Qualifications of a DM
- Thread starter Raphus
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The Chairman
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ginti
Contributor
Fair point. Let me rephrase it: you don't need to be a pro to lead a dive.
My point still stands: I don't want to lead professionally (that is, for a diving centre), but I'd still like to teach in confined waters and pools. Only very few agencies allow me doing it, and they aren't mainstream
It's a long held belief of mine, that each course would have an exit requirement with regard to certain skills - say buoyancy with ever increasing standards
I think that for DM there should be an entry test of skills - to include the swim tests before you can start on the course - although I appreciate that impacts those doing the course on vacation with limited time.
I spend an awful lot of time on students in the pool getting them up to working level of skills, kicks and buoyancy, time which could be better spent refining them and giving them more experience in other stuff. They will get more learning experiences diving alongside real customers making real errors then they would in the same time pootling around a reef
ginti
Contributor
You are needlessly hung up on names that survive as relics of history.Isn't the PADI "master" diver simply a paid(!) marketing "certification" that you've done 5 "specialities"? Good to see that you didn't fall for it
In the mid 1960's, the few training agencies that existed offered two certifications: diver and instructor. There was no technical diving program then, and the skills we associate with it were in their infancy. Sheck Exley, the father of cave diving and many of the skills associated with technical diving, did his first cave diving wearing a single LP 72 cylinder and no buoyancy control device. He would swim for a while, sink to the bottom to rest, and then swim again. When he first set records for diving depth, he plummeted to depths now required for trimix certification.
In the mid 1960s, the Los Angeles county program, concerned that so many OW divers were dropping out after certification, created a program designed to introduce divers to different kinds of diving in an attempt to pique their interests. Logically, the certification was called "advanced." NAUI, which grew out of the Los Angeles program, followed suit, and eventually so did the other agencies. The Advanced Open Water course was the most advanced training you could get without becoming an instructor.
Some students clamored for more training in specialized areas, and thus the idea of specialty courses evolved. There were few of them then, so if a diver took 5 such courses, the diver would have exhausted the possibilities of training. The Master Scuba Diver recognition was created for such divers.
Today the possibilities of training go far beyond those primitive levels, and the names of those certifications can seem silly. So we have two choices:
- Accept the reality of the certifications and shrug off the inaccuracy of certification names from more than a half century ago
- Get our panties in a wad and mock them on social media, as thousands of people have done in the last couple decades.
ginti
Contributor
SlugLife
Contributor
I absolutely agree that dive-professionals should be trained for the task at hand, and may not be needed for other tasks.
- Dive Instructors don't need to be trained how to lead tours on a daily basis.
- Dive Tour Guides don't need to be trained on how to lead classes.
Phrasing.
People who have never seen it done cannot imagine the difference in skill between new divers who were taught using a neutral buoyancy approach and divers who were taught on the knees.
"Imagine" is the right word in that context. I have never encountered an instructor who has said, "I tried it both ways and prefer to do it on the knees." What I hear instead is something like, "I think teaching on the knees is just fine, and I can't imagine it would be any better teaching neutrally buoyant. In fact, I imagine it would be much harder for the students, and I imagine in would take much more time to teach the class that way. My imagination is so very powerful that I can compare the two methods accurately in my imagination, and that proves to me that it is better to continue teaching on the knees."
"Imagine" is the right word in that context. I have never encountered an instructor who has said, "I tried it both ways and prefer to do it on the knees." What I hear instead is something like, "I think teaching on the knees is just fine, and I can't imagine it would be any better teaching neutrally buoyant. In fact, I imagine it would be much harder for the students, and I imagine in would take much more time to teach the class that way. My imagination is so very powerful that I can compare the two methods accurately in my imagination, and that proves to me that it is better to continue teaching on the knees."
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