The best money a new diver can spend on anything, is right here.

[Jeff Pack]

Was a private class today with Bob Bailey aka Grateful Diver. (and follow up tomorrow)


Why you ask?


As a new diver (ok, I'm not new per se, but...) you might be able to tell things aren't right, but you don't know what to do to fix them.


Thats where a private instructor comes in. Someone who's job (yea job, cuz I'm paying for it, but in Bobs case, its a passion) is to listen to what you want to accomplish, and then create a class to achieve those goals.


Now being a former Navy SEAL (in a life long ago) puts me both at an advantage, and a disadvantage. Advantage, because I've alot of water time, disadvantage, because


a> It was a long time ago, gear etc has changed substantially
b> Military training is very different .
c> I know enough to know something's not right, but not enough recent experience to figure out how to fix it.


So I've done a number of dives after my OW cert, but I knew I still had problems, and knew things weren't right.


I thought I could figure/fix them myself, but then came to the realization thats its a crap load of work, guess work, and time to try and do it yourself, if you even succeed at all. I suspect its a good reason there are folks alot that just give up in frustration, or just deal with it, hoping to eventually figure it out.


I've been talking with Bob since I first even decided to get wet again, and he's been a great resource.


So I sat back, and decided what I wanted to get out of a private course.


My list was as follows.


1- Gear check, am I set up correctly. Is there gear I have thats just wrong, and I'm fighting it.
2- Buoyancy and trim, get my weight figured out. Trim also.
3- Gas Management. I know I'm not breathing correctly, but where is my mistake.
4- Am I donning/doffing gear the most efficiently.
5- Water movement.


Now with respect to <1> I spent alot of time listening to board members, my local LDS (Tacoma Scuba, Scuba Set, and GirlDiver), so I was pretty set on gear. But... I wasn't setup correctly on my BCD. I knew something wasn't right, but I couldn't figure out what. Turned out my BP wasnt set correctly, and was way too low. Plus Bob adjusted my wings, although I dont understand exactly how that helps/helped.


The result was the moment I hit the water, flipped on my back for a surface swim, I could instantly tell the difference. The surface swim was far more effortless than it had ever been.


For <2> we worked on my ascents and descents, how to properly descend, and how to ascend. Now Bob likes to do a horizontal ascent, and honestly, I'm not to hip with that, and its drives the little Navy SEAL frogman in my brain crazy going up horizontal. But its good practice at least for trim control. So I'll try it for awhile.


We spent alot of practice time maintaining a specific depth, and working buoyancy, trim and proper kicking. While I knew something wasn't right with my kicks, I couldn't figure out what. Once Bob showed me, I accidentally hit 1/2 throttle on my massively strong legs, and left him behind briefly But what I did notice, is the effort I had to put into water movement has easily dropped by 1/2 just today. I'm still sculling abit sometimes, corking once in awhile, but I was able to hold depth reasonably well. I was able to drop my weight from 34 > 30, and be right on the edge.


I haven't downloaded my AI computer yet, I'm really curious to see my SAC, although maybe because of all our ups and down, etc, I may not get agood reading, but in the second dive, I wasn't too far away from Bob, so perhaps I may graduate from Hoover to just Air Hog


He watched my breathing, and provided input during our many surface intervals. Turns out I wasnt exhaling enough.


Bob gave me some trips and tricks on getting into my gear, out, and some routing tips.


The amount I've improved just today, is probably equal to 10x dives, if not more.


Tomorrow, the lessons continue, with working on frog kicks and helicopter kicks. I never liked frog kicks, and have totally forgotten how to do helicopter kicks.


I cant stress enough to new divers, you seriously owe it to yourself to get a few private lessons. You'll improve so quickly, you will truly be amazed.

[Nitro91]

I think a lot of the skills you are learning now are learned in the advanced course, such as the kicks. other skills come with time and practice.
what is the cost of private lessons anyway?

[gsk3]

Bob is tops, and a really nice guy to boot. Most advanced courses do *not* teach proper trim and propulsion.

It all boils down to: get more education, and pick your instructor very carefully.

[NWGratefulDiver]

I think a lot of the skills you are learning now are learned in the advanced course, such as the kicks. other skills come with time and practice.
what is the cost of private lessons anyway?

This is a skills workshop. Unlike a class, there are no student materials, no pool time, and no certification card ... it's strictly in-water exercises focusing on skills.

We met at my home (about five minutes from the dive site) and spent about an hour going over what he wanted to learn and how I proposed to help him learn it. I explained a few concepts about trim and buoyancy control, and we were off to the dive site. Gearing up at the site, we went over his equipment, and made some adjustments to his BCD ... a Zeagle BP/W ... lengthening the shoulder straps and cinching down the straps that position the wing. That improved how the rig fit his body, and reduced the potential for "tacoing" on the wing.

Yesterday we did two dives ... concentrating on descents and ascents, trim, buoyancy, propulsion, and situational awareness. Our in-water time on each dive was about 90 minutes, although we were spending maybe a third of that on the surface debriefing what I was seeing and what I wanted him to do about it. The buoy was set at 20 feet, and all of our in-water exercises were at roughly that depth.

We will be doing two more dives today ... focusing on trim, fin kicks, and fine-tuning buoyancy control. I expect similar in-water times for today's dives.

My charge for the workshop is $200.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Jim Lapenta]

"Advanced" courses like Bob's and mine are quite different from the average AOW course. We tailor courses to the student and take into account their interests and build around them. I know we both also do non certification courses that are completely tailored to the students needs. Many "advanced" classes are conducted around a set of guidelines that in some cases are not the best way for a student to learn or contain elements that are not needed. Some will throw in dives that do little, if anything, to improve a persons skills.

I love working with students that want to learn and are not worried about a card. The cost for private advanced classes and my own workshops vary. I used to do courses like AOW and UW Nav for one student at the same price I would for two. I'm not able to do that now due to increased costs for fuel, food, dues, insurance etc.. But what I will do is car pool with them and split hotel and gas costs as well as try to use sites that take some of the sting out of those costs.

I also now rent some gear they may need in order to recover some of my costs there. They would need to get it anyway so why not make it easy.

Some of the courses I do run as little as $75 for a buoyancy and trim workshop that includes as much as 4 hours of intense in water instruction to $225.00 plus expenses for a private AOW class. If I need to tailor a class it is based on how much instruction is needed, where, and for how long. Obviously a 2 day course is going to cost more than a 1 day unless that 1 day requires extensive travel for specific conditions, boat fees, mixed gas, etc.

Bob and I have shared a number of our own materials that we created and I use some of his. I hope he finds mine useful as well :=). He is one of the reasons I do not teach a standard course in many cases. He demonstrated to me the value of instructors going outside the box and creating material where what was available was lacking or missing altogether.

We were posting at the same time.

[Kourtjestr]

I got my OW cert as a one-on-one experience. While it wasn't quite as in-depth as what Bob did for you, it's an experience that I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who can arrange / afford it. This let my awesome instructor focus on what I was doing and get everything squared away so I was comfortable. I can guess, based on what I got and the description of your class, just how valuable that would be!

[Jeff Pack]

1:1 is the only way to go, if you really want to make some serious skills advancements. Thus my reason for making this post for other new divers.

In a class (multiple students), the instructor cant 100% focus on you,its just not possible. He/She just cant keep track of and adjust training across multiple people, multiple skills, and multiple advancement paths.

[fisheater]

I was OW certified in a 1:1 class. (Driving rainstorm kept everyone else away.)

In addition to having 100% of the instructor's attention, I only saw good examples. I picked up a lot that way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Phil_C]

I was fortunate also to do most of my training and early diving one to one and can vouch for the difference that makes. I learn't at a dive centre that focuses most of their activities at the weekends but are prepared to organise dives and training mid week if they have a student. I must have done 8 to 10 sea dives before I dived with anyone other than the instructor, and although that was good in many ways, but it was a odd feeling the first time I dived buddied with a different diver. I have still never dived with more than four other divers in the water in the 30 something dives I've made since August.

Thanks for the original posting it was useful for me because it has given me some ideas of things to wok on, and I will ask the instructor who certified me if she minds setting up a skills session to cover them.

I am having a one to one tonight at a local pool in the UK to have an introduction to dry suit diving and this will be interesting because I have not dived with this instructor before, it is with a BSAC club so will not lead to a certificate of any sort, and will not as far as I know follow a specific sylabus but I am not sure.

I'm really not sure how well I would have got on with certification training in a large group.

[ffdiver]

I think it's important to interview your instructor prior to accepting them as your instructor. Find out how many other people will be in the class. If it sounds like he/she is juggling your time with a bunch of other classes he/she won't be giving you the full attention you should receive as a student. I like keeping my OW classes to 3 max, preferably 2. Any of the advance classes, like wreck or search and recovery I really like to keep them 1:1 so you can really concentrate on the skills needed to do the dives safely.

I'll seconded using Bob's teaching materials. When I was an AOW student, I asked for a copy of his AOW manual to see what I was missing in my own class. Now that I teach, I have been incorporating it into my classes. Thanks again bob!