NSS-CDS Effectiveness

[MikadoWu]

What I find funny is the mid to later 90's has always been considered the heydey for cave certifications, and we probably had more cave divers than now. Back then we the cornflakes at Ginnie, there was silt on the floor at OG, Peacock didn't have hand prints and fin marks in large conduit passage, the clay in LR didn't have deep gouges etc etc. Many people have pointed out that with the advent of the for profit agencies entering the sport, these problems have grown. No matter who it is,.the caves are suffering from lack of quality of cave divers. I remember the survey I did for a UWS article on cave conservation years ago, and the one common denominator was student's "cave conservation" lecture with entry level training was either nonexistent or barely enough to register for so many agencies. A basic problem is the average duration that people stay in cave diving is 3 years, so they really don't see the damage over time,but the "tourist" caves are really showing a lot of damage.

First off, I really like a lot of what you have commented on in this thread.

You stated the 90's was the heydey, how true is that? Are the numbers going down, is the avg age going up?

To take everything in a self reflecting direction, could the problems be the instructors and or the community as a whole?

IMO, Cave diving is not as glamorous as OW. Not to be rude, but most of the caver divers are not attractive to look at. I can go down to Jupiter and onwards to the Keys, the site seeing and conversations are just better.

I spent almost 2 1/2 years reaching out to IANTD and NSS-CDS instructors. I get Cave diving is serious stuff, but there was really no welcome to cave diving we love to have you feeling. It felt more like you must meet my schedule, we are the Borg and will assimilate you.

I did end up doing my Cavern Course which got in a bundle deal with a NACD/TDI instructor. I did like him, treated more like a mentee.

 

[Superlyte27]

The cds doesn’t think there’s a problem with the cds. They still believe they are the best training agency, with the best instructors and the best resource for cave conservation. I’m certain they think, “well, we’re better than any alternative “

you have to admit you have a problem in order to want to change.

And to us, outsiders, why does it matter? I think I’m at the best agency for what I want to do. I get fantastic support. I teach more than I want to. And for a guy like me, I will always be able to dive caves, no matter how bad the Dan Wright’s of this world screw things up.

I never once considered joining the cds. I never once tried to become an instructor for the cds, even when my closest friend was the training director of the cds. I have a friend who’s life’s passion is to be an instructor for the cds, and is one of the most prominent instructors in this generation and can’t get in. Why bother.

Honestly, I love TDI. They have been fantastic to me, but if I were to do it all over again, if I really wanted to be what the cds thinks they are, and truly be among the elite instructors across the globe, I’d teach for GUE.

 

[Superlyte27]

That is a huge stretch to come up with that assumption. Since the mid-90s the internet and social media has blown up. Cave diving is all over the internet and people have easy access to it. That then brings new or more people to the sport. New people not properly trained cause damage. To say that it's all due to new agencies is a huge stretch.

I started cave diving in 1996. I knew virtually every active north Florida cave diver by face. Today, I couldn’t even recognize every cave instructor, let alone diver. They’re are easily 50x more active cave divers today than there were in the 90’s

 

[kensuf]

It wasn't discussed. Joining to board isn't going to fix anything unless you wipe it clean and start over.

The renewal and membership database issues were discussed in BOD email. I left the board at the end of December and have no idea what the status is of fixing that issue is, but in December I found out two people that were convinced they were current weren't.

The organization can definitely benefit from fresh blood. The last election, the three people that became board members ran unopposed.

 

[kensuf]

That is a huge stretch to come up with that assumption. Since the mid-90s the internet and social media has blown up. Cave diving is all over the internet and people have easy access to it. That then brings new or more people to the sport. New people not properly trained cause damage. To say that it's all due to new agencies is a huge stretch.

I'll agree to a point. I think that people saying "in the 90s there was no damage because the quality of the divers was better" is taken through the lens of faded memory. The cornflakes were mostly destroyed by the time I started cave diving in 1994 and the last time I saw a real bone in the bone tunnel was when I was taking my full cave class. By 1998 the Double Lines looked pretty junked up too. So things weren't as halcyon days as we hear.

On the other hand, I do tend to think that there was a watering down of quality of instruction in the early 2000s as the sport became commercialized and more agencies offered cave programs. I think some of this is directly attributed to the pathway to becoming an instructor being more streamlined / less stringent. I think this contributed to damage, absolutely. Back in the 90s I would have never seen the video that I saw in 2011 of people literally walking around the Park Bench in Ginnie -- no cave diver would have ever done something like that.

However, we had a shift in the past decade and I do think that the overall quality of instruction today is better than it was 10 years ago. Is it where I wish it was? No, but is it better than 2010? Yes. Unfortunately, I think we kind of peaked a few years ago and we've seen a slight dip in the last three years, I hope that the community can correct or that maybe I'm being overly critical.

I also think there is always room for good cave instructors and I try to set an example for others by being as thorough as I can possibly be. Anyone that wants to do a ride-along is welcome to do so if I'm not at limits.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

I do tend to think that there was a watering down of quality of instruction in the early 2000s as the sport became commercialized and more agencies offered cave programs.

I agree completely.

 

[boulderjohn]

I joined CDS after getting my cave certification quite some time ago. Since then, I have frequently forgotten that I am a member, and so I have sometimes not been a member because I forget to renew. I forget to renew because I am on automatic renewal, which apparently does not work. You do not get any reminders when you do not renew. I remember a number of years ago that I realized I had not gotten an issue of the magazine in quite some time, and so I checked and went through the process again. I have still not gotten a copy of it in the years since then. I have not received a current membership card since my first days in the organization. CDS is certainly not showing any interest in having me as a member, so I frequently forget that I am one.

I have not gone to the website to check on any of this because I am not sure what the point would be. The fact that in this thread people have cited NFSA as a better alternative to CDS is telling. The two do seem to have about the same mission, and that mission is summed up by the NF part of NFSA. I don't live in North Florida, and I don't frequently dive there. When I leave Colorado for a cave diving trip, I generally go to Mexico. I went to the Bahamas once--great trip! Some friends and I keep putting off a trip to Missouri. So I do not feel a great and pressing need to contribute to an organization dedicated to North Florida, no matter how laudable their goals may be.

 

[karstdvr]

You stated the 90's was the heydey, how true is that? Are the numbers going down, is the avg age going up?

I don't know what the numbers are presently. There were quite a few certs in the 90s which really spawned an industry to build gear for cave divers, because up to that point, a lot was home made. I do recall a lot of certifications, to such degree, that one agency gave recognition for the most certs.

To take everything in a self reflecting direction, could the problems be the instructors and or the community as a whole?

Good question. Diving skill such as buoyancy, trim etc fall on quality instruction. Care about the cave environment and teaching about cave features fall on the instructor and agency. The ultimate problem is the cave diving paradigm in general. We are trained as divers,but don't have the appreciation of a caver. Dry cavers have huge appreciation for cave conservation and taking care of the environment, we don't have that

I spent almost 2 1/2 years reaching out to IANTD and NSS-CDS instructors. I get Cave diving is serious stuff, but there was really no welcome to cave diving we love to have you feeling. It felt more like you must meet my schedule, we are the Borg and will assimilate you.

I did end up doing my Cavern Course which got in a bundle deal with a NACD/TDI instructor. I did like him, treated more like a mentee.

Sorry for the problem you had with finding an instructor,but remember most people don't do this as a job,but do this on the side. I am glad you found someone you resonated with and liked.

 

[karstdvr]

. The fact that in this thread people have cited NFSA as a better alternative to CDS is telling. The two do seem to have about the same mission, and that mission is summed up by the NF part of NFSA..

Thank you for the mention of the NFSA. The thing is the NFSA is a support organization for several state parks with making the experience better for visitors of the park, and cave diving is one of many recreations. The NFSA doesn't have a focus on cave diving, and doesn't have any ability to do anything outside of these parks. That being said the NFSA could never help with problems at Eagles Nest, Little River etc that have had problems in the past. I am one of the founders of the NFSA and created this organization with the state with the specific mission in mind, which cave divers have been able to benefit from,but never wanted to be a cave agency

 

[boulderjohn]

I want to comment on some of recent posts about instruction. I am not a cave instructor, but I am a career educator with deep training in educational theory and instructional design, and I am a technical diving instructor. I feel cave diving instruction has some of the same flaws as all instruction, both in diving and in education in general.

In 1893, a group of educators around the USA formed a committee, chaired by the president of Harvard University, with the goal of introducing a model curriculum for high schools across the nation. At that time, only a small percentage of Americans graduated from high school, and the committee had no problem with that; for most people such an education was not needed in 1893. They ultimately described a curriculum modeled on the entrance requirements of Harvard University. That curriculum is still the basis for American education, with shockingly few changes. We are still demanding that students meet the 1893 entrance requirements for Harvard. We live in a completely different world today. If we were to put together a new committee with true experts who could completely erase all that history and start from scratch to identify what modern American education would look like, they would come up with a completely different plan. That can never happen though, because traditionalists would scream that they are watering down instruction, even if it were actually more rigorous than before.

Technical diving in general and caving diving in particular was designed long ago by people doing the best they could at the time. None of them climbed a mountain and came back with etched stone tablets. Instruction for both technical diving and cave diving could use a complete revision, with people who truly understand the theory of instructional design starting from scratch, throwing out all the tradition and using a solid, educationally sound process to arrive at a consensus of what students needed to now and be able to do. They can then design instruction to meet those goals, creating a very different program from what we have now. But that would never happen, because traditionalists would scream that they are watering down instruction, even if it were actually more rigorous than before.