What were the pool sessions like in your OW course?

[descent]

"Son, where did that water go that I just gave you? Did you drink it?"

"Nblubsrr blub sir!"

"Well, alright. Be more careful this time. Here, let me fill you up again. Don't stop singing."



About a dozen hours of indoc and swim qual, followed by forty-plus hours of more targeted pool work with snorkels and barbell weights before anyone took their first breath of compressed air, followed by five long days in the pool with actual dive gear (50-55 hrs).

Flooded masks. Flutter kicks. Misty water-colored memories ....

 

[AfterDark]

I took the survey but like gypsyjim my OW course was in 1968 so it's pretty far removed from what goes on these days.

 

[RJP]

I took the survey but like gypsyjim my OW course was in 1968 so it's pretty far removed from what goes on these days.

Will be interesting to compare contrast "way back then" with now.

Thanks

 

[widget]

You touched on something (maybe meaning to, maybe not) that I was discussing at BTS with some folks, and that was ratios. We were trying to figure out what the drop rate was for students through their first 10 dives. I believe it to be high, but how high I don't know. How many don't feel safe, and what would it take for everyone to feel safe. My response was that ratios need to be lowered. If you are going to keep a student "safe", that student needs to be your sole focus. Then, run them through an advanced class, but for goodness sake, don't let them consider them to be advanced in any way.

I fully understand that it's hard to offer a $99 class one on one, but I wonder what the retention would be if we stopped letting our divers get scared and drop out..... I wonder what a retained diver spends versus one that stops diving on OW dive 3 or 4....

I qualified as a scuba diver in 1977 with the SAUU (South African Underwater Union) and it was tough, there was no official Naui or Padi or other affiliations here at the time and training took as long as the instructor deemed necessary. I remember clearly that for the first 20 odd hours of pool work we didn't even go near a scuba set, it was all basic water work, the instructor would throw weighted pieces of a kids building toy into the water and we had to dive down and assemble it on one breath, we cleared masks, we snorkeled, we dove and fetched things off the bottom, we swam underwater without masks, we swam without fins, we swam underwater with our buddies mask, you name it we did it, without even touching a scuba set.

This was followed by at least 6 pool sessions, (or more as deemed fit) with a scuba set where we did it all again, and again, and again, and for good measure a few more times, only then did we go to an inland dam / lake where we did no less than 5 dives in very very controlled conditions, practicing it all again, then the culmination of it all was 6 ocean dives (one dive a day) where the instructor made us do it all again, and again, and again and for good measure.....well you get the picture.

The point I am making is it wasn't easy, and it wasn't for everybody but it produced a confident diver who felt at home in the water and was more than likely to continue diving. In fact I still see two of my friends who did the course with me all those years ago and we all still actively dive to this very day.

I get that things have changed, people have less time etc etc, I get it, but I still believe the quick courses we see today is the main reason people quit the sport, they just dont feel comfortable under water.

 

[Wookie]

I get that things have changed, people have less time etc etc, I get it, but I still believe the quick courses we see today is the main reason people quit the sport, they just dont feel comfortable under water.

It is my personal belief that those of us certified 20 or more years ago wanted to become divers. Dive training encouraged that. I believe that people today want to dive. Current dive training encourages that. See what I did there?

I think that there is a feeling in the dive community that there are a steady stream of non-divers on conveyer coming through the door like they did in the late 90's early 2000's. At that time, the certification agencies reset their focus to getting a hundred bucks out of every one of them. Shops bought in, and and we all got a hundred bucks out of a million folks. My belief is that there are way fewer folks on that conveyer. One way to look at that is that we need to get fifty bucks out of each one and get twice as many back on the conveyer. I think that we need to get a thousand bucks out of each of them instead. The only way to do that is to keep them around.

 

[gypsyjim]

"Back then" classes were a lot more involved, longer and better prepared a new diver for open water, I believe, at least when I try to compare my 1970 YMCA Scuba Diver as I remember them, with the PADI OW training, that my two kids underwent about 11-12 years ago.

Their OW training, especially in the pool was in a large group, with roughly a 1:4 ratio of Instructors and DM's to students, plus myself as an extra pair of eyes.

 

[widget]

It is my personal belief that those of us certified 20 or more years ago wanted to become divers. Dive training encouraged that. I believe that people today want to dive. Current dive training encourages that. See what I did there?

I think that there is a feeling in the dive community that there are a steady stream of non-divers on conveyer coming through the door like they did in the late 90's early 2000's. At that time, the certification agencies reset their focus to getting a hundred bucks out of every one of them. Shops bought in, and and we all got a hundred bucks out of a million folks. My belief is that there are way fewer folks on that conveyer. One way to look at that is that we need to get fifty bucks out of each one and get twice as many back on the conveyer. I think that we need to get a thousand bucks out of each of them instead. The only way to do that is to keep them around.

I couldn't have said it better Wookie, and Yup, I get what you did.

Back then, it was easy to get divers to continue their education and stay diving, they wanted to dive, they were comfortable, they were confident and SAUU worked on a 80% return rate, where I mean 80% of the divers who qualified came back and did a further course, and so on and so on. Maybe 20% dropped out, but 80% stayed on and still dive.

Today I think its reversed, 80% drop out and 20% stay on.Maybe.!

 

[RJP]

One way to look at that is that we need to get fifty bucks out of each one and get twice as many back on the conveyer. I think that we need to get a thousand bucks out of each of them instead. The only way to do that is to keep them around.

As Coleman's girlfriend said at the end of "Trading Places" when asked whether lunch should be shrimp or cracked crab...

"Can't we have both?"

Frank, you're echoing one of my rallying cries here. There are "divers" and there are people who "want to go diving." The dive industry has never understood that these are largely two different groups of people. Sure there is some overlap... and one needs to be in the latter group first. However, the industry needs to recognize them as different segments, they should be treated differently, and we should have different expectations of them. It's the most basic of customer segmentation approaches.

The industry needs to...

1. Focus diver acquisition efforts disproportionately on attracting people with a disproportionately high likelihood of staying with diving. Those who will "become divers." (Finding out who they are requires a little bit of effort, but it's fairly straightforward. Though it's NOT as easy as saying "non divers look just like divers demographically.")
2. Accept those people who respond to our acquisition efforts but merely "want to go diving" with open arms. But spend disproportionately less effort/time/money trying to force them to "become divers." Doing so will waste our efforts and actually scare them away entirely. Make it efficient for them to get started and efficient to "become a diver" if they want to, but don't hit them over the head
3. Focus diver retention efforts disproportionately on keeping those people with a disproportionately high likelihood of staying with diving. (See Step 1 above.)

Businesses like Walmart understand that there are customers who will only spend a few dollars a year at Walmart and that there are people who will spend thousands. They have efforts to attract - and keep - both. But those efforts are very different.

 

[widget]

Yes I hear you RJP and I do agree, BUT.... to illustrate my point just last week I was on a boat with a group and there was a young lady on her second ocean dive after qualifying, short story long, she initially wouldn't go under, then when she finally did she was bolt upright in mid water with eyes like saucers and bubbles everywhere due to rapid panicked breathing, she was clearly petrified and after 10 minutes she was back on the boat. Yet she was qualified!.

Back on the boat she said she couldnt get sufficient air from her reg, but the DM tested it and it was fine, she was just terrified because her training was totally inadequate, it never equipped her to go dive comfortably, will she continue diving? I very much doubt it, I cant see her ever going back into the water with a scuba set.

There are thousands of folk suffering the same issue, in the industry we saw it daily, these are folk who wanted to get involved, but due to quick inadequate training programme's they will be lost forever. As is often said "they are selling their gear on the boat trip back".

Theres only one hit at the ball in this game, once someone drops out, they never come back.

 

[RJP]

Oh, I'm not lobby for ***tty training.

Just saying that we shouldn't expect - nor try - to turn every noob into a lifelong diver from a commercial standpoint.