Self Reliant/Solo pre-requisites vs DiveMaster pre-requisites

[Fastmarc]

I've seen numerous here DMs and instructors saying they solo a lot to do prep for taking students out, so it really is strange this difference. They have to be at the very least solo equivalent and then some IMO.

 

[Steve_C]

After you have driven a car for several years you learn that a lot of stuff can happen and you become attuned to it. I see a kid riding a bike as I pass him I do not assume he will see me and not cut in front of me. Happened again yesterday. I stopped in time. Experience does not help everybody but to be safe you need the experience.

The unmentioned filter in the system is the dive ops. Sure you can be DM after 60 dives but will you get a job? Most of the good ops I know require additional training and lots of experience. The new hires I see have all had way more than 60 dives.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

So I've been thinking lately. PADI requires that a diver has a pre-requisite 100 dives before enrolling in the self-reliant course; but, they only require that a Divemaster have 40 dives to enroll (60 to complete). Does that make any sense to anyone? You can be a professional who can guide other divers and assist in the instruction of students before you can be responsible for yourself? I was listening to a youtube video by DiversReady on Solo-vs Instabuddy and he made the point that as an instructor you are always solo because a student can't possibly be responsible for an instructor and an instructor can't count on a student to assist them. That makes perfect sense to me. Why then is it ok for a dive professional to be less experienced than a solo diver, or asked another way why must a solo diver be more experienced than a professional?

If the instructor feels that way, he's a crap instructor and taking people into open water before they are ready. Any single one of my OW students could come to my assistance if I had a problem during checkouts. If I felt they could not, we'd still be in the pool. Shows how much training has been watered down.
Because at the end of those dives, that person is getting a card that says they can dive without a pro.
It makes no sense that an instructor would take people into the water that could not come to his aid or their buddy's.

 

[TMHeimer]

After you have driven a car for several years you learn that a lot of stuff can happen and you become attuned to it. I see a kid riding a bike as I pass him I do not assume he will see me and not cut in front of me. Happened again yesterday. I stopped in time. Experience does not help everybody but to be safe you need the experience.

The unmentioned filter in the system is the dive ops. Sure you can be DM after 60 dives but will you get a job? Most of the good ops I know require additional training and lots of experience. The new hires I see have all had way more than 60 dives.

Good point. It's one thing to get the DM cert. and another to get a job. Shops apparently require more than the minimum to work for them (as was the case with me here).
I agree with Jim completely, though unfortunately he is far more thorough than most shops.

 

[Esprise Me]

But why have a standard at all if quality assurance can be left to the dive shops, who will implement their own hiring standards?

Also, there seems to be a lot of room between totally unable to assist a fellow diver with a problem and reliably able to be a buddy in an emergency. Sure, don't take your students from the pool to open water if they can't respond to an out of air signal and hand over their octo. But if the instructor's hose bursts, can you be sure that any of the students can overcome the bystander effect to reach through the cloud of bubbles and assist the instructor (who, in my OW course, was not anyone's buddy) in a timely fashion? If so, why do they even need those checkout dives?

 

[loosenit2]

If the instructor feels that way, he's a crap instructor and taking people into open water before they are ready. Any single one of my OW students could come to my assistance if I had a problem during checkouts. If I felt they could not, we'd still be in the pool. Shows how much training has been watered down.
Because at the end of those dives, that person is getting a card that says they can dive without a pro.
It makes no sense that an instructor would take people into the water that could not come to his aid or their buddy's.

Pretty intense comment there. I’ve noticed a pretty strong tendency for some to call others crap or garbage because they don’t agree with their opinions. This is a pretty harmful way to contribute to a discourse, much more useful to seek to understand why someone does something before you blast them.

It does not seem at all unreasonable for an instructor to approach every teaching dive as a solo dive. They are with students who have not yet shown mastery of skills in an OW environment, which can be very different from a pool. Until a student has shown mastery of a skill it is safer to not count on their ability to perform it in an emergency. That is a sentiment I have heard over and over in other SB threads.

 

[Steve_C]

Until a student has shown mastery of a skill it is safer to not count on their ability to perform it in an emergency.

Showing mastery of a skill in a class situation. is good. It is no guarantee that they will perform well in a true emergency when the old adrenaline hits. Assuming that they will in fact handle things correctly seems almost like a trust me dive to me.

 

[TMHeimer]

Showing mastery of a skill in a class situation. is good. It is no guarantee that they will perform well in a true emergency when the old adrenaline hits. Assuming that they will in fact handle things correctly seems almost like a trust me dive to me.

Yes. It is probably impossible to be 90% sure that anyone will be able to assist in a true emergency, let alone students. People like me, who have never been anywhere close to a real emergency for myself or another. I just assume my rescue course training and a calm head would prevail, but who knows.
If I were still an active DM I wouldn't post this for the .000001% chance that a student in my course would read it and lose confidence in me. But there is no way to practice a real emergency when you know it's not real.

 

[AfterDark]

Pretty intense comment there. I’ve noticed a pretty strong tendency for some to call others crap or garbage because they don’t agree with their opinions. This is a pretty harmful way to contribute to a discourse, much more useful to seek to understand why someone does something before you blast them.

It does not seem at all unreasonable for an instructor to approach every teaching dive as a solo dive. They are with students who have not yet shown mastery of skills in an OW environment, which can be very different from a pool. Until a student has shown mastery of a skill it is safer to not count on their ability to perform it in an emergency. That is a sentiment I have heard over and over in other SB threads.

Giving someone a card that says they can dive without a pro, when the instructor considers diving with that diver a solo dive is much more harmful than a comment, IMO.

 

[loosenit2]

Giving someone a card that says they can dive without a pro, when the instructor considers diving with that diver a solo dive is much more harmful than a comment, IMO.

Who said anything about giving them a card if you were not confident in their abilities? I said it was not unreasonable to not count on them acting as a buddy until they had shown mastery of a skills in an OW dive. That means not counting on them as a buddy until they completed their OW dives and were no longer students.