Capt Jim Wyatt
Hanging at the 10 Foot Stop
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Is it fair to bring all new gear to my AOW class?
- Thread starter Moby Dickins
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garyh
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The above being said takes me back to 1998, decide to do a NAUI deep diver specialty with my brand new Cressi reg set (why I ever bought those is beyond me
).Was living in North Bay, Ontario Canada at the time.
Day one no issues just doing build up dives in a lake close to home.
Day 2 we head up north to what was known as Spring Lake, I'll leave the temps to your imagination its fall in the great white north and we r diving wet.
Buddy and I gear up, Instructor sets up his lawn chair on the beach and pulls out his thermos of coffee.
Ok guys I want you to enter here, follow the btm down to 120', hang there for 10 mins ascend to 20' and swim back to shore.
What can I say young and stupid the instructor is always right.
Head down to 120, hangin there, wtf is all that noise and why r there so many bubbles down here.... we r totally narc'd.
Relise my primary is full out free following, switch to bu start pushing the purge try to stop the FF, not happening.
Look at my buddy, all I c is the whites of his eyes he is totally freaking out.
Make a free accent on my own with spg in hand watching my pressure drop, 1/2 way to surface I decide to stop the FF by folding the primary hose over and clamping in my fist.
Amazes me to this day I didn't take a DCS hit, the accent was lets say not so controlled.
Shake down dive would prob b a good idea.
wnissen
Contributor
Your suggestion is an excellent one if the OP decides not to do a shakeout dive. As a contrast, the Deep dive would probably be a bad choice to do first. Last thing you'd want is to be feeling narced for the first time and having to fart around with things not feeling right. Or a new reg. My general rule of thumb that I was taught in Open Water was that when you get a new piece of gear, you take it to the pool. I've since amended that to add, "unless there's a good reason not to." Sort of like safety stops, you do one unless you've got a good reason not to. I don't think the instructor and/or buddies will have a problem if you just show up, everyone has issues. But given that you're paying for instructor time, I think you'll get more out of it if you're not strugging with basics. Esprise Me, your offer is extremely kind, especially when you know he's going to be in all-new gear!
When it was created so many decades ago, AOW was primarily designed to introduce the student to different diving experiences that might catch the student's interest--hence the 5 different dives. Thus, there is not a whole lot of focus on general diving skills outside of those specifically required for those 5 dives. A lot of instructors, including me for sure, try to remedy that by looking at the diver's current diving skills, diagnosing issues, and doing what we can to remedy them. DIving as I do at a somewhat higher altitude, I love to have students select altitude as one of the dives because there are no skills required during the dive. That gives me that entire dive to work on whatever needs to be done.
For such instructors, coming in and talking about your lack of experience in that kind of diving and with that gear just makes our job of diagnosing what needs to be done all that much easier. It gives us a great starting point for the class.
For such instructors, coming in and talking about your lack of experience in that kind of diving and with that gear just makes our job of diagnosing what needs to be done all that much easier. It gives us a great starting point for the class.
If you were coming to me with all new gear for AOW, you would not be in the class with all of it for the 1st time.
We'd be doing a minimum of one pool or confined water session with all of it and working on weighting, trim, and a few basic skills. At no additional cost.
Depending on how you did, I might recommend or perhaps require you to get a few dives in before the class to work on what we did. But my AOW class is not typical and I have minimum entry skill requirements before you can enroll in it.
I wrote my own AOW class to be within agency standards for SDI but at the same time using every bit of the leeway they allow instructors to augment and enhance the class.
If you don't have your buoyancy and trim along with basic skills down, you won't enjoy my class. There's a good chance you wouldn't pass it or even make it through to the second day.
We'd be doing a minimum of one pool or confined water session with all of it and working on weighting, trim, and a few basic skills. At no additional cost.
Depending on how you did, I might recommend or perhaps require you to get a few dives in before the class to work on what we did. But my AOW class is not typical and I have minimum entry skill requirements before you can enroll in it.
I wrote my own AOW class to be within agency standards for SDI but at the same time using every bit of the leeway they allow instructors to augment and enhance the class.
If you don't have your buoyancy and trim along with basic skills down, you won't enjoy my class. There's a good chance you wouldn't pass it or even make it through to the second day.
This isn't a function of the student owning their equipment or renting it, this is a function of their skill level prior to your AOW course. It is actually worse for the student who is going to rent equipment since the equipment will fit and work worse than new equipment they own. I don't see the reason why a person who invested in their own equipment be penalized and scared away just because they did that when it should be the other way around.
I don't turn people from other agencies or instructors away from my own version of the NAUI AOW course because they will have less skills than the students who took my entry level course. I add to the AOW I teach two session in the pool (6 hours) and two session in classroom for these student who need remedial work including my former students who took the OW course long time ago and haven't been diving for a while.
In my AOW course we do 10 - 12 dives at least in openwater, two pool sessions and 16 hours classroom time in addition to the NAUI eLearning program (NAUI now has a fantastic revised online training program for OW and AOW that is superior to anything I have seen from other agencies.)
Are you supposed to teach and help the students improve and enhance their skills in addition to learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge or simply penalize them for not being up to what you expect at the beginning of the course and send them home to fend for themselves on their own?
I take a different approach when dealing with students wanting to take my AOW course who have less than ideal skill and knowledge level, I help them get up to the level they need to be at to start the course by giving them time to do remedial work with me prior to the actual AOW course not send them home after telling them they need time out to learn things on their own giving a good chance for them to learn it wrong or not at the level that is expected of them. I even do remedial work for students who had considerable experience but it was not done at accepted standards or up to date knowledge, I don't' send anyone home, I make them stay and I do my job as an educator to help them do better and be at an up to date level.
The question I have here, why should the OP be worried about him using his newly acquired equipment? What is the alternative, use rental equipment instead of his own new equipment, is that really going to be better??
wnissen
Contributor
Plenty of people get AOW in rental equipment, I'm sure it's the norm in resort areas. I even did mine in Southern California right after Open Water, when I owned just mask, fins, and snorkel. It went fine! With all due respect (truly) to the more demanding instructors, my guess is the vast majority would not require additional preparation from a student in unfamiliar gear. The OP has a choice, though.
One of the required dives for AOW is the deep dive. One of the most important aspects of deep diving for someone who will be doing those dives with a 7mm suit is the dramatic difference in buoyancy at the different depths during descent and ascent. I would go as far as to say that dealing with the changes using 7mm will be the most important part of that instruction. I think it would be criminal of an instructor to avoid teaching that to a student simply because it is new gear.
The very first time I (as a new instructor) had an AOW student doing the deep dive in a 7mm suit for the first time, we were at about 70 feet when it was time to ascend. I gave the thumb. She was also the first diver I had ever encountered who had been taught during her warm water, 3mm suit days to dump all her air before beginning to ascend. I never dreamed someone would do anything that stupid, let alone be taught to do something that stupid by an instructor. Well, I managed to catch her before she plummeted too far. After that, I was careful to extinguish any embers of that kind of instruction before teaching students new to 7mm suits.
The very first time I (as a new instructor) had an AOW student doing the deep dive in a 7mm suit for the first time, we were at about 70 feet when it was time to ascend. I gave the thumb. She was also the first diver I had ever encountered who had been taught during her warm water, 3mm suit days to dump all her air before beginning to ascend. I never dreamed someone would do anything that stupid, let alone be taught to do something that stupid by an instructor. Well, I managed to catch her before she plummeted too far. After that, I was careful to extinguish any embers of that kind of instruction before teaching students new to 7mm suits.
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