Dive requirments

I am sure that this has been covered before but I am curiouse what you guys think. I was helping my instructor two weeks ago with an OW class. Most of the students did fine but there was this one blockhead that would just not go along with the program. He would have to be told several times on the right way to do things and not the way he wanted to do them. Everyone did their skills as required and passed the class, even the block head. This guy comes in Monday along with one of the other new students from the OW class to sign up for the AOW the following weekend.
We get out to whitestar the following weekend for the deep and wreck dive. Both of the new students show up. We do the knowlege reviews and as an extra review we go over the scuba review test for some of the other students.
To try to make a long story short, blockhead guy ends up getting thrown out of the class for failing to do any thing right from pre dive safty checks to almost allowing himself to run out of air. No matter what the instructor told him to do, he bucked. The other new student did fantastic and looked as if had done more than his 4 OW dives. I can honestly say that the instructor is not concerned with just certs but to make sure students know there skills and dive safely

My question is finally, what do you guys think of having a certian number of dives, realalistic numbers, before being allowed to move on to the next step? Should you have say 10 dives before you do AOW, maybe 25 before you do rescue and at least 50 before you can start DM. I base this on what PADI standards are and am not familiar with other agencies. I just think you should have a certain level of skill before you are allowed to move on. My thoughts, what do you think?

Don't want to start a discussion about PADI vs everyone else, but I think you make a very good point here. I also got my concerns that technically the fith dive in someones diving career can be a dive to 120 feet. Depending where the AOW course is taken. this can be a very stressfull event. I remeber my first deep dive after I made appr. 25 dives in a very cold and dark lake. If I was not confident with my gear and had not my previous experience I would have probably freaked out.

I definitely think there should be a minimum of free dives between the courses OW and AOW. It is hard to set a number but 10 seems realistic to me. Just to create a feeling and confidence being under water just with a buddy no instructor to hold your hands. Seems quite logic to me, but than again this doesn't go together with PADI's commercial instincts.

24 dives before AOW is "bestowed upon" the student.

This is not agency bragging it is just the requiremets for SSI.

For AOW you need 4 specialty classes such as deep diver, boat diving, wreck diver, navigation...PLUS 24 dives. MY LDS instructor also has his own 5 page test he has created. He wants to be sure you know your stuff before giving out an AOW card. I agree with these high standards.

For Master diver you need 4 specialties and Stress and Rescue...PLUS 50 dives.

SSI standards for Dive Master / Asst Instructor are very strict. Their program is call Dive Control Specialist. Some of the requirements are DAN 02 provider, advanced life saving, 60 dives, and logging in multiple hours in the store learning the retail business, tank fills, and repairs. My LDS owner also asked that all DMs get Life Guard Cert.

It is more requirements but makes for a better dive leader.

Sounds reasonable to me! I was amazed and horrified when I heard that some-one can do the Rescue course after only nine training dives!!!

As far as the AOW is concerned I think PADI really is a money making gig. Why not extend the AOW to be your five dives done as five courses. For example on my AOW I did deep, navigation, naturalist, wreck and drysuit dives, one dive each. I would have no objections to paying extra to take in the full speciality course for each of these dives and making my AOW a much longer but ultimately much better course. In my opinion, peak performance bouyancy should not be seen as a speciality but a requirement, same goes for navigation. The other specialities I can see a need for in that depending on the type of diving you do you may want to switch at some point to something new so they are useful in that regard.

Like I said guys, I will not speak for other agencies because i do not know much about them. I have only been assosiated with PADI for the last two years. I have heard all the slams about money and Put Another Dollar In says and I think I am finding that it is some what true. It just seems to me that it is not demanding enough. Again I have nothing to compare it to, only what I have learned since being with them

I think Phish Phood makes an excellent point about peak bouyancy. It should be a mandatory skill. I have seen rescue and some divemasters who can not even attain any type of bouyancy. Make it at least mandatory for AOW. I know PADI says you have to be able to hover and do the fin tip piovt. Just does not seem to be enough. thanks for you guys interest

You have to be at a certain standard to pass the exercises if the Instructor is following the Standards outlined for any Organization.
This "blockhead" as you call him shouldn't have passed his OWD in the first place if the Instructor done it correctly and inforced the preformance requierments we have to follow. And after take him on for a AOWD course is dangerous Stuff. Again its down to each individual that learn diving to accomplish the skills and knowledge that this sport will ask for depending on level.
Its just sad when you hear Instructors teaching like this.

Well I believe the 24 dives for ssi actually includes whatever number of dives you do for AOW course.

Personally I'd wait till 50 or so for AOW just so bouyancy, relaxing, etc. are second nature. That way you can focus on all the topics of AOW w/o worrying about the basics.

I have to disagree with you Abyss. I was with this instructor during the open water dives and this guy did perform the standards properly according to PADI. I feel the only reason he did was because he was being monitored and required to do them. the isnstructor is very paticular about students performing the standars as required. I was on the platform while this guy was doing them.
I think the problem came from him realizing he was certified and felt that what he learned did not have to be followed and that he could dive according to the way he wanted to do it. I do not see how you can hold the instructor for that. I have taken AOW, Rescue,DM, and a half dozen specialty classes with this guy and belive him to be and excellent instructor. I think this guy is a bad apple that comes along every so often

I didn't mean it in a bad way directed to the Instructor. I know sometimes you get wild brains in the water. That's the difficult thing when you are teaching a group with different learning abilities, after what you say, why not have a serious chat with this guy and explain for him whats right and wrong and whats important to do before dives etc etc. To push him away is maybe the easy solution and is sometimes the only way when you are dealing with divers that don't realise the Danger a person like this can be for other divers in the water.

Sorry if you took it that way, just me not being clear on what I meant