In 60's, 70's and 80's, many agencies needed CMAS to be recognized. I am wondering if PADI also needed CMAS?
Recognized in all the clubs, because CMAS was the most influential organization in the world.
And did the agencies need CMAS or CMAS need them. Since CMAS is a federation representing different sports. It is not a training agency but it does need agencies to provide training for it. Chicken and the egg and the duck stuff. What came first? The ostrich?
Which came first? I sent a PM to dive historian Sam Miller to alert him to this thread, and I hope he will give us the benefit of his expertise. In the meantime, I will try to give a little history as I know it. I got some of this from Sam when we collaborated on an article.
Dive instruction really began in the Scripps Institute sometime in the very early 1950's. That instruction, focusing on training scientific divers, influenced the founding of the Los Angeles County diver training program in 1954, the first in the world to my knowledge. The first national certification program was created a few years later by the YMCA. NAUI was formed in 1959. All of this was done before anyone in America had heard of CMAS, which was formed about the same time as NAUI.
A few years later, in 1966, a NAUI instructor and a friend formed PADI. The information I received in getting my PADI instruction certification told me that there were several reasons. One was the belief that the existing instructional process, which had only two levels (diver and instructor), was unnecessarily comprehensive for basic diving and was stifling the growth of the industry. The second was the belief that the existing requirements made it very difficult for people living away from an ocean to be certified. (PADI was originally headquartered in Chicago.)
I don't think any of the above organizations had any
need for an affiliation with CMAS for their existence, and this thread is the first time I have ever heard anyone suggest that they did.
