Flaviss
Registered
Couldn't read it all, sorry.
My $.02
The Weekender classes are not for everyone, but they most certainly work for some. As an educated, scientific, and tech savy person going into the class there was alot of material that was really unneccesary.
I understand Boyle's law, I know the affect of pressure and how it affects gas pockets. I am familiar with partial pressures and such. It took 2 minutes to explain how to use tables and I could do every problem 100%. I don't need 8 weeks of classes.
More dive practice is what I needed, and I could have got this in the time allowed if the class was smaller or not made up of people with issues. For each of the skills we had to do it took about a half hour to go around because there was at least 8 people per instructer and innevitabley 3-4 of them had to come up because they had issues. I understand that people are not comfortable/have issues, but it is usually the same ones. I could tell after the first hour and a half in the pool who the comfortable and uncomfortable students were.
If the instructers would have seperated us and given the "comfortable" students time practicing bouyancy and rescue techniques while waiting for the "uncomfortable" students to work out thier issues I feel I would be alot more prepared to be in the water. The "uncomfortable" students should then have been given another pool session the following day for the nominal pool use fee. As it is we did not practice sharing air, only transfering the octo w/ ascent. The bouyancy practice was a whopping ten minutes where they looked around to see us to stay off the bottom without flapping. I dont feel anyone got anything out of it besides and idea of what being nuetrally bouyant feels like.
I was also dissapointed in the weight managment instruction. Except for a cursory instruction to add/subtract weight till I float eye level we did not get much instruction and there was not enough time alloted or increments of weight provided to zero in on a good weight for us. Taking another half hour in water to figure this out would help immensly. Students were encouraged to not worry about weight too much and hence everyone was overweighted and had to overcompensate with bouyancy, making it harder to get and stay nuetral.
Two of the Cert dives were ocean drift dives and all ascents were done throughout training without lines so I feel I was well practiced with that but I was mostly left to my own to maintain safety stops and because bouyancy was undeveloped I had difficulty. Venting air was heavily emphasised so I didnt have a problem with that but I was not nuetrally bouyant and maintained my safety stop with constant finning up to maintain 15-20 feet and was constantly moving back and forth within that range.
In conclusion these weekend classes would be fine IMHO if:
- They required more educated students (even if it is just forced studying of books before class)
- In water skill tests had a lower ration of stuendt to instructor/assistant 6 per should be maxx IMHO
- Once general student comfort is established in pool, future pool sessions should be split between those picking it up and those needing special help with those needing special help having another pool session to make up for misssed training
- divers should have ALOT more instruction in weight and bouyancy
- divers should have more instruction in rescue.
I think all of these can be added to a more efficient course with only adding a half to an hour of in water time. That much added time would not require anouther day of training time to turn off prospective students, nor cost signifigantly more for a teaching facility.
EDIT: I am not saying I feel that is enough to master the skills, just enought to prepare me adequatly to learn them through experience. I look as the OW certificate and just the minimum cert to be allowed to learn, not a certificate of mastery.
My $.02
The Weekender classes are not for everyone, but they most certainly work for some. As an educated, scientific, and tech savy person going into the class there was alot of material that was really unneccesary.
I understand Boyle's law, I know the affect of pressure and how it affects gas pockets. I am familiar with partial pressures and such. It took 2 minutes to explain how to use tables and I could do every problem 100%. I don't need 8 weeks of classes.
More dive practice is what I needed, and I could have got this in the time allowed if the class was smaller or not made up of people with issues. For each of the skills we had to do it took about a half hour to go around because there was at least 8 people per instructer and innevitabley 3-4 of them had to come up because they had issues. I understand that people are not comfortable/have issues, but it is usually the same ones. I could tell after the first hour and a half in the pool who the comfortable and uncomfortable students were.
If the instructers would have seperated us and given the "comfortable" students time practicing bouyancy and rescue techniques while waiting for the "uncomfortable" students to work out thier issues I feel I would be alot more prepared to be in the water. The "uncomfortable" students should then have been given another pool session the following day for the nominal pool use fee. As it is we did not practice sharing air, only transfering the octo w/ ascent. The bouyancy practice was a whopping ten minutes where they looked around to see us to stay off the bottom without flapping. I dont feel anyone got anything out of it besides and idea of what being nuetrally bouyant feels like.
I was also dissapointed in the weight managment instruction. Except for a cursory instruction to add/subtract weight till I float eye level we did not get much instruction and there was not enough time alloted or increments of weight provided to zero in on a good weight for us. Taking another half hour in water to figure this out would help immensly. Students were encouraged to not worry about weight too much and hence everyone was overweighted and had to overcompensate with bouyancy, making it harder to get and stay nuetral.
Two of the Cert dives were ocean drift dives and all ascents were done throughout training without lines so I feel I was well practiced with that but I was mostly left to my own to maintain safety stops and because bouyancy was undeveloped I had difficulty. Venting air was heavily emphasised so I didnt have a problem with that but I was not nuetrally bouyant and maintained my safety stop with constant finning up to maintain 15-20 feet and was constantly moving back and forth within that range.
In conclusion these weekend classes would be fine IMHO if:
- They required more educated students (even if it is just forced studying of books before class)
- In water skill tests had a lower ration of stuendt to instructor/assistant 6 per should be maxx IMHO
- Once general student comfort is established in pool, future pool sessions should be split between those picking it up and those needing special help with those needing special help having another pool session to make up for misssed training
- divers should have ALOT more instruction in weight and bouyancy
- divers should have more instruction in rescue.
I think all of these can be added to a more efficient course with only adding a half to an hour of in water time. That much added time would not require anouther day of training time to turn off prospective students, nor cost signifigantly more for a teaching facility.
EDIT: I am not saying I feel that is enough to master the skills, just enought to prepare me adequatly to learn them through experience. I look as the OW certificate and just the minimum cert to be allowed to learn, not a certificate of mastery.
