Redesigning AOW

[fisherdvm]

Why get rid of the "deep dive"? The reason I ask is because I see it as a small opportunity to expand someones comfort zone incrementally. Meaning, letting them do something they may not have done before and thus make them more confortable...

Why get rid of the deep dive? Because the diver has not got the basics down, and you mislead them into thinking they've been taught enough to manage on their own on a dive that required better gas management, and better ascent and descent skills.

 

[BDub]

This one:



The reason being, you are right, it is easy to grasp at that level.

I spend about an hour to 90 minutes on that. I cover that in Advanced, Nitrox, and Open Water.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sure, you CAN fail them, I'm referring to working with them. If all they want is that C card, they're gonna get failed from your course, run down the street, get certified, and then tell everyone what a bad instructor you are.

From AOW and up, I interview my students prior to the class. I am very up front about what the course involves. We discuss their goals, and make sure we're compatible. It tends to eliminate the card collectors before the class even begins ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[PCBCaptChris]

I suppose I have just been trying to keep it a little more simple. I assure they understand, based upon their consumtion rate, how much air they safely return to the surface at/return pressure. I'll have to think about adding SAC rate calculations to the AOW, but I'm not entirely sold...

 

[ucfdiver]

And there may not be anything wrong with it. But how does the student know if it's safe or not?

In my Advanced class we determine every student's individual SAC/RMV. In one particular instance, one student's SAC rate was so high, that his Rock Bottom for 100' was 2900psi. He'd hit his RB on the descent. In this case, he had a lot of other things to work on before considering going to 100fsw.

Likewise, there are some students who could spend a few minutes at 100fsw before starting their ascent, but they need to be able to determine beforehand whether their dive plan is safe or not.

For deeper dives, I prefer to use the 1/3 gas rule. It saves you from a *lot* of sticky situations, and can bail you out when things go wrong. Maybe teaching this for "deep" dives > 60 or 80 ft would be a good idea. Opinions?

 

[scubaskipper]

The way I try to set up the topics for my AOW is to talk to the person. What kind of diving do they like to do or want to be good at. Each AOW is tailored to those interests. For those that just say basic recreational diving, ie, " I don't know yet what I like", I recommend peak performance ( too many people are grossly over weighted or not properly trimmed ), search and recovery ( it gives them a reason to use the compass ) , multilevel ( this is where they can be introduced to nitrox, gas management, more indepth dive planning, etc., we would have to make this one up) and of course the require deep and navigation. Our dive site is cold and dark below 45 ft., so it might as well be a night dive. That should produce a pretty well rounded diver. Too many people come onboard thinking they are advanced divers because the card says so, after all they have 9 dives. I would also say at least 4-5 dives for each of these topics with 25 dives as a prereq. to starting the course. I fear the cost and time outlay would deter most people. We live in a quick fix society. This type of training would take too long for most people. We have shops in the area that do an OW class in 2 days. Sorry for the length.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Why get rid of the deep dive? Because the diver has not got the basics down, and you mislead them into thinking they've been taught enough to manage on their own on a dive that required better gas management, and better ascent and descent skills.

A better approach is to teach them the basics and give them a chance to improve them to a satisfactory level prior to the deep dive. That's what I do ... but we do primarily shore dives here, so that makes it financially feasible. Might be a tougher approach in areas where people have to pay for boats to do extra dives.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[BDub]

For deeper dives, I prefer to use the 1/3 gas rule. It saves you from a *lot* of sticky situations, and can bail you out when things go wrong. Maybe teaching this for "deep" dives > 60 or 80 ft would be a good idea. Opinions?

I think that would potentially get a lot of divers into trouble.

 

[PCBCaptChris]

? Because the diver has not got the basics down, and you mislead them into thinking they've been taught enough to manage on their own on a dive that required better gas management, and better ascent and descent skills.

They should have the basics down from OW... At this point they are trying to improve those existing skills and learn new ones.. Just a different perspective I suppose...

 

[PCBCaptChris]

What is include in the skill set of of a "peak performance" dive?