Just finished up “zero to hero” with @Trace Malinowski
Rather than give a day by day breakdown of everything we did, will just give an overall picture of what the course was like and then what I think about his teaching style.
The course took 8 days but could be done in 7 if you wanted to push yourself. We had scheduled 10 days of total time to include class + fun diving after class and so we went at a comfortable pace and stretched it to 8 days of class. The class itself was standard. Powerpoint slides in the morning which was pretty terrible. PSAI doesn’t have any online material and requires you to go through the slides with the instructor. The slides are essentially verbatim copy of the book you have to read before you come to class and so it is a completely waste of time. Trace recognized this as well and has been trying to get rid of the slides however it’s a requirement by the agency. Then there would be land drills which were very useful. Then 2 75ish minute dives a day. Over the class time we went to three systems – peacock springs, ginnie springs, and little river. Days tended to be about 12 hours long total.
Overall this was the best training I’ve ever received. Trace is very laid back overall, but takes your training seriously. This will not be militant style degrading training, but also will not be aa “just put in the class time and you are guaranteed a pass.” He is very good about keeping you on your toes and figuring out both where you excel and where you need more work. When he finds your weakness, he will exploit it and make you work hard to improve over the upcoming dives. I feel like there was a drastic improvement in my ability over the course time.
One thing I really enjoyed is that Trace will teach you what the technical standards are and what technically the manuals say you are supposed to do on a dive, and make you do that too in the beginning, but then will on later dives explain to you realistically what everyone is doing and how everyone is diving. His philosophy is to teach you the right way but also explain to you what everyone else is doing around you so that when the class is over and you are diving without an instructor you know how everyone in the area is realistically diving.
He also takes a lot of time to teach you how to actually dive each cave. Other instructors will constantly hammer you with failures and break you over and over every dive of the class. By the end of the class you will be comfortable with failures, but will have no idea how to actually cave dive. Trace will take time to teach you the subtleties of each cave and how to actually be an excellent cave diver (assuming you’ve proven to him earlier that you can handle the failures, and still every now and again they will be thrown in to make sure you are staying on your toes).
In summary, I would recommend Trace to anyone who is looking to learn to cave dive, is willing to work hard and take it seriously, but also wants to have fun doing it. I’ve already scheduled some other courses with him. Was well worth the time and money.
Rather than give a day by day breakdown of everything we did, will just give an overall picture of what the course was like and then what I think about his teaching style.
The course took 8 days but could be done in 7 if you wanted to push yourself. We had scheduled 10 days of total time to include class + fun diving after class and so we went at a comfortable pace and stretched it to 8 days of class. The class itself was standard. Powerpoint slides in the morning which was pretty terrible. PSAI doesn’t have any online material and requires you to go through the slides with the instructor. The slides are essentially verbatim copy of the book you have to read before you come to class and so it is a completely waste of time. Trace recognized this as well and has been trying to get rid of the slides however it’s a requirement by the agency. Then there would be land drills which were very useful. Then 2 75ish minute dives a day. Over the class time we went to three systems – peacock springs, ginnie springs, and little river. Days tended to be about 12 hours long total.
Overall this was the best training I’ve ever received. Trace is very laid back overall, but takes your training seriously. This will not be militant style degrading training, but also will not be aa “just put in the class time and you are guaranteed a pass.” He is very good about keeping you on your toes and figuring out both where you excel and where you need more work. When he finds your weakness, he will exploit it and make you work hard to improve over the upcoming dives. I feel like there was a drastic improvement in my ability over the course time.
One thing I really enjoyed is that Trace will teach you what the technical standards are and what technically the manuals say you are supposed to do on a dive, and make you do that too in the beginning, but then will on later dives explain to you realistically what everyone is doing and how everyone is diving. His philosophy is to teach you the right way but also explain to you what everyone else is doing around you so that when the class is over and you are diving without an instructor you know how everyone in the area is realistically diving.
He also takes a lot of time to teach you how to actually dive each cave. Other instructors will constantly hammer you with failures and break you over and over every dive of the class. By the end of the class you will be comfortable with failures, but will have no idea how to actually cave dive. Trace will take time to teach you the subtleties of each cave and how to actually be an excellent cave diver (assuming you’ve proven to him earlier that you can handle the failures, and still every now and again they will be thrown in to make sure you are staying on your toes).
In summary, I would recommend Trace to anyone who is looking to learn to cave dive, is willing to work hard and take it seriously, but also wants to have fun doing it. I’ve already scheduled some other courses with him. Was well worth the time and money.
