What kind of scuba training do you prefer?

[TSandM]

You know, I think a lot of people on this board would agree (myself included) that OW certification ought to be longer, more rigorous, and more inclusive than it is. If one had enough opportunity to dive in open water WITHOUT anything going wrong, one could have enough confidence to cope with emergency drills. For me, four open water dives of minimum length were enough to convince me that it was possible to survive underwater if all other things were favorable, but far from enough to make me blithely confident of handling all misadventures under water. I would be VERY surprised if most OW cert people are really ready to handle anything that can go wrong when they are diving.

I got enough excitement out of buddy separation in poor viz on my third OW cert dive . . . proceeding to the surface all alone, which I did quite competently and without mishap, and without shaking my confidence (much) since I had a protocol for how to proceed. But I had my regulator, and I had air (lots of it) and all I had to do was keep my wits about me and proceed to the surface, which I did.

I think for most of us, fear comes from losing our air source, whether that be from an OOA situation, losing the regulator, equipment malfunction, or whatever. Drills that involve depriving a student of air should, in my opinion (for what it's worth) wait until someone's ability to function under NORMAL circumstances under water are pretty decent. The key to building coping skills is to stress the student, but not to the point of dysfunction. You can reduce stress by explaining what the drill will be before it occurs, or by confining the drills to things the student is almost certain to be able to handle. Throwing things at the student that are not rehearsed in advance, or are pushing the edge of the envelope, result in unpredictable consequences.

When I was learning to drive (had my learner's permit), my father reached his foot over one day and stomped on the accelerator and said, "Your throttle's stuck." I was on an offramp, facing a pretty good curve, and I knew the most important thing was to reduce velocity. So I disengaged the clutch. It was a GOOD answer -- it solved the immediate problem, which was to reduce our speed. It was a BAD answer because it could have destroyed the engine. Of course, in a real stuck throttle emergency, that would have been fine, because the imperative was safety. We had never rehearsed this emergency, and I was not told to expect the drill. The lesson? If you are going to practice emergency procedures, make sure they have been rehearsed, and preferably, warn the student that a drill may be in the offing. That substantially raises one's chances of getting an adaptive response from the student, and a solid learning experience.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Drills need to be thought out such that they teach without addding a ton of risk...to either the student or the instructor. I never just reached over and turned off a students air, tore their mask off or grabbed their reg. I will, however, call for an unanounced OOA drill anytime I see buddies either not paying attention or getting too far apart. I do that by signaling to one of the divers that they are OOA. At which point they need to signal their buddy and initiate air sharing. They still have their reg and can use it if they can't get gas from the buddy. My favorite time to do such things are during ascents and descents. That's when divers are most likely to have trouble, when they are most often seperated and/or just not paying attention. I'll ask a diver to remove their mask whenever I want to. When a diver is doing mask R&R (or some other skill) is a good time to have their buddy change positions and see if the diver notices. Why? because a diver, new old, OW or cave is still a buddy even when they have a flooded mask.

Early in training I think it's ok to have the student practice the mechanics of a skill without having to worry about anything else. You have to earn one piece at a time. Once they progress to open water the idea is to gain experience and demonstrate they can apply those skills to a REAL diving situation. In reality you still have to maintaiin depth, buddy contact ect flooded mask or no and they need to be able to donate air when needed. If they can't, IMO, they simply are not comfortable enough with the mechanics of basic skills and absolutely can't apply them and should not be certified.

IMO, the time to start combining skills and tossing them out unannounced is in confined water. If they can't apply skills in the pool their isn't any sense in even going to open water unless your trying to get some one hurt.

Needless to say, I don't have many good things to say about most of the dive training that goes on. I was through it myself, I tought it that way myself and I saw first hand many times why and how it's inadequate. I eventually changed the way I taught and later became so absolutely disgusted with the agencies that I just stopped sending them money. For the most part they are training underwater tourists that need supervision in all their diving rather than divers who can manage their own dive start to finish. Id some of these agencies ever knew anything about diving they have long since forgotten it in favor of becomming experts on exotic travel and equipment sales.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

:lol3:

 

[mddolson]

Dito !
Well said Mike.

Mike D

 

[ScubaSixString]

In another thread I found this very interesting opinion:



What's your opinion?? would you like that kind of training? why?

I had an Instructor whose methods somehow resembled that. While I think it was really educational, sometimes I found it rather intrusive, and I wasn't always sure the situation was really a controlled one. Retrospectively, I think now that he had everything under control, but back then I wasn't so sure.

In a safe environment, some "tricks" like shutting off your air, removing your mask, snatching a reg, without the student knowing its going to happen is a GOOD THING, as long as they have been taught how to handle it and have previous practice with it. If the only experience i have with an OOA situation or a mask flooding is my instructor telling me how to fix it, or if he says "Ok, we're going to 12 feet and i'll signal you what i'm about to do then i'll do it", when it happens for real, panic is likely to occur.

If you have some experience with suprise underwater "emergencies", you're much better off....

 

[Ber Rabbit]

We add some stress to our OW students during the pool sessions. "Tricking" students in open water can be dangerous with the exception of having them start the navigation part over a large metal object. When we do the training exercises with our students we explain exactly what is going to happen, what they will feel, what they are expected to do, etc. Students are gradually introduced to stress, we can't replicate what will happen in the real world but we can teach them to recognize stress and teach them how to breathe and calm themselves down then solve whatever problem has presented itself. When used properly the students come away from the exercises with a sense of accomplishment and trust in their ability. A good instructor will pace the exercises to the most timid diver and then pick up the challenge for those who are interested. The more time you get to spend with your students the better you know them and how much stress you can ask them to deal with at once. Even though we challenge our students the reviews have been positive and the few who have come upon a stressful issue during a dive have called to thank their instructor for teaching them how to deal with stress. One student managed to get his first stage locked into a bridge span in Panama City when he and his buddy went on a trip. He said if he had not had the stress experience in the class he probably would have freaked out and drowned. Instead when he found himself literally locked to the bridge unable to move he stopped, took some deep breaths and relaxed while his buddy freed him.

Having had a bad narcosis experience that nearly led to panic and bolting I can tell you the "how to deal with stress" section of the class we teach can save your tail.

It's true, some instructors can take things too far and that will lead to a negative experience for the student. Introducing stressful situations to a class whether it be having them swim with no mask on, search for objects with a "blacked out" mask, deal with fins being removed/mask flooded/air turned off/etc can be fun for the students as long as they are well informed about what is going to happen and the situation is closely monitored by staff to make sure no one is being pushed to panic. This is no place for the instructor to act macho.

Just my .02.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Archer_Pensacola]

Drills need to be thought out such that they teach without addding a ton of risk...to either the student or the instructor. I never just reached over and turned off a students air, tore their mask off or grabbed their reg. I will, however, call for an unanounced OOA drill anytime I see buddies either not paying attention or getting too far apart. I do that by signaling to one of the divers that they are OOA. At which point they need to signal their buddy and initiate air sharing. They still have their reg and can use it if they can't get gas from the buddy. My favorite time to do such things are during ascents and descents. That's when divers are most likely to have trouble, when they are most often seperated and/or just not paying attention. I'll ask a diver to remove their mask whenever I want to. When a diver is doing mask R&R (or some other skill) is a good time to have their buddy change positions and see if the diver notices. Why? because a diver, new old, OW or cave is still a buddy even when they have a flooded mask.

I would definitely agree with this. Tell a student he is out of air, but let him keep his airflow and reg. Have him seek his buddy (who may or may not be aware of the drill), use proper hand signals (or more likely, rip his octo from him) and let both divers ascend. At no time was either diver at great risk, yet the scenario is very possible. Maybe instructors could have preprinted cards or something with different scenarios to pass out to students and they can either drill the "textbook" solution (hand signals requesting the secondary air from a buddy, etc.) or perform a "panic" maneuver (emergency ascent, etc.). Either way important skills are learned and most importantly students will not develop a "lazy" attitude about the possible dangers.

 

[bottomrunner]

hi every one
i have read all the postings in the 3 threads about this accident
and still have a few concerns
what would you rather have?
a instructor with 200 dives under their belt or a instructor with 25 years of experience.
i think that the diving industry is pushing the new divers through
much too quickly "you too can be a diver" and all that matters is the almighty dollar
the dive industry has broken down the course into specialty courses to get more money
there are a few instructors out there that should not be instructing
they have very little experince
and when the problems start they don't have a clue what to do
not to mention that they have not been exposed to the problem in any way.
for example how many people know what a "j valve" is?
but this is still used on many tanks
what buddy breathing is?
that is no longer taught in many open water classes
i think that the scuba course should be brought back to old school
where there was one course that covered all aspects of diving.
and took much longer than a weekend for your basic course
the open water courses, for the instructors it is a baby sitting job
and should be conducted in that manor
all of the students do not have a clue what they are getting into,
when they start diving and it is up to the instructor to show them the way.
if the instructor does not want to take on this responsabilty they should not be teaching.