Obviously, once you have your
NAUI Leadership and Instruction book and standards and policies (S&P) manual, you'll be able to answer quite a few questions yourself (or at least, *I* did
). In the meantime, let's see what I can say...
Swimming:
Zero to 1650 is a great plan to build up swimming stamina for the 450-yard swim. I *highly* recommend it to almost anyone (although the "real" swimmers will find they have far surpassed it). Even from not swimming far at all, after just a few weeks, anyone can make the swims, no problem. (My form is terrible. I don't kick much, my head's too high, and I don't breathe like a swimmer is "supposed to". I finished the 450 around 8:45 without really pushing at all.)
Oh, how about this one: When you load the half-sheet-size 3-ring zipper binder with the pages as you assemble your S&P manual, take the orange "Other" tab and put it at the table of contents for "Section 2" of "Standards and Policies". Then write "Standard Ratios: 2.17" somewhere on the ToC. Section two is where all the course standards are, so having that marked is convenient. (Section one is all the NAUI business-related stuff, like bylaws and such, which you probably won't refer to as often.) Also, the order of the sections (so the tabs line up properly) is REFERENCE, EQUIPMENT, TRAINING, DIVE LOG, MAP LOG, STANDARDS AND POLICIES, (OTHER... if you use the "cheat"), and RISK MANAGEMENT. It was not at first straightforward how they arranged them, but that's it.
As for the watermanship skills and other requirements, the list above was the basic list from the S&Ps. With NAUI, your instructor has the academic freedom to add to those basic standard requirements as he sees fit, but in any case, you must be informed at the start what requirements you must meet. Usually that's done in a handout at the beginning (ours had all the standards, plus some additional water and classroom skills we would be adding to those standards). If it's not covered, *ASK*!
If you don't have any other sheet detailing precisely what you have to do, there's one great idea that my shop does. They make a copy of the skills list flap of the student folder, which details all the standard skills with places to sign off on them. As we complete requirements, they not only sign off on our folder, but they also sign off on our copy of the list. That way *we* know what we've done, *they* know what we've done, and we can compare and fill in any that may be missing from one or the other (for example, perhaps they didn't have the folders at the pool). We have three instructors working the class, so doing it this way helps keep everything documented, and it certainly makes *us* feel as if we don't need to be concerned at all with whether someone will remember what we've already done.
As for the watermanship skills, they're simple pass/fail. It's not like PADI where you are graded 1-5 on each, and you have to get a certain number of points to pass. Of course, if your instructor wanted to, he *could* do something like that over and above the standards, but the standards give a clear pass/fail break that you *must* make. 450 yards swimming in 10 minutes. 900 yards with mask, fins, and snorkel in 18 minutes. That type of thing.
NAUI DM is a superset of NAUI AI (unlike PADI DM, which is a precursor to PADI AI), so you'll also be doing presentations in class and in the water. You'll learn quite a bit before you get to that part, most likely, but when you get your materials, you can look at page 252 of
Leadership and Instruction for the criteria on which those presentations will be judged. When you work up your plan, you can just tick off those a box at a time and pass muster fairly straightforwardly (although it *definitely* gets easier with practice :biggrin
. The standard NAUI PowerPoint presentations are a great guide when making your own. If you mimic their form ("By the end of this lesson...", etc.), you'll have a head start, but obviously, don't just copy.
I guess that's about it. Feel free to join in on the [thread=221608]Generic running updates thread -or- "Going Pro's Goings Prose"[/thread] thread I started a while back (you don't have to post as lengthily as I; I've just got a bit of a Garrison Keillor streak in me). It's for any of us posting anything and everything, even just updates on what was covered in class. (It's fun to share your progress with others, and sometimes you get little nuggets of useful information when someone remembers a tip about what you're covering.) Well, safe diving. :biggrin:
