Ranking of Scuba Specialty courses

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One can flutter kick and use their hands to back up.
I suppose. If they are holding a camera, it is harder. If they are holding a big camera, it is impossible. if they just took a picture of a nudi or a seahorse, the LAST thing you want them doing is backing up by using their hands. I'd rather teach the student useful skills than get all caught up in the exact wording of some instructor guide. The guide never says flutter by the way, so it is reasonable to teach several kicks for several situations.

Again, PPB is usually asked for by -- or suggested to -- a student who is less than comfortable with their buoyancy. Maybe you were perfect as a student in your OW class; most aren't, and more instruction and more practice and more feedback are useful. If the OW classes produced perfect divers, why would GUE need to exist?
 
I suppose. If they are holding a camera, it is harder. If they are holding a big camera, it is impossible. if they just took a picture of a nudi or a seahorse, the LAST thing you want them doing is backing up by using their hands. I'd rather teach the student useful skills than get all caught up in the exact wording of some instructor guide. The guide never says flutter by the way, so it is reasonable to teach several kicks for several situations.

Again, PPB is usually asked for by -- or suggested to -- a student who is less than comfortable with their buoyancy. Maybe you were perfect as a student in your OW class; most aren't, and more instruction and more practice and more feedback are useful. If the OW classes produced perfect divers, why would GUE need to exist?
Is a camera anywhere in the performance requirements? Yes, an instructor can interpret the requirements to mean backfinning. That'd be awesome and that's how it should be, but rarely is. How many recreational instructors across all agencies can back fin? It comes down to what is the lowest common denominator allowed in a course.

And you mean GUE fundies. AG created that course because the skillset of people trying to take GUE's technical diving courses was consistently insufficient.

And FYI, I was a disaster after my open water course. I sat on my knees the entire time on a rope with 36 lbs of lead. The only time I left that rope was for the CESA and the out and back with my buddy by ourselves, not monitored. Never hovered. That's not PADI's fault. They can't monitor every course to make sure standards are met. I was still a disaster after my PPB course. It wasn't until I took GUE fundies that my weighting issues and trim were finally fixed. I didn't know any better. I wasn't cratering or corking, as I learned over time to control the consequences of carrying excessive weight. Having it dialed in did make diving easier and last longer as I wasn't wasting gas.

Listen, you think I hate PADI (and I do), but they are not alone in needing to tighten up their open water courses. AFAIK, no agency bans placing students on the knees, including RAID (and NASE). They are just better than the rest in that they require skills ultimately need to be performed neutrally buoyant. I haven't dug through their standards yet to see if they require trimmed (and what angle).

PPB is marketed to everyone. "Work on your buoyancy!" If PPB was marketed as "hey, your buoyancy, trim, weighting all likely suck because your OW instructor/course sucked, take PPB to fix that" and if PPB had the performance requirements (and not just potential) to actually fix that, then I wouldn't consider it to be so worthless. It has the potential to be good, but it has the potential to be horrible all while meeting performace requirements. It is marketed in a way that sweeps their crappy open water course under the rug.

If I don't train a student who comes to me for training, I first want to go on a fun/evaluation dive, no cost and evaluate their basic skills and weighting. I do acknowledge that dive pros in dive destinations do not have the luxury to do this. I will not criticize them for tha
 
PPB is simply a bandaid for a poorly taught OW course. It is completely worthless for a properly taught OW class. And I know plenty of PADI instructors who provide just that. And they never teach PPB as a result to their OW students. They only use it for remedial OW training for divers that were poorly taught by someone else.

To be fair, every agency has a PPB of one form or another. I've never taught one of my students one, but I have done some serious tuning in advanced. Not something I'm terribly proud of, but when you only have 6 hours of pool time and a big class...

These days that isn't an issue, but we live and learn right?

There's a handful of agencies where I wouldn't expect a student to show up needing work, but they probably certify, if we're being generous, 10k divers a year.

The big(ger) agencies all have crap instructors putting out crap students. I don't blame PADI for that, but maybe we need a a scubaboard certification then we could all look down our noses on everyone who isn't doing it out way?
 
To be fair, every agency has a PPB of one form or another. I've never taught one of my students one, but I have done some serious tuning in advanced. Not something I'm terribly proud of, but when you only have 6 hours of pool time and a big class...
Agreed that all agencies have some form of PPB. Using SSI as an example, they do require both frog kicks and backfinning. I'd like to see a bit more, but SSI does have in their standards describing a process of working through the dive center (as SSI is dive center focused) and then through SSI HQ for augmenting courses. You already know about SDI and NAUI that encourage instructors to do so. Anyway, I'm looking at the IM (anyone can download). The language for describing frog kicks is a bit awkward.

Class is key for me, as I found with no more than 6, I didn't need 6 hours of pool time when teaching NB/T. Teaching on the knees, I did. I always had an hour for "games" where students would be practicing buoyancy with some task loading, learning to fin smoothly, etc..

These days that isn't an issue, but we live and learn right?
For some shops/dive centers that is an issue, as they are stuck in their old ways.

There's a handful of agencies where I wouldn't expect a student to show up needing work, but they probably certify, if we're being generous, 10k divers a year.
Well, here's the disconnect. I had a conversation last night with Peter, and everyone at his shop was against teaching NB/T. But then the owner saw his students were taking more classes and buying more gear. So the move to teach that way was encouraged. Hopefully I'm not misrepresenting what Peter said, but that's my understanding.

One of the local shops teaches under NAUI for OW and their tech program is GUE. They keep the classes small (1:4), and most of their customers buy gear and take additional training. The shops that teach large classes, on the knees, it is basically one and done. Are mask, fins, snorkel, and gloves have such a high margin? I don't have the exposure to know. I've been told it is, but I

The big(ger) agencies all have crap instructors putting out crap students. I don't blame PADI for that, but maybe we need a a scubaboard certification then we could all look down our noses on everyone who isn't doing it out way?
I did submit a week ago a blog series to SDI on how I teach NB/T. It has to go through the review process now, but I'm looking forward to making whatever edits are necessary and seeing it published. I don't blame most instructors for teaching poorly as they don't know any better. I do blame CDs/ITs however. When I did my IDC, I didn't even hear anything about John's, Peter's, and other's article that they wrote in 2011. I'm frustrated with all agencies of moving the bar so little after such a long time.
 
If instructors need a class to get other people's students straightened out, and PPB is so close to OWs specs, it seems like it should just be called scuba tune-up.

NAUI had a refresher class to "re-establish proficiency owing to diving inactivity". You got a certificate, not a new certification. If it has been more than 12 months, various skills must be done in confined before open water. The performance specs read rather similar to full OW. It was teachable by NAUI DMs (who come after AIs in NAUI). Except I am not finding refresher on NAUI's site now.

Padi has Re-activate which seems a bit differently structured.

As titles go, re-activate is a bit awkward for polishing, brush-up, or remediation if it was say just last month that you got certified. Refresher is a bit more palatable. Though neither fits the "well you can take the this plus plus PPB class" good sounding title and rationale for why you might immediately need it.

wetb4igetinthewater,
- RAIDS OW manual barely uses the word trim.
- Their adv 35 intro manual has a short discussion, with a short description of holding still, seeing how you roll and shifting weights to fix it.
- The adv 35 equipment manual has a good explanation of weights for trim, no diagrams, but a good short description. It could use a mention of tank strap pockets or even shoulder strap pockets. They prefer hybrid or BP/W systems, in their deep class, but I do not believe they describe that they place ballast up along the back, where it helps trim.
-The adv 35 physics manual could use a trim section with lever arms and horizontal and vertical drag. And could describe the adjustable length lever arms of diver legs or arms. They do not really say why you want to be horizontal, or more exactly easily horizontal capable without skulling, as in near co-located centers of mass/weight and volume/buoyancy.
- Adv 35 manual looks for no more than 10% head up from horizontal.
I am hoping that the OW manuals are getting a refresh to include more of that, as OW is where students are likely selecting equipment.
 
wetb4igetinthewater, RAIDS OW manual barely uses the word trim.

Their OW manual may not talk about trim, but their instructor playbook for confined water certainly does. It's in the first line of training on page 8:

THE ART OF TEACHING NEUTRAL BUOYANCY (AND TRIM)

From this dive on, you must coach your students to begin the process of mastering neutral buoyancy and to demonstrate skills and drills in mid-water and off the pool bottom. You may already have a method of teaching these critical and interrelated skills, but the following short document goes into some detail about a way to teach them that’s simple and that seems to work for the majority of new students.

I can't speak for them, but personally I like to show/demonstrate/teach what to do... I picked that up in one of my non-scuba instructor courses; if you talk about how to do things wrong, students will often grab onto that instead of what you are trying to teach.

For example I have worked with instructors in open water who said, "Don't take the regulator out of your mouth." during CESA instruction. Probably 20% of those students did just that. I will ask, "Where does the regulator stay?" and every once in a while, someone will remove their regulator.

What I'm wondering is if RAID is just modeling the correct behavior, so there's no need to have lengthy discussions in the text.
 
THE ART OF TEACHING NEUTRAL BUOYANCY (AND TRIM)
That passage about balancing a ruler is good. Yet nothing like it is in the student's manual that they read prior to class. Adding that short passage would give the student a heads up on the concept. The instructor material has good stuff, it just seems more of the ideas need to get into the OW student materials.

In the Playbook it would be nice if "under weighting with your scuba gear" p50 they added 'once the amount of weight is determined, ensure it is distributed for a balanced weight distribution for trim.' They do have "Also coach them in the positioning of ballast" in the training note.

Similarly, in the student confined manual under gearing up it says: 'Distribute your weights evenly for comfort'. It does not mention for trim, or that 'later we will distribute them also for trim'. Only later under the hover drill. If needed, adjust the position of the weights and cylinder to achieve trim while hovering. Again, the instructor materials have good stuff, just the OW manual seems it could put it in the student's view more.

(Outside of the student downloading the instructor development program manual and playbook. Which is an awesome thing to be able to do, but unlikely to be done by most OW students.)
 
Not sure if RAID still has all their manuals downloadable, but when they did, I downloaded like crazy.

Looking at the file OC_Open_Water_Instructor Guide_V2_3_17Jan19.pdf, I noted the content on "Check correct weighting" on page 8. If required, while a bit rough, this should mitigate grossly overweighted students.

Looking at OC_OW20_8_Confined_Water_Training_ENG_V2.05_04Oct19, section 8, page 6, the buoyancy workshop is decent. I like the part of determining of how much weight the diver needs with just their exposure suit. I don't see mention of these being rough methods and needing to fine tune at the safety stop with a nearly empty cylinder (or I missed it).

@VikingDives

What's the filename that is the instructor's playbook? Not finding it in OC_Open_Water_Instructor Guide_V2_3_17Jan19.pdf
 
Under Instructor Development Program:
RAID_INSTRUCTOR_PLAYBOOK_V1.5_Feb_1_2021_C
Thanks for the heads up. Not sure if there were previous versions online or I just missed it last year. I'll have to go through and see if there are updated manuals for all the courses from that time.

Anyway, excellent discussion, one that I've never seen in training materials of any agency until now (I'm sure there is something like it in DIR instructor training materials, I just haven't had access).
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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