How prestigious is the PADI divemaster rating?

[TSandM]

I'm not sure what you are actually interested in knowing.

Are you asking about whether a PADI Divemaster is a desirable person for someone to hire? In that case, I think it's going to depend more on whether the dive op or shop is a PADI operator or not than it will on the perceived comparative value of the PADI cert as compared with others.

If you are asking whether anybody you dive with will be impressed that you are a PADI Divemaster, I can tell you from personal experience that the answer is probably no.

If you are primarily interested in what training you can take that will make a polished diver out of you, a divemaster program is not going to do that. DM classes are focused more on guiding or teaching than on improving your personal skills. If I were you, I'd look for an instructor with cave training, and do some work with that person. Whether it's a PPB class, or cavern, or something else, a cave-trained diver is likely to work with you on improving technique.

 

[MRadke]

TSandM - Trace pimped him to ask the question. Told him that if he wanted to see how badly he could get his nose bloodied on the board, that would be a good question to ask.

Regardless, some of the responses have been interesting.

 

[boulderjohn]

TSandM - Trace pimped him to ask the question. Told him that if he wanted to see how badly he could get his nose bloodied on the board, that would be a good question to ask.

Just so everyone knows the origin of this thread and why the question was asked:

As a welcoming gesture to the team on my first day of college lacrosse practice, a couple defense guys ran me face first into a tree near the field the moment I put on my helmet. There was a permanent dent in the mask. Every year when the equipment came out of storage, it was easy for me to find my helmet and the guy who ran me into the tree with the most delight became my best friend. Sometimes you just need to pay your dues and sometimes respect has to be earned.

Tell you what, why don't you start a thread called, "How prestigious is the PADI divemaster rating?" and see what you learn. That would be my version of running you face first into a tree as some sort of "dues paid in full" good-spirited hazing.

Welcome to ScubaBoard!

I suspect that this thread did not produce the tree slamming that Trace was hoping for. I really don't think he wanted Vince's head slammed--he wanted PADI's. It was part of one of his threads about how modern instruction really sucks because it is not the way it was when he first learned:

Recently, I attended an auction for a dive shop closing. Some old mask boxes from the 1970's were being used to hold repair kits in the basement. On the boxes were artist illustrations of fit muscular men fighting sharks with spearguns. Maybe you no longer need to be fit? Maybe you no longer need to be muscular? Maybe you no longer need to be male? And, maybe it's no longer politically correct to fight sharks with spearguns? But, it would be nice if the sport would show some dignity and provide a challenge for people in that first open water class before it becomes about as thrilling as a bridge tournament.

I believe he expected the usual suspects to jump in on this new thread and echo that belief.

 

[ajduplessis]

Skill and ability does not come with a card or affiliation with a specific agency. If you want prestige or bragging rights, earn it through solid diving skills, ability, knowledge, respect and a passion for the sport. No card will ever give you this; you have to work for it.

Most agencies require around 50-80 to qualify to participate in the leadership/DM programs. This is hardly prestigious IMHO.

Decide what you want to achieve and become good at it!!!!!!

 

[Bubbletrubble]

A PADI DM is someone who, for the most part, helps out with PADI classes, leads guided dives, and conducts scuba-refresher courses. As such, they have been trained to do PADI OW skills to "demonstration quality" by PADI standards. For the most part, all of the PADI DMs with whom I dive have very good skills. However, they didn't achieve such comfort in the water from PADI DM training. Their skills simply improved as they gained experience.

Do PADI DMs generally have better diving skills than most recreational divers? I have seen many DMs who are calm and exhibit good buoyancy control in the water. I've also seen a few who looked like they were part of the OW class they were helping, i.e., exhibited rather poor buoyancy control, contributed to silting out the area, etc. The total lifetime dive requirement for a PADI DM is rather low, so I haven't been very surprised by the range of performance that I've witnessed.

One thing experienced PADI DMs should be pretty good at is keeping an eye on basic OW students. This takes a certain level of situational awareness and knowing when to intervene early on to prevent a minor issue from becoming a major one.

Some novice divers are impressed by the "DM" label. Most experienced divers aren't. In the PADI system, it's just the lowest level of professional certification.

If you want to become a instructor, then DM training is the first step down the road of professional certification in the PADI training paradigm. If you want to become an "excellent" diver, you can get that training through an informal mentoring relationship or with an organization other than PADI -- it doesn't necessarily have to proceed through PADI DM training.

On a completely unrelated note, your SB username "temet vince" is interesting.
Is it supposed to be a Latin quotation?
temet = te (accusative or ablative case, personal pronoun, singlular, meaning "you") + "-met" (intensive enclitic)
vince = 3rd conjugation, singular, imperative mood, meaning "conquer"
overall meaning: "Conquer yourself!"
It sounds a little strange.
(This feels like that scene in "Life of Brian" where a Roman soldier is correcting the grammar of a vandal who was painting some words on a wall...)

If you don't fix the grammar by sunrise, you know what happens...

 

[Crush]

I suspect that this thread did not produce the tree slamming that Trace was hoping for. I really don't think he wanted Vince's head slammed--he wanted PADI's.

Thanks boulderjohn - I try not to run newbs into a tree, head-first. I am surprised by Trace - he should have known that a far better head-thumping would have been achieved through posting a desire to dive with a pony bottle, or Spare Air. There would have been a Wunderful amount of flaming going on.

 

[BrianKon]

Hey Temet,

don't get caught up in all that prestige stuff, just concentrate on being the best diver you can be, the rest will take care of itself. To be a DM is great, you will have had to go through alot of training, spent alot of money and alas you have prestige. You are correct in assuming DM's have a certain amount of that, especially when you are a new diver and are looking to them for their expertise.

But as anyone on this board will tell you... prestige and respect should be earned not given away with a title. When I was a new DM I learned alot from seasoned divers who were merely OW or AOW, they certainly had prestige in my mind and also made me a better DM just by sharing their dive experieces and stories with me.

just have fun diving for right now

Brian

 

[Jim Lapenta]

What will really impress people is a "Dork Diver" card. Will get you all the tail you can handle. They'll be 4 legged of course but hey.....

 

[merxlin]

What will really impress people is a "Dork Diver" card. Will get you all the tail you can handle. They'll be 4 legged of course but hey.....

Hey now...remember, it's the instructor not the agency that matters.

 

[temet vince]

Thanks for the great responses everybody! Don't worry, I've got a loooong way to go before I ever have to think about Divemaster. I really believe that a good instructor or diving with patient but knowledgeable buddies is far more important than the organization, and that there is no substitute for diving more rather than less.

I wasn't so much looking for prestige. But after hearing some of the PADI "critiquing", I was wanting to make sure that I wasn't being limited by choosing a scuba certification agency that was more popular. Like I said, it's totally a newb question. XD

I think it's far more important to just go out and have fun, and I mentioned this on the "other" thread also, which is where all of this started. Someone complained that scuba wasn't hard core enough, and when I mentioned PADI, it was scoffed at. So I figured it never hurt to ask to make sure that I wasn't somehow limiting myself by sticking with PADI.

Oh, and BubbleTrubble: thanks for asking! Temet Vince is non-traditional latin. If you watch the Matrix, above the oracle's door is written the phrase "temet nosce" which literally translates "Thine own self thou must know." Since the Matrix was one of my favorite movies prior to the release of Inception in 2010, I modeled my favorite phrase after the matrix, with Temet vince, or "Thine own self thou must conquer."

Now, about diving with that pony bottle....