Please share your OW referral experiences?

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LuvDaOcean

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I've finished my PADI classes and pool sessions and am now ready for my ow check-out dives. I have a trip booked to the FL Keys for my son and myself at the end of next week as referral students.

Here's the deal: I did very well during classroom sessions and completed all written reviews including the final exam without much trouble at all. Both the 1st & 2nd pool sessions were basically "monkey-see, monkey-do" sessions and very, very rushed due to the size of the class (9 students). 2nd pool session did not go well at all because I was having a lot of trouble equalizing (sinuses were clogged) and was not properly weighted by the instructor until the absolute tail-end of the session, so skills that night were really, really sloppy and I don't feel I fully grasped them at all.

I guess my questions for all of you who did your OW check-out dives via Referral are these:

1) Did you feel that your classes/pool sessions were "monkey-see, monkey-do" and that you were not really ~fully~ aware of why you were doing the skills you were doing?

2) Did you learn everything in your PADI classes/pool sessions that was in the book and on the videos/dvd/cd roms? (e.g., we weren't taught how to use a compass in class, but were going to be taught on 1st day of OW dive along with a few other things like that)

3) When you finally got to the "other" end (referral location) did the instructor there teach the skills differently than your original instructior or did you find them to be almost identical to what you learned in class/pool sessions back home?

4) Did you have to take an additional written test?

Thanks so much for preparing us with whatever info you can provide! :)
 
My fiancee just completed her OW check-out dives via Referral and she says:


1) Yes and no. She had 2 different instructors and recieved very good training from one and ok from the other
2) Mostly everything but not everything
3) Similar but different teaching style. Good instructor and skill tests mixed with diving to get a feel for real diving not just skill teaching
4) No

Also she just got her PADI OW certification card, and it came in < 4 weeks to NJ


good luck and enjoy the diving in the Keys with your son!
 
I did my OW classes/pool time in Michigan and then (the next day) went to Florida and did my OW dives in fresh water springs there. So,

1) Yes - I found the pool sessions to be lots of mimickry and "just learn to do this". I think that was because there was so much new information and new skills to absorb. (All I knew before the classes was that I like being in the water.) You almost have to do it by rote and have it come back to you when you need it - like when my Florida instructor unexpectedly gave me and an out-of-air sign because he noticed my octo had come loose and wanted to see if I could find it while it was floating around. (I did.)

2) I had the luxury of a small class - 3 people - so we had time to go through pretty much everything, including basic compass navitgation. What I wish we had spent some/more time on was different styles of kicking - modified flutter, modified frog, scissor, etc.

3) I had a similar luxury on the "other end" - a one-on-one class. He went through all the skills again, pretty much in the same way I had done them in the pool, but with some variations based on where we were diving. For example, when I did the mask-off skill, he took it from me and handed it back with seaweed in it. And when I did the CESA, we used the float line as a guide, which we didn't have in the pool. Both my instructors were very common-sense, diving-should-be-fun-but-be-careful-of-these-things oriented.

4) No.
 
LuvDaOcean:
I've finished my PADI classes and pool sessions and am now ready for my ow check-out dives. I have a trip booked to the FL Keys for my son and myself at the end of next week as referral students.

Here's the deal: I did very well during classroom sessions and completed all written reviews including the final exam without much trouble at all. Both the 1st & 2nd pool sessions were basically "monkey-see, monkey-do" sessions and very, very rushed due to the size of the class (9 students). 2nd pool session did not go well at all because I was having a lot of trouble equalizing (sinuses were clogged) and was not properly weighted by the instructor until the absolute tail-end of the session, so skills that night were really, really sloppy and I don't feel I fully grasped them at all.

I guess my questions for all of you who did your OW check-out dives via Referral are these:

1) Did you feel that your classes/pool sessions were "monkey-see, monkey-do" and that you were not really ~fully~ aware of why you were doing the skills you were doing?

2) Did you learn everything in your PADI classes/pool sessions that was in the book and on the videos/dvd/cd roms? (e.g., we weren't taught how to use a compass in class, but were going to be taught on 1st day of OW dive along with a few other things like that)

3) When you finally got to the "other" end (referral location) did the instructor there teach the skills differently than your original instructior or did you find them to be almost identical to what you learned in class/pool sessions back home?

4) Did you have to take an additional written test?

Thanks so much for preparing us with whatever info you can provide! :)

I know you've asked for some referral experiences from a student's POV, but I thought I'd share some with you from the OTHER sides of the class, from someone who has given and taken referrals:

1) We try to explain the reason for the skill, then talk about how we will be demonstrating it, then demonstate it for the student BEFORE we ask them to show us that they can do it. As with any sport, the only way that someone can LEARN a physical skill is is to mimic what the Instructor does. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing a student's comfort level unless they tell us: sometimes a student appears to have mastered a skill, but that can be very different from them "feeling confident" that they can do it again. That's why many of them are repeated during the Open Water dives.

2) Some skills are best done in actual dive circumstances; compass use is one of them. But for the most part, you should have received your basic skills training in Confined Water.

3) Once you get to your referral location, other than something like compass use, you probably wont be "taught" any new skills. Open Water is supposed to show that you have mastered the skills you learned in Confined Water enough to use them in actual diving circumstances.

4) No other written test is done when you get to your referral site. You are there to dive! :D

Have fun & good luck! :thumb:
 
Thanks so much for your replies. I think I've got a bit of feel for what it would've been like (sick now, so can't go). I hope when I finally do go on my OW dives that my instructor, whoever it may be, doesn't put seaweed in my mask! LOL!

I'm really surprised that so few here on SB have done their check-outs via referral. There were a total of 9 students in my class, and out of that 9, only 1 was going to get certified locally. All the rest of us were referrals.

Thanks again for sharing!
 
The referrals are great (from instructor's point of view) if the confined water instructor does a good job. If not, it's back to the pool. Open Water is a place to illustrate proficiency at skills, not teach skills.
 

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