What is so overwhelming?

[Bob DBF]

Well when you put 10#of crap in a 5# bag....

The longer OW class I took was not because we were stupid back in the day, it was to cover everything so that everyone understood and could do the exercises both in class and in the water. This time was later considered unnecessary and portions of the information and skill is moved to other classes, even though there is no necessity to ever take another class.

Time is of the essence, we can certify you in no time at all.



Bob

 

[Foxfish]

The basic skills required to dive are pretty simple if you know how to snorkel. The other skills you need to learn to get you going are kitting up, reading a dive computer, breathing from a regulator underwater and controlling your buoyancy. There are a few rules to remember. Never hold your breath, limit your ascent rate, surface with 50 b (725 psi or your preferred choice) and don't go beyond your NDL. That is most of what you need to know.

There are a few other things that get taught to give a diver a better understanding of the hazards like how to read a dive depth/time chart and how gas in your lungs expands as you ascend. I don't believe anyone needs to do any calculations to dive safely within OW. It's all there on the computer. You don't need to understand how a car engine works to drive a car.

The problem is that once you've learned these things you can easily end up in a situation that is unsafe. Hence the need for the different safety drills and the need to attain an acceptable skill level. There is a big difference between learning how to dive and learning how to become a competent diver.

 

[Bob DBF]

The basic skills required to dive are pretty simple if you know how to snorkel. The other skills you need to learn to get you going are kitting up, reading a dive computer, breathing from a regulator underwater and controlling your buoyancy. There are a few rules to remember. Never hold your breath, limit your ascent rate, surface with 50 b (725 psi or your preferred choice) and don't go beyond your NDL. That is most of what you need to know.

There are a few other things that get taught to give a diver a better understanding of the hazards like how to read a dive depth/time chart and how gas in your lungs expands as you ascend. I don't believe anyone needs to do any calculations to dive safely within OW. It's all there on the computer. You don't need to know how to understand how a car engine works to drive a car.

The problem is that once you've learned these things you can easily end up in a situation that is unsafe. Hence the need for the different safety drills and the need to attain an acceptable skill level. There is a big difference between learning how to dive and learning how to become a competent diver.

Could be that's why there are so many complaints about instabuddies, the expectation from divers and instructors alike, is that OW does not teach the student how to be a competent diver, yet he still gets the cert. I'm glad that some instructors do not subscribe to this mindset.

Oh yeah, some more of the "wasted time" in my old OW class taught students how to safely freedive (snorkel) before going on to SCUBA.



Bob
----------------------------

That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.

 

[Redshift]

Of course they are and some of them find scuba diving just a bit too overwhelming.
We are all individual and have different abilities and inclination to solve problem or learn something new.
How many recreational skiers would like to learn what ski wax to use in different snow conditions?

And that's fine, the problem comes when people think they should pay and be divers like it's only the instructor's responsibility to turn them into divers, people who want to become divers with the least effort possible.
And agencies help, they cut courses to, sometimes, less than the minimum, they say it's a sport for everybody, some take you straight away for a swim on the first ow dive (which can be done before all the pool dives)... heck, some centres carry and assemble your gear!

Really, skiers don't know which wax to use? I've gone skiing twice (haven't lived here long ) and know how wax works and which wax to use and have applied wax.

The basic skills required to dive are pretty simple if you know how to snorkel.

I did the first level of free diving before starting with the scuba lessons. I think it helps a lot divers to feel at ease in the water, to learn how to control their movements, gives them more confidence later... it makes scuba much easier.

I don't believe anyone needs to do any calculations to dive safely within OW. It's all there on the computer. You don't need to understand how a car engine works to drive a car.

How are they supposed to plan a dive without calculations?

Could be that's why there are so many complaints about instabuddies, the expectation from divers and instructors alike, is that OW does not teach the student how to be a competent diver, yet he still gets the cert. I'm glad that some instructors do not subscribe to this mindset.

It's the fast and easy work frame of some organizations...

 

[Lorenzoid]

The basic skills required to dive are pretty simple if you know how to snorkel. The other skills you need to learn to get you going are kitting up, reading a dive computer, breathing from a regulator underwater and controlling your buoyancy. There are a few rules to remember. Never hold your breath, limit your ascent rate, surface with 50 b (725 psi or your preferred choice) and don't go beyond your NDL. That is most of what you need to know.

There are a few other things that get taught to give a diver a better understanding of the hazards like how to read a dive depth/time chart and how gas in your lungs expands as you ascend. I don't believe anyone needs to do any calculations to dive safely within OW. It's all there on the computer. You don't need to understand how a car engine works to drive a car.

The problem is that once you've learned these things you can easily end up in a situation that is unsafe. Hence the need for the different safety drills and the need to attain an acceptable skill level. There is a big difference between learning how to dive and learning how to become a competent diver.

Your last paragraph says it all. Any fool can stick a regulator in his mouth and breathe underwater. The bulk of dive training is (or should be) about how to do it safely and how to handle various situations that can arise. A friend of mine is a Navy helicopter pilot and used to let me play on the simulator. Any fool (myself included) can learn to move the stick and the throttle and get the helicopter to move here and there. Of course, the bulk of a pilot's training is not that but rather how to handle the multitudes of different situations and potential problems.

 

[Americana_Mama]

Only speaking for myself, but the in-water part is indeed the most difficult part as opposed to the theory. I'm catching that for the most part (although...lol...retaining the info gets harder & harder the closer I'm getting to 50!).

 

[lowviz]

Only speaking for myself, but the in-water part is indeed the most difficult part as opposed to the theory.

Yeah, that is the "Diving" part.



Stick with it! - if it wasn't for the over 50's, diving would be a dead art...

 

[Adventure-Ocean]

I come from the "Mike Nelson" era when we only used the tank, reg, mask and fins. I dove years like that. My friends easily conveyed the big danger. Always breathe was the only bit of instruction I got from them. Over ten years I learned about the other dangers and graduated to a BC, wet suit, and weights. In order to get a job I took the OW. I couldn't believe how complicated the PADI course was. It was clear PADI did not want anyone to think diving is easy. Then people might not need them to dive. Today, certification is a must and divers have to go through PADI, NAUI or some other agency. A business success story.

What I thought pretty strange was we had 3 young ladies from Korea in our OW class. They spoke very little english. They struggled through all the wriiten parts and like the rest of us had to intitial the lessons to prove they were given. It was clear they did not understand a lot of the lessons they initialed. That's when it became clear that whether or not we actually learned the lessons was not the goal of PADI. It was just up to them to prove they told us everything or they showed us everything. I'm sure a lot of the students in our class intitialed lessons they never learned. The real question of whether someone will be a diver is once they get in the water. Can they learn to be comfortable? If you can learning to breathe, be stable and relax, you've learned 90% of what it takes to be a scuba diver.

The agencies have succeeded in portraying diving as a skill requiring training. The more they can point to the divers that have made the ultimate mistake the more they prove a need for them. My brother used to sell fire alarms the same way. Just show the people examples of families burning to death in a home fire. This clearly shows the need for home alarms.

I guess I'm just an old guy that appreciates how less complicated life used to be. Everything is about business now. Adventure-Ocean

 

[TSandM]

Having now been involved in helping to teach classes for four years, I am repeatedly astonished at how difficult people find it to learn the basic concepts, and then to connect the theory with what they are actually DOING in the water. I've had students turn around on the 5th or 6th pool session and ask me, "I put air INTO my BC when I descend, and let it out when I go up, right?" This in spite of the fact that Peter almost boils the entire classroom work down to Knowledge Review 1, Question 5 (the pressure/volume matrix), and refers to that concept over and over again, both in lecturing and in asking questions, and in reviewing the quizzes and exam.

I think that, for a lot of people, abstract concept learning was always difficult and still is. For those of us who find that kind of thing easy, the confusion of students can be hard to understand at all, and can be very frustrating. In addition, when it comes to the physical acts of handling gear and diving, rapid-paced classes don't permit enough repetition for some people to feel solid with what they are doing; before they've completely locked something down in their head, they're on to something completely different, and the first concept or skill goes skittering off. A lot of people seem to need to learn slowly, and do not do well when asked to multi-task with new ideas and procedures. Classes given on the usual several-days-and-you're-done schedule don't permit enough time to cement things.

This is going to sound rather elitist, but scuba is a pretty democratic sport. It isn't dirt cheap, but it isn't horribly expensive -- people from students to mechanics to systems analysts can and do take the sport up. Some of those people have the jobs they do because school wasn't a great place for them, but they found somewhere where their particular strengths were useful. Those people can have a great deal of trouble with "book learning", as can adult learners who haven't taken any sort of class in many years.

 

[boulderjohn]

First of all, a diver can be certified at age 10, so the math involved in OW training is at about the 5th grade level.

But then the test requires what, 70%. That means there is 30% they do not take out the door with them and the test is pretty simple. I know, I know, they have to go over their mistakes and get the correct answer. But that does not mean they necessarily actually learn that part. Hearing it one more time from an instructor does not mean it is internalized.

I sincerely hope that what you just wrote does not in any way reflect a reality you are seeing.

First, the test requires 75%. not 70%. I can't imagine many students get anything close to that. When I teach the class, I consider a 92% to be a pretty low score on the final, and usually about half the questions missed are because of silly errors that have the students slapping their heads. "Of course! I knew that!" When we have gone over any missed questions, I am confident the student has it all down.

The shop I am in now avoids using the online version of the course because of a belief that having the students in class fosters a personal relationship with the shop. With the shop I used previously, we switched to the online version exclusively because of the greater degree to which the students learned the materials. We would have a face to face session for review and any additional materials we wanted to add, and then we would give a final exam. I think it was about the 10th time I gave the final exam to students who had taken the course online before I had one get a single question wrong.

In other words, I don't understand the thread. I don't see students overwhelmed by the OW materials at all. I see them learning it easily and confidently. Oh, I do see exceptions, but they are usually students with some kind of a mental block related to the learning or testing.