Could someone give me a brief outline of how they would run this with a PADI OW course and keep within standards? I read an earlier list in the thread and it made a fair amount of sense.
Are there area's I haven't seen yet? So for an example, it was mentioned, I wouldn't let them do a fin pivot (I agree by the way) - But from what I remember it was mentioned to specifically ask them to do a fin pivot?
What Rob (Diver0001) wrote is one way to do it, and it is how I do it. There is nothing in the standards to be concerned about. Every standard can be done this way without any issues. to the amazement of almost everyone who tries it, there isn't a whole lot involved with learning how to do it this way. The students actually find it easier to learn the skills this way when they are not trying to keep their balance while kneeling.
As for being required to do a fin pivot, the fin pivot has not been a requirement for quite a few years now. It was removed because instructors were obsessing about the form of the fin pivot, forgetting that it is not actually a dive skill. the entire purpose was to have students experience the rise and fall associated with breathing. That's it. You can do anything that shows that.
Like why the hell would we want them sitting on their knee's holding the deflater straight up...because then in Open Water when they are horizontal and hold it straight up (i.e. horizontal in reality) it does nothing...gosh! Why haven't we been doing this for ages already! Makes SO much sense
Several people, including Diver0001, collaborated on an article on this that PADI published in their professional journal a number of years ago. That is what started the trend. The original draft of that article was more than twice as long as the published version. In that original article, we included a history of the practice, with Dr. Sam Miller helping with that. We realized that there was never really a time when it was done differently. When instruction on scuba skills began, there was nothing to help with buoyancy--the wetsuit had not even been invented yet. Tanks were just strapped on the back, using straps held to the tank with simple bands. there was really no other way to do it. By the time the modern BCD was invented, the practice had become an unquestioned tradition.
A second reason is implied in your most recent question--people incorrectly assumed that instructing while kneeling was required by standards. After PADI published our article on neutrally buoyant instruction, several people on ScubaBoard made it a crusade to try to convince everyone that doing it that way violated standards, and they warned that anyone doing it could be expelled. When we published direct statements from PADI headquarters saying it was perfectly fine to do it that way and no standards prohibited it, that did not deter them. Incredibly enough, they argued that when you write to PADI headquarters about issues related to standards, the person responding from headquarters is only giving his or her opinion, so those statements have no more validity than anyone else's. In one case, they even said that a statement from PADI President and CEO Drew Richardson was just his opinion, and what he was advising instructors to do was a standards violation that could get them expelled.
It is that kind of mindless hysteria that gets in the way of progress.
