Biggest thing killing dive shops?

[MichaelMc]

Clarify exactly what you mean, please.

I'm just a rec instructor and an average tech diver.

I started diving in the early 00's. What is the problem? What skills am I lacking? And why can't the free market compensate for them if it's a problem?

Mostly just that new divers and those not going really deep, 100' and less, are the bulk of divers. So issues around them have big impact on the market and economics.

Yes, if experience divers just want an experience, we could let the market devolve to some VR service or full immersion videos. I happen to like diving in the ocean, with good gear, with others around as well. So I would like an industry to exist that allows that - shops, air fills - and puts people in the water with me that preserve the stuff I like looking at. To me, that means new and < 100' divers that are safe and not panic causing in the group. To me, that means in control of themselves in the water. Buoyancy - safe - and trim - not damaging stuff. That is my view.

Tech divers might affect the market by pissing people off, I agree. But their perspective on safe and in control in the water has value, suitably conveyed.

 

[MichaelMc]

I did not answer what skills you are missing or why the market can not compensate for them.

I do not know what skills you are missing. But you're a tech diver, and addressing them is not an issue for the larger market. I will leave any of your skill deficiencies to GUE and the like.

I think lack of control in the water is a problem -- buoyancy and useful trim. For safety, diver satisfaction with the experience, and preservation of the experience for me. I would rather the market not compensate for that lack of skill. Yes, the market could. Waivers, virtual reality, or dragging 'divers' around by their first stages could do that. If that occurs at the expense of training in control 100' or less divers, I would prefer that not happen.

So I am interested in how the market can be nudged, by its professional staff and interested divers, to keep in control safe divers in the water. As a very junior potential member of that staff.

 

[gcarter]

Clarify exactly what you mean, please.

I'm just a rec instructor and an average tech diver.

I started diving in the early 00's. What is the problem? What skills am I lacking? And why can't the free market compensate for them if it's a problem?

You seem to be taking a lot of this very personally. I doubt very many - if any - of the comments posted have been meant that way.

In any case, it is worth repeating that the SB membership is not at all representative of the majority of divers, even active ones. Certainly within the group I dive with locally, quite a large group, very few are on here. Go the group of experiential divers and the representation on SB is even less. The point being, it is not just you and it is certainly not just me that the industry needs to address. I doubt that there is anyone on here that has done any actual research on that extremely large group not represented on SB.

So people are speculating. Their speculation is no more or less valid than yours. Stop taking it personally.

 

[boulderjohn]

Pinarello doesn't meet my needs, nor do a BP&W meet the needs of most Experiential or Occasional divers. But a dive shop sure pushes them hard.

It's rare dive shop in Colorado that sells BP/Ws, and the ones I know that can do it don't stock them and do everything they can to put students in jacket BCDs.

The free market approach is to keep cutting training time and instructor qualifications until some deep pocketed training agency loses a massive death lawsuit.

"Keep cutting training time and instructor qualifications"--like it's happening all the time, right? Can you name an agency that has cut training time or instructor qualifications in the last couple of decades? The agency that you imply has done that has not dropped any requirements in that time and has added a bunch.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

But, how many hours/days was your OW course 30 years ago? That may be an easy way to show the difference.

I was PADI 1998. One full weekend 8 hrs each day of class and pool, swim test, snorkel test, mask off and lead all the way around the pool breathing underwater w/ no mask, and all other skills including buddy breathing off one reg and going up, CESA, etc. Then second weekend was ocean dives both days (Gerstle Cove) four dives- two each day in 48 degree water (in wetsuits) with surge and 6’ vis with urchin everywhere. We also had to do a skin dive the first day before any SCUBA diving and freedive down 20’ with no weight belt and grab a handfull of sand to prove we made it. Everybody passed except for one lady who decided before hand she would do her check out dives on her vacation with a pre arranged instructor.

My friend got certified through SSI just a few weeks ago.
He did all his bookwork online, and then they did their pool time somewhere. Number if days unknown? But I can find out. Ocean dives were in Monterey at San Carlos beach (no one goes to Gerstle anymore), three dives on Saturday and the fourth on Sunday which was a fun dive. On the fourth dive all they requiref was to plan and conduct a dive with a buddy and come back alive and they passed. I came down Sunday to dive with my him as his official fourth dive “buddy” and ended up taking four of them out as a tour guide.
We did a second dive (dive five for him) later and ditched everyone and went out to the metridium fields.

He did great, but he also has years of freediving experience in Sonoma County as an abalone diver.
I am still learning as to what they not teach him that they taught us.

If modern training is supposedly sufficient and “good enough”, then I, and many people before me, must have been grossly and unnecessarily overtrained.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was PADI 1998. One full weekend 8 hrs each day of class and pool, swim test, snorkel test, mask off and lead all the way around the pool breathing underwater w/ no mask, and all other skills including buddy breathing off one reg and going up, CESA, etc. Then second weekend was ocean dives both days (Gerstle Cove) four dives- two each day in 48 degree water (in wetsuits) with surge and 6’ vis with urchin everywhere. We also had to do a skin dive the first day before any SCUBA diving and freedive down 20’ with no weight belt and grab a handfull of sand to prove we made it. Everybody passed except for one lady who decided before hand she would do her check out dives on her vacation with a pre arranged instructor.

Can you name a standard that was removed between 1998 and now? Back then buddy breathing was optional, not required. I am not aware of anything else that was taken away. Some of the things you mention are not very descriptive, so you might be talking about things that are still done today. Some of the other things are things that the specific instructor you had added to the course--they were not universal.

I will offer you a challenge. Get a hold of PADI standards from 1998 (I have them, BTW.) For every requirement you can name that was taken away, I will name 3 that were added since then.

By the way, that is about when I was certified. The whole thing took 3 days. That was accomplished by skipping a bunch of standards, which I did not know at the time.

You are committing the fallacy that shows up every time a thread like this comes up. You assume that because your class was done a certain way back then, ALL classes must have been done that way. If you see a class today, you think ALL classes are done that way. Since my class 20 years ago was a 3-day course, should I assume that all classes then were only 3 days long, and the far longer classes today show that ALL classes are much longer today?

 

[boulderjohn]

I want to address the familiar refrain of "Back in the golden age, we listened to 5 weeks of lectures, and now they just take an online course or do home study. The fact that we spent more time sitting in class shows how much better things were then."

It reminds me of the time a friend of mine told me he taught his dog to talk. I went over to the dog and tried to talk to him, but all I got was an occasional "woof." I went to the friend and said, "I thought you said you taught your dog to talk? He can't say a word!" My friend got quite huffy and said, "I told you I taught him to talk, and I did. I didn't say he learned it!"

The key to the quality of learning is whether or not students understand and remember information, not the number of hours spent learning it. Lecturing is the most inefficient and ineffective means of transmitting information so that students actually learn it. The home study process and the online process have proven to be much more effective in getting students to learn the academic material. The fact that you learned under an inefficient system is not a reason to endorse it.

 

[StefinSB]

Have you not seen the AFF solo freefall being pushed so that you can get certified in only 7 jumps? The USPA cert numbers are very low in comparison to scuba, so shops are actively trying to get skydiving to the masses beyond the tandem bucket list jumps by cutting the cost and time involved with certification there too.

You are either conveniently or out of ignorance omitting that after AFF you still need to get your A, B, C, and D licenses. Nobody I know would even remotely assume that an AFF graduate is a ready for the world. Blue Skies.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

My friend got certified through SSI just a few weeks ago.
He did all his bookwork online, and then they did their pool time somewhere. Number if days unknown? But I can find out. Ocean dives were in Monterey at San Carlos beach (no one goes to Gerstle anymore), three dives on Saturday and the fourth on Sunday which was a fun dive. On the fourth dive all they requiref was to plan and conduct a dive with a buddy and come back alive and they passed.

They did their 4th dive without being a certified assistant?!?

 

[StefinSB]

What are you guys actually using a metric for the success of dive instruction? If modern instruction is so bad as people say wouldn’t the accident rate spike? Did it?