Becoming an instructor without any real dives

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Eric Sedletzky

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A buddy and I were talking the other day and we were discussing the subject of instructors that don't have any real world or independant dives outside of a class environment.
Is it theoretically possible for someone to get certified and go up through the organization without actually doing a dive on their own?
Here's what I see.
Open water- 4 dives
AOW 5- dives
Rescue - 3-4 dives? can't remember
Nitrox- 2 dives
All other specialties 15 dives? I haven't added it up
Start divemaster - all internship dives to get 60 dives required for cert.
Continue with internship
Assistant instructor up to 100 dives
Instructor test
Start instructing and do nothing but pool and cert dives.

Is this a possible scenario? Or is there a gap somewhere I'm not seeing.
Does the instructor requirement dictate that candidates have to have a certain number of dives on their own?
 
Yes. No. No.

:banghead:
 
A buddy and I were talking the other day and we were discussing the subject of instructors that don't have any real world or independant dives outside of a class environment.
Is it theoretically possible for someone to get certified and go up through the organization without actually doing a dive on their own?
Here's what I see.
Open water- 4 dives
AOW 5- dives
Rescue - 3-4 dives? can't remember
Nitrox- 2 dives
All other specialties 15 dives? I haven't added it up
Start divemaster - all internship dives to get 60 dives required for cert.
Continue with internship
Assistant instructor up to 100 dives
Instructor test
Start instructing and do nothing but pool and cert dives.

Is this a possible scenario? Or is there a gap somewhere I'm not seeing.
Does the instructor requirement dictate that candidates have to have a certain number of dives on their own?

Yes I am quite sure it is a possible scenario. Specialties could provide heaps of extra dives too:
Deep 5 dives
Nav 3 dives
Night 2 dives
Drift 2 dives
Wreck 4 dives
Photography 4 dives
-------------------
20 dives (there are other specialties too, like Boat diver and Computer diver but I don't know any local shops that do those)

Also the dives for DM at some agencies (based on a DiveCon candidate I dived with) need to be 20mins long >3m. So this meant one time we dived together and he would surface every 20mins so his computer would reset to count another dive as he needed 60. :no:

I think 60 dives is too few to be a good DM for the majority of people (note I did not say ALL).
 
Why would you have to do dives on your own to be more appealing as an instructor? Diving with students is brutal and more difficult.
 
Why would you have to do dives on your own to be more appealing as an instructor? Diving with students is brutal and more difficult.

A few reasons. The main one being I would like an instructor to teach me a lot of her own personal experience diving as I am not going to be diving with students all the time myself. If they only dive with students all the time, particularly at an OW level, they are going to be stuck doing easy dive sites where there are fewer environmental problems.
 
A few reasons. The main one being I would like an instructor to teach me a lot of her own personal experience diving as I am not going to be diving with students all the time myself. If they only dive with students all the time, particularly at an OW level, they are going to be stuck doing easy dive sites where there are fewer environmental problems.

One could only assume if they took all the classes of their certifying agency and was teaching all the classes of their certifying agency they would have plenty of experience under varying conditions with the added stress of watching students. Seems like good experience to me and they would have plenty of stories to relate in the classroom setting.
 
Why would you have to do dives on your own to be more appealing as an instructor? Diving with students is brutal and more difficult.

The original question wasn't about wether doing real world dives or teaching students was better or worse, I was wondering if it was theoretically possible.
 
One could only assume if they took all the classes of their certifying agency and was teaching all the classes of their certifying agency they would have plenty of experience under varying conditions with the added stress of watching students. Seems like good experience to me and they would have plenty of stories to relate in the classroom setting.

The scenario was involving an instructor doing the bare minimum number of dives. I.e. 100. Very few people after 100 dives would have what I would consider 'good' experience. 100 dives is not very many at all.

ZKY:
The original question wasn't about wether doing real world dives or teaching students was better or worse, I was wondering if it was theoretically posibble.

I don't think you could have phrased your question in any way that would have avoided people getting into whether or not real world dives versus teaching students is better or worse :wink:
 
The original question wasn't about wether doing real world dives or teaching students was better or worse, I was wondering if it was theoretically posibble.

Yes it is but not recommended as far as I am concerned. Everyone pursuing leadership roles should have plenty of independent dives under their belts.
 

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