Specialty course/instructor quality?

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From my experience, it is worth looking for a particular instructor: you will find out that it is not much more expensive per hour of their time to get a well known instructor with a good reputation than another instructor.
 
From my experience, it is worth looking for a particular instructor: you will find out that it is not much more expensive per hour of their time to get a well known instructor with a good reputation than another instructor.

See post #2. How exactly are you finding your instructor?
 
INTERVIEW your instructor ask previous students ...........its up to you to do the picking not who conveniently works for the store
 
See post #2. How exactly are you finding your instructor?
You can find indirect ways to find them: you can have instructors who talk in diving shows, for example Mark Powell, who has written books about technical diving.

Some have written books and are well known like Martin Farr.

If you check the prices of instruction with well known instructors you will see that the premium is generally not huge, but you will have to incur some travel costs.

Also you can join a diving club and/or ask around when you go training/diving: this is usually how I found local instructors.

For a practical example, if you browse the speaker list here for this show:

Dive Show Speakers | #GODiving | Go Diving Show

You will see for example John Kendall, who is a GUE instructor. I did a class with him and learned a lot. If you have time, you can even go to the talk and talk to them in person :)
 
I had truly memorable experiences in the Florida and Canadian boonies with 'name' instructors. Sucky experience with a 'name instructor' locally. Some damn Canadian at Dutch Springs pursuing his own ego. No worries, as of the present, he can no longer enter the US.

You take your lumps and get your next nickel ready... Life owes you nothing.
 
Some defence of the instructor.

Was buoyancy & trim part of the course or were you supposed to already be proficient?

If I’m teaching a skill, but the student isn’t up to scratch on their general diving skills, and I feel it appropriate to go back over them - I stop the planned lesson. The student will have to either:
* do extra dives, or
* arrange another session to do the course.

I teach in a club where competence is important. In the commercial world you get taught what you pay for.
 
Some defence of the instructor.

Was buoyancy & trim part of the course or were you supposed to already be proficient?

If I’m teaching a skill, but the student isn’t up to scratch on their general diving skills, and I feel it appropriate to go back over them - I stop the planned lesson. The student will have to either:
* do extra dives, or
* arrange another session to do the course.

I teach in a club where competence is important. In the commercial world you get taught what you pay for.


Twice, with different students, I've halted the wreck course because their core skills aren't up to scratch and where there is disparity between two students abilities

It's impossible for them to properly practice, say line laying if their buoyancy is poor.

Dive 4 is a little wreck penetration not at all difficult in reality but mentally "challenging" for a first timer No one is going in there without half decent control


Unfortunately in the commercial world Dive 1 of any course is where you see the basic skills of the diver

There is only so much time available on each dive. If you're practicing and correcting skills which should already be there you're not practicing the skills of the lesson

I'm more than happy to accompany a student on a fun dive as their buddy to work on skills improvement outside of a course if they so desire.
 
Some defence of the instructor.

Was buoyancy & trim part of the course or were you supposed to already be proficient?
First, I shouldn't have posted that. However, it was seen and he is owed an explanation from my POV.

My dive bud had just moved away and I no longer had to be in survival/rescue mode chasing an underwater squirrel. Time for me to think about me. I needed skills and knew it. So I found a book on skills, and read his book cover to cover several times taking copious notes. I had several personal contacts with the instructor, thought that I made myself clear. I just wanted a solo card so that I could practice my skills at Dutch Springs.

I found myself as an add-on to a group of highly advanced students who were taking some other course. Trim and buoyancy? Yes, expected but not told to me beforehand.

We were all to put colored clips on our D-rings, hand our long hose to our partner, and descend as a single triad, stopping at stations along the 'don't touch' line in the center. Remove a clip and replace it with one of yours. Hell, if I could do that then I wouldn't have taken the course in the first place. In way over my head.

I strongly encourage students to be able to differentiate between assessment courses and teaching/learning courses.
 
INTERVIEW your instructor ask previous students ...........its up to you to do the picking not who conveniently works for the store
From my experience, it is worth looking for a particular instructor: you will find out that it is not much more expensive per hour of their time to get a well known instructor with a good reputation than another instructor.
You can find indirect ways to find them: you can have instructors who talk in diving shows, for example Mark Powell, who has written books about technical diving.

Some have written books and are well known like Martin Farr.

If you check the prices of instruction with well known instructors you will see that the premium is generally not huge, but you will have to incur some travel costs.

Also you can join a diving club and/or ask around when you go training/diving: this is usually how I found local instructors.

For a practical example, if you browse the speaker list here for this show:

Dive Show Speakers | #GODiving | Go Diving Show

You will see for example John Kendall, who is a GUE instructor. I did a class with him and learned a lot. If you have time, you can even go to the talk and talk to them in person :)

All three of these posts highlight my original point, agencies are failing. A new OW student is not going to know how to do this, the agencies need to ensure their OW instructors all continuously meet agency standards, that is one of the agencies main reasons for existing.

For more advanced training a student will have a better idea of what he is looking for so all these suggestions are good. I would still argue that agencies could provide a better service by facilitating student searches, and it would help them police their own and execute better quality control.
 
All three of these posts highlight my original point, agencies are failing. A new OW student is not going to know how to do this, the agencies need to ensure their OW instructors all continuously meet agency standards, that is one of the agencies main reasons for existing.

For more advanced training a student will have a better idea of what he is looking for so all these suggestions are good. I would still argue that agencies could provide a better service by facilitating student searches, and it would help them police their own and execute better quality control.
I see what you mean and disagree with you.

I posted (what I think are) sources to find instructors who may go beyond the standards: this does not mean that the majority of other instructors do not meet the standards.

There may be instructors who have low quality classes (and I have done classes which I regretted paying for) but I have no idea whether this is the majority.

There is a difference between doing the standards and going beyond them. The vast majority of the OW students learn enough to do a few scuba dives and be reasonably safe, you may think that this is not enough but this is another point than "the agencies are failing".
 
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