are more experienced than I am but never on a regular enough basis to call any of them a mentor.

The closest that we ever saw to mentorship was some more experience divers that sort of hung out in the same group part of the time. However, even in cave diving, the more experienced divers usually went off to do their "bigger" dives while the newer of us did our own "smaller" dives. If there was anything like mentorship, it was over beers when the diving was done rather than in the water. We tried opening the beer in the water but it all got mixed together and didn't tast very good.

The exception was if you were paying for training of course.

For many if not most divers, mentorship is a myth or maybe wishful thinking. Training needs to be designed and conducted with the assumption that a diver will be diving with some one else of their own skill and experience level.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Well said, Mike! (of course)

I was never able to find a mentor. There just aren't enough divers out here with experience that want to take the time to do that. Besides, I have a permanent dive buddy in my wife. We just had to stumble along on our own, take lots of course from various instructors and hope we were being given the right advice. I think it's worked out for us, but it would have been nice to have a mentor. But that's in the ideal world. We try to be mentors for new divers out here in addition to instructors, but sometimes it also seems that some of the new divers don't want that. They just want to dive without any criticism - constructive criticism. I guess that's why the agencies have become what they have. The majority of divers just want to get underwater. And there aren't enough of us out there to tell them it takes more than throwing on the gear and jumping in.

 

[Walt1957]

This weekend I dove with a few scubaboard members, whom I enjoyed meeting and diving with. One of them also met up with a newly certified person that made me rethink the whole issue of certification as related to instructors and agencies.

This person was certified by the LDS where I did my training. I do not know which instructor certified her. She said she was doing her 7th dive. This girl/young woman was SO bad, she had no concept of trim. She was almost entirely in a vertical position the whole time. Maybe 15 degrees off of vertical at most even while swimming along. Needless to say she silted the water really bad everywhere she went. Then she saw a motorcyle on the bottom of the quarry and she panicked. Now, I know panic is not something that an instructor can really assess or deal with unless it interferes with skills, but this person is a disaster waiting to happen. Had I not seen the look on her face and reacted quickly to stop her she would have inflated her BC and bolted (from just under 30') and you would be reading another accident report and shaking your head about poor training.

I guess it is just my limited experience, but I did not realize how bad some of the people being certified really are, and how much of a danger they present to themselves and others. I knew that I had some minor problems on some of my certification dives because of being weighted improperly, but it was nothing compared to this person and I was given advice on correcting the problem and was able to resolve it with a little pool work. Exactly what one would expect. I met the standards, but was still given constructive criticism on how to fix the issues that the instructor noted.

I have had classes with several of the instructors at my LDS and all were really good and went beyond the expected. I have heard nothing but positive things about any of the instructors there, and have observed several classes being certified at the local quarry. I can't imagine any of them fudging a cert just to get somebody through. So in my mind it is either improperly written standards, or a lack of understanding of those standards by the instructor(s) that would have caused this person to get certified. Either one is a serious problem. Although I somewhat understood what this thread was about and where some of the posters were coming from, I now have a clear understanding of the issue from a first-hand experience.

Hopefully this person will become a part of the statistics of quitters before she becomes one of the accident statistics. Or worse yet, before she takes someone else with her.

 

[reefugee]

Walt -

Being a relative newbie to this hobby, I'd hate it if people wished that I become the "statistics of quitters" because I am not knowledgeable in some skills and techniques.

When I first started in my OW cert, my finning technique sucked. My instructor pulled me aside to assist me with my finning techniques. By the end of my OW class, my instructor was quite impressed with my finning technique. My suggestion is pull this woman aside, spend a little time with her to help her with her trim.

Regarding panic - I think that will subside with more experience. But she won't get more experience if no one dives with her. I hope people take her out on easy dives where she can learn to get more comfortable underwater.

Minh

 

[TSandM]

Walt, if you'd seen me when Bob got hold of me, you'd have wished me into the ranks of quitters, too. There is hope for even the most diving-challenged . . . IF the person WANTS to improve, and IF she can find some help in doing so. I was lucky to find Bob. If I had stayed with my LDS instructors, I don't know if I would ever have solved my problems.

 

[jbd]

refugee,

All Walt is saying is that it would be better for the woman in question to quit before she does get hurt or dead. The drop out rate in diving is really quite high. Walt,IMO, is not saying he wishes she would quit and forget about diving altogether but pointing out the fact she does need help in the absence of quality training.

 

[TheRedHead]

Walt, if you'd seen me when Bob got hold of me, you'd have wished me into the ranks of quitters, too. There is hope for even the most diving-challenged . . . IF the person WANTS to improve, and IF she can find some help in doing so. I was lucky to find Bob. If I had stayed with my LDS instructors, I don't know if I would ever have solved my problems.

Lynne, you've described a lot of your incidents and none of them ever sounded like blind panic to me. You've always gave me the impression that you are comfortable in the water, even when you were challenged with things you haven't mastered. I certainly envy you for living in an area with a large group of active, competent divers to mentor you. In my case, it has been a long and often expensive journey of traveling to many locations to find the right instructor.

Perhaps we should define panic underwater. To me, it is the absence of rational thought and a blind, overwhelming desire to get to the surface, regardless of consequences.

I think you are very hard on yourself. My god, woman, you are diving doubles now!

 

[Walt1957]

Walt, if you'd seen me when Bob got hold of me, you'd have wished me into the ranks of quitters, too. There is hope for even the most diving-challenged . . . IF the person WANTS to improve, and IF she can find some help in doing so. I was lucky to find Bob. If I had stayed with my LDS instructors, I don't know if I would ever have solved my problems.

Her lack of skills is something that can be overcome with perseverence. If it were JUST her skills that were lacking I would have personally offered to provide whatever level of help I could. I was not so great right out of OW class, and I still have a whole lot to learn and improve myself. But when someone reaches for the button to the express elevator .... that is a level of panic that can be deadly and I am concerned that it might happen again. Luckily she was unfamilair enough with her equipment (especially in a panicked state) that I beat her to it. But even with me dumping the air from her BC and mine she still kicked us both to the surface at a fast rate of ascent.

Perhaps we should define panic underwater. To me, it is the absence of rational thought and a blind, overwhelming desire to get to the surface, regardless of consequences.

That matches the definition I had in mind.

Regarding panic - I think that will subside with more experience.

I think experience lessens the likelihood of panic, yes. But some people are more prone to it than others. And whatever the trigger for that panic, if someone reaches that state while diving I beleive that they should at least re-evaluate closely their desire to dive, along with their ability to do so safely. This was a simple dive where anyone with an OW cert. should not have been above their abilities as far as comfort level.

 

[wvjohn]

As someone who just finished their OW (YMCA) I'll toss in a few obervations

1) the advice found here on choosing a LDS for training is very good. I got the questions, and interviewed the 2 local training facilities. At the first one I said I had some questions and the initial response was to hand me a schedule and say "here's everything you need to know." At the second one folks took the time to listen to my questions and concerns (I'm 56) - so it was a no brainer.

2) The program I did was 14 hours class/14 hours pool and then 4 checkout dives in a local quarry. My equipment and weight was different on the 3rd and 4th dives and I had bouyancy issues and ended up getting too shallow on my 4th dive and not being able to get back down. I was told I needed 2 more dives to work on bouyancy. It was really only a weighting issue, and on the next 2 dives I was fine. BUT, having 2 more dives really helped my comfort level, my breathing, etc. My wife and son did the course with me and they both had some ear issues. My wife ended up doing 6 dives as well and my son only needed 4. Bottom line was that the instructors felt we needed more time and they let us take it.

3) The philosophy at the LDS was basically "diving is really neat can be very dangerous and we want you to be safe" This is one of the things that I liked on the front end because I felt the were offering training, not just a C card. I'm a reader and I had read Shadow Divers and about a bazillion posts here before I even started training, so I understood that things can get very serious very fast underwater. People die.

4) so the bottom line, as has been said here many times is to find a program that offers good training where you feel comfortable with the instructors. In the end time is all you are really spending and try and make sure the time you spend training is well used. I look forward to AOW, etc. down the road after I chase more bluegills in quarries and do some diving in Bermuda in Oct. I REALLY want to dive the NC wrecks but now understand that I am probably a year away from being ready to do that.

 

[loosebits]

Wonderful!! I'm glad this thread has actually helped a few people. Would you mind linking to this thread in your signature so we can give it plenty of advertisement?