I am in favor of any effort to produce divers who are more in control of their body position in the water column. Many many dive sites will be thankful as well!
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Where did you see this before and why are you against it?
Teaching divers to dive in correct trim is a goooooood thing. All divers (including beginners) should be able to function while horizontal. Mask clearing is 'safer' while horizontal. Vertical divers usually kick towards the surface.
Good instructors train divers- not seahorses.
Just to point out a couple of things.
1. Although GUE and UTD have "always" done it this way with introductory open water divers, "always" really means "a couple of years," and they have only certified a mere handful of open water divers since they started their programs. PADI certifies more than 9000,000 new divers a year, and it has been in operation for about 50 years. There is a bit of a difference in what it takes to turn a program of that size around and what it takes to start a brand new program from scratch. GUE and UTD both teach primarily technical diving.
2. The home of GUE is Extreme Exposure in High Springs, Florida. That shop is owned by the person who owns GUE and Halcyon. By far most of the open water instruction in that shop is done through PADI.
---------- Post added August 5th, 2013 at 10:35 AM ----------
I received a PM pointing out that I added a digit in my previous post--PADI certifies about 900,000 divers per year. I also was in error in that I thought it was 900,000 NEW divers each year, but it is actually total certifications. http://www.padi.com/scuba/uploadedFiles/About_PADI/PADI_Statistics/padi statistics jun2010.pdf.
I would be interested in boulderjohn's comments regarding maintaining neutral buoyancy in a wet suit without a weight belt while doffing the gear. I can't quite tell how the guy in mselenaous' video did it horizontally in that shallow pool without weights on his wetsuit, without floating to the surface. It must have been because he was SO careful to stay under his negatively buoyant rig during the drill. Impressive, but realistic? Dunno.
If I can return the thread to its original intent, rather than GUE/PADI wars, I was really intrigued by this article! Even more, I was intrigued by the video in the posts after the article by mselenaous BCD Remove and replace. Key Largo Buoyancy class - YouTube
because it was so at odds with my experience trying integrated weight systems after diving for years with a weight belt.
Watching that video made me open a separate thread on the doffing/donning drill (http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...5-weight-belt-less-integrated-weight-bcd.html) discussing using a weight belt AND integrated weights to stay neutrally buoyant.
I would be interested in boulderjohn's comments regarding maintaining neutral buoyancy in a wet suit without a weight belt while doffing the gear. I can't quite tell how the guy in mselenaous' video did it horizontally in that shallow pool without weights on his wetsuit, without floating to the surface. It must have been because he was SO careful to stay under his negatively buoyant rig during the drill. Impressive, but realistic? Dunno.