A Cert Card for everything, including how to tie your shoe...

[Kingpatzer]

Correct, the dominant model that you subscribe to has new divers either popping to the surface like corks or mucking about on the bottom until they pay an extra fee to learn what could be easily taught by a competent instructor in the same time as the dominant model courses. Check out what Grateful Diver or BoulderJohn are doing when it comes to teaching buoyancy, you might get up off your knees and learn something.

My you just can't pass up a chance for a gratuitous personal attack can you? Have you ever met a student I've worked with?

 

[Thalassamania]

No, but then you've a lot of opinions and cocksurity for one who has produced how many divers on his own? Was the number zero?

 

[boulderjohn]

Check out what Grateful Diver or BoulderJohn are doing when it comes to teaching buoyancy, you might get up off your knees and learn something.

I think that there are a number of people who turn out divers who are have respectable buoyancy control right out of OW class. That does not mean that they cannot benefit with more work later on. There is really nothing in the PPB class that should not be taught in the OW class as far as concepts go, but more practice with an instructor is helpful for anyone.

By "should be taught in the OW class," I am not disparaging the course content as it exists. The concepts are all there--they are just too often slighted by instructors are so focused on specific skills (like mask clearing) that they do not put in as much emphasis on buoyancy as they should. Everything you need to know to do PPB is now part of the OW curriculum.

And, yes, doing instruction off the knees is a big help. The only time in OW pool work that my students are negatively buoyant is early in CW3. The start off with the normal instructional position (like a fin pivot), achieving this on their own with no trouble since they have been doing it since CW1. I then have them dump their air so that they can achieve the same position using oral inflation of the BCD. Other than that, they are neutrally buoyant, although far from perfect in being so. (Lots of banging on the bottom, for sure.)

As I said, there is never any harm in learning more. I thought my buoyancy skills were pretty darn good until I started tech diving and felt like an absolute beginner again. Working on my cave diving certification improved my skills tremendously. When I am doing blue water ascents and having to hold decompression stops, I still struggle a little to hold my position in horizontal trim. I need more practice. This past weekend I worked hard to help a diver beginning his tech experience, a man who probably looks beautiful in Caribbean waters but who was struggling in a dry suit and steel doubles.

The existence of a specialty does not necessarily mean something was not taught earlier. In many cases it is just an opportunity for further skill development under the eye of an instructor, just as I worked with that man this weekend.

 

[Thalassamania]

Have you written you experience up for the PADI Journal? I think that the message you're sending is critical to get out as widely as possible.

 

[boulderjohn]

Have you written you experience up for the PADI Journal? I think that the message you're sending is critical to get out as widely as possible.

I am not sure what you mean. I think you know I wrote a detailed description of my procedures to PADI several months ago, and the response was quite positive.

 

[stratdax]

I'm not sure what has already been covered in this thread (probably everything), but I just finished my Open Water with PADI, so I thought I would give you grizzled vets some perspective from a newbie.

I'm sure most people here have been diving for years, and when you started it was probably viewed as an extreme sport. One for naturally athletic, confident, adrenaline filled type people. Courses were no doubt designed with this in mind - these type of people have a propensity to be able to grasp concepts and just naturally be able to do them comfortably.

Nowadays, it's a recreational sport. Open Water certs have to accomodate people who have not had much experience in the water. In a couple of the modules I did, there were a couple people who literally couldn't swim. In one of the modules they test your swimming proficiency by making you swim 200 meters (or something), gear free. One guy sank like a rock. The other doggie paddled 50 meters and then clung to the edge in exhaustion.

Obviously, the instructors had no choice but to not continue these people forward in the course, but it's an example of just how casual this sport is viewed now.

So with this in mind, and the Open Water cert structured to give people who have never even swam in the ocean or snorkled a chance to try Scuba diving, that means they have to focus on the basics. What good is boyancy skills, or knowing how to change the second stages on your reg, or going deep, if it takes somebody two modules to be comfortable clearing their mask?

It's not PADI's fault, it's how the general public views Scuba diving now. Is PADI (and the other agencies), supposed to turn them away?

OR,

Do they make the Open Water cert accessible to all (most) people, not just the naturally athletic and dedicated people? Sure you can keep Scuba difficult to enter by keeping the skills requirements high, but then Scuba suffers globally.

Courses like Peak Performance Boyancy, Dry-Suit, whatever else... aren't necessary for anything. It isn't a pre-requisite to go diving. These are courses offered for people who want to take them. Why not offer people the option to take these? The kind of people I illustrated above don't need to worry about these kind of things until they actually manage to get through Open Water and prove that they can at least not die when they go under water. Then they can worry about improving the single skills they need to work on.

And as for the naturally athletic kind of people who just "get" it? Well they don't have to take those courses at all. Nobody forces them.

Sorry for the monster post.

 

[scubadada]

Intolerance. Training is for a purpose.

I did my initial training with the LA County Underwater Unit in 1970. My training was rather intense for an introductory course but had some interesting features. This predated octopi, depth guages, and pressure guages. I had an advanced Scubapro system that included a pressure guage though I still had a J-valve. I dived actively for a decade before life demand limited my diving.

After nearly 15 years of inactivity, I became recertified with my 12 year old son. Since, I have pursued training through Rescue with several subspecialities. Now, I have nearly 500 contemporary dives and am competant in a wide variety of environments. Training and experience have contributed to make me a competant diver. Most of you would have no fear in diving with me under most circumstances that I would choose to dive.

Best, Craig

 

[tracydr]

Thanks Mike! Yes, CMAS offers Specialty Courses the minimum training hours are:

1. Search and Rescue Specialty: 3 hours Classroom, 8 hours Openwater

2. Ice Diving Specialty, after Two Star (**) Diver (after One Star Diver an additional 50 hours training, 20 OW dives with a minimum 50 hours logged): The Specialty requires 5 classroom lectures followed by 3 dives.

3. Underwater Navigation: 3 hours Classroom, 3 hours Sheltered OW, 3 hours OW

4. Dry Suit Specialty (if not included in the One Star Program): Classroom (1 hour), Sheltered OW (1 hour), OW (2 dives)

That's all I'm aware of. Everything else falls within the **** Star Training System or is identified as a Nitrox, Trimix, Cave, Scooter, or Rebreather or Gas Blender program and is not considered to be a "Specialty."

Is ice diving about overhead environments or just diving in ice water? Sounds interesting. Too bad they don't teach all the cool classes in AZ. Can't even get a tech course around here, really.

 

[Thalassamania]

I am not sure what you mean. I think you know I wrote a detailed description of my procedures to PADI several months ago, and the response was quite positive.

Excellent. I'd love to see it become PADI's standard way of doing a class.

 

[boulderjohn]

LOL..just discovered there's a cert for diving the SPIEGEL GROVE

Sounds great! Do you know who offers it? (A distinctive specialty can only be taught by those who created it.) Assuming it teaches what I hope it does, I might be interested.

A course that provides detailed maps and a couple experience dives so that I can make meaningful, safe penetrations, knowing where I was going, would be very helpful. I would think that the people who got lost in it and died a couple of years ago would have benefited from such class.

Oh, wait--I just noticed the "LOL." Were you implying there is something wrong with teaching this sort of thing? If so--why?

Earlier people mocked a shore diving distinctive specialty. Last year I was on the Big Island of Hawai'i, and a local diver took me on a couple of shore dives. I would be more than happy to take a good, reasonably-priced class that showed me where the best local shore dives are.

Yes, it might be possible to get local people to do the same thing, but the key word is "might." Before I went to Hawaii'i last year, I asked about this in the Hawai'i section of ScubaBoard, and I got one person who could dive with me for one day. That's it. A class would have been a very reasonable alternative, especially considering how outrageously expensive are the boat dives there. (Maybe that is why a distinctive specialty such as this is, to my knowledge, not offered there.)

I don't see the problem with this. If you think a class is valuable, take it. If you don't think it is valuable, don't take it.