Brigde,
I was wondering if you could elaborate on this statement.
It almost reads like a new person to diving should not take a recreational course at all becuase what is taught is of little benefit.
The basic skills taught in a recreation class like bouyancy and just the introduction to diving I feel are applicable to PSD diving. From my experience the DRI 1 or LGS classes are not the place to learn basic Scuba skills.
Sorry about that. None of the PSD classes I'm aware of can be done without first having OW training - didn't mean to imply that.
Having said that, allot of the OW courses out there will be grossly inefficient for preparing a person for PSD. The padi special weekend course may work OK for the reefs of the carribean but I've seen so many guys struggle trying to do an entry level PSD course that we will re-cert everyone OW "the PSD way" even if they already have an OW card. Even "experienced/advanced" sport divers will struggle.
Things that a standard OW course usually miss:
1) able to do all skills midwater AND w/o mask
2) comfort with blackwater (not the same as maskless)
3) hovering and exact buoyancy control through pinpoint weighting
4) entanglements
5) touch communications (blackwater)
6) pony bottle use - sport diving usually considers this "advanced" or "solo-diving"
7) dry suit
8) FFM
I know that DRI and LGS have their own entry level OW programs that address all or most of this. Add these things to a PSD course which include solo-tethered diving, search procedures, contingency procedures and rapid response skills and the task loading is extreme.
I realize that there is the odd OW course that is exceptionally good and may train new divers to a proficient level in a few of these points but I doubt you'd find one that did all of them. Its simply too much to squeeze into the standard 20hr program (or whatever they've diluted it down to these days...)
mark