Challenge: can Scubaboard collaboratively design a fundamentals skills course?

[Mantra]

Hi gang!

I have a proposal.

I'm writing to ask if the good folks at scubaboard could please help design a skills course for newly certified students.

THE IDEA:

We put our heads together to design a course that sits between OW and AOW, aimed at helping new divers extend on their OW skillset, but concentrating on general skills rather than the situation-dependent ones AOW offers. Something that further establishes good diving practices among the newly certified.

I propose that a need exists for this among conscientious newly certified divers who want to build skills and good diving practices but do not feel a need for AOW or GUE fundies style courses just yet.

THE INSPIRATION:

In the recent thread that TSandM started here (http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...6-somewhat-sad-conversation-last-night-3.html) nwgratefuldiver, aka Bob, posted the following:

A few months ago I started offering a skills workshop specifically for people who are relatively newly certified and wanting more than they got out of their classes ... mostly they're interested in better buoyancy control, propulsion, trim, and buddy skills. Once word got out that I'm offering that class, I've had a steady stream of customers. I could teach nothing but that workshop and be busy almost every week-end ...

I immediately thought, "aw, man, I wish I could take that course."

I'm exactly who Bob is describing here. I'm fresh out of OW in February, but am diving as much as I can and coming up on my twentieth dive soon. I'm not interested in going AOW yet, as I don't need deep, or night, or other specialist skills just yet. GUE fundies looks amazing and useful and is something I aspire to, but is probably a bit expensive and a bit more than I need just yet. I know DIR has a lot to teach me, but for now want to stick with my jacket BC and my OW hose setup etc.

What I would love though is something just like Bob describes - a little skills course over a day or two that will help me get better practice out of the shallow, simple, recreational diving I'm currently enjoying. You guys here have really influenced me in thinking that it's just best to take things slow, to dive comfortably and learn gradually. Thanks. It's a wise approach.

Bob got me thinking - why don't I hit up a local indie instructor with a wish list of skills and ask them to tailor a little course for my buddy and I and maybe some other people from my university dive club.

And then I thought that maybe others could benefit from this too, and that there are a lot of people here with all sorts of experience who could probably draw that wish list up better than I could.


THE CHALLENGE:

I reckon with all the great expertise here, SB should be able to put together a really great newbie skills course that would be a good next course after OW. Feel like designing one together? My contribution will be to consolidate the ideas in this thread, be a guinea pig and document what the course is like to take from a newbies position.

Maybe this can be an open-source, creative-commons type curriculum that other indie instructors can offer or use for inspiration. I really think Bob is onto something and that a gap exists here.

So my question is - what would be your dream course for students like me?

I am thinking:

Teaching different kick styles (flutter, frog, ????)
Teaching buoyancy / trim (what are the most useful skills here?)
Teaching buddy skills.
Safety skills (in the water practice using a safety sausage or even DSMB?).
Maybe some nav stuff?

What would you suggest? What do you think are the most important things for a newbie to learn, or what things were the most useful for you to learn when you were starting out after being certified?

It seems to me that the idea is Bob's, so I hope I'm not appropriating any IP or anything (please let me know, Bob, or anyone else if this seems out of line and if so I will request the mods that this get taken down). Credit should absolutely go to Bob as being the inventor of the idea. I just wish you were closer!

Thanks all!

Please get creative Maybe this can make a contribution, or at least be a good thought experiment.

 

[The Chairman]

Dive instruction today has gone in several directions. One that I have embraced has been to move away from a "serial skills" course and towards a more integrated diver competency course. While all the skills are learned serially in the pool using an approach that builds one on the other, the open water portion concentrates on seeing this skills naturally as divers plan and execute their dives. In other words, rather than having my divers kneel on the bottom performing one skill after the other, they do their skills as they do their dive. Kneeling is not a part of my class and neither are snorkels!!!

In addition to the normal tasks just as mask removal/clearing, air sharing techniques, BCD doff/donning, weight doff/donning, Reg retrieval, ESDs, PDC usage among others, I also require my students to learn the basics of non-silting kicks (frog), the ability to change direction without use of hands, using a safety sausage, surface rescues and excellent buddy awareness. In my mind those last few are what makes a course a bit above average and gives my students confidence that their dives will be FUN.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

One of the things that seems to happen today with instruction is that many instructors mistakenly believe that they have to teach the courses as set out by their agencies. Agencies do little or nothing to dispell this myth because workshops like Bob and others offer that do not result in a certification mean less revenue for the agency. I have been doing weighting and trim workshops for three years now. Along with basic skills and now dive planning.

As an SEI instructor a number of the skills you allude to are taught in our OW courses. Students are not tasked with demonstrating skills kneeling but they are to be done with proper trim and neutral. Either hovering or swimming. I have them do both. In addition tailoring workshops to individuals is highly beneficial. Another route I offer is to not do AOW after OW for those like you who don't care about deep, night, etc. I wrote my UW Nav course to fill the gap since my own belief is that UW Nav is a core skill of the competent diver. But by making it six dives and focusing on buddy skills, teamwork, communication, buoyancy and trim, and non silting kicks divers get more instruction in a core skill that affects every area of their diving. And I try to steer them into rescue before AOW as well.

Your idea is good. But we need to keep the agencies out of it and encourage individual instructors to think for themselves and think outside the box and have them look at each individual as an individual and not get stuck in a prescribed method that does not allow flexibility. What is needed is one that promotes it along with creativity.

 

[TomZ]

Wow! This could be a can of worms!!

I'm a newly re-treaded diver. I was NAUI OW certified in the early seventies, diving for a few years, salt (New England) and fresh. After a 35 year hiatus my wife (no real previous experience) and I were OW PADI certified last September. After certification in a quarry in Ohio, we didn't dive until Cozumel in February. She now has 15 logged dives, I have 20. (Didn't log dives back in the day, maybe 50 or so). She's happy where she's at with her certification level. I'm perusing further training. In college I was certified an a Red Cross Water Safety Instructor (WSI). This last tidbit is just to illuminate my mindset.

The two OW certs were decades apart. There were significant differences. I attributed those differences to my murky memory. After joining SB, I learned my perceptions were accurate. The OW class has changed focus, some say "dumbed down". The attitude of the instructors was a bit more adversarial the first time. Some of the differences make sense to me, some don't. Understanding the physics concepts of diving are important, knowing how do do the mathematics is not. I can be competent in calculations during a class and for a while after, but that competency fades with lack of use. Do I really need to know how to calculate the gas needed in a lift bag to lift xx lbs? Did the instructor need to drop a ball into my snorkel while swimming around the perimeter of the pool?

Things I wish for in an "in-between" class, (in no particular order):

1. Discussion of CO dangers and brief intro to CO testers.
2. A bit more about DCI prevention and importance of the services DAN offers.
3. More on buoyancy, most definitively. I paid a private DM for three days, mostly to get my wife competent and confidant concerning buoyancy.
4. More drills on weight ditching, it's a skill that needs to be reinforced until automatic. Many new divers have and train with integrated weights, then go on a vacation dive where they use a weight belt for the first time.
5. Teach buddy breathing. If my buddy and I are down to one functional regulator, I'll be damned if I'll do a CESA first, rather than share a reg.
6. Maybe this is more a Cozumel thing, but information on down currents, their causes and how to deal with them.
7. More emphasis on fitness and swimming skills, especially for us over 50 crowd. You don't need to be a great swimmer to dive.... until the feces
impact the impeller.
8. Kicking techniques, as mentioned previously.
9. Practice safety stops. Practice safety stops. Then practice safety stops.
10. Buddy awareness. My wife and I have had discussions on this. She trusts me to be her sheepdog waaaay too much.
11. CPR and rescue breathing. Should be mandatory for OW IMHO.

 

[Mantra]

One of the things that seems to happen today with instruction is that many instructors mistakenly believe that they have to teach the courses as set out by their agencies. Agencies do little or nothing to dispell this myth because workshops like Bob and others offer that do not result in a certification mean less revenue for the agency.

Absolutely. And also, I guess a lot of instructors are attached to dive shops etc too. I really liked my instructor and thought he did a great job and taught everything comprehensively and carefully. But he worked for a dive shop catering to the holiday crowd, and as such it was strictly by the book with no extras. I imagine this is a common approach evidenced by, for example, many shops offering padi ow in 3 days now.

It's really useful to hear from you and netdoc. Thanks guys! Detailing what you instructors chiose to add to a bare-bones-by-the-book-agency OW is a great way to frame the same question I was asking. Ditto with commenting on what you think is missed in certain agencies practices.

I think Scubaboard is a unique opportunity to get input on this question from all sorts of people and to transcend any one agency's curriculum.

Something you have both hit on is to repeat some of the same skills as given in OW, but to do them mid water, with good trim and neutral. I'm guessing mask and reg drills would be a good place to start with that.

 

[TomZ]

And I try to steer them into rescue before AOW as well.

My favored instructor teaches small classes, often one on one. He isn't affiliated with a shop, but teaches aquatics at the university level. He has difficulty coordinating even numbers of students to teach Rescue. A LDS is offering Rescue for a great price in May, but since PADI has a prerequisite of AOW, it's a no go. Dumb. Personally I don't want the AOW cert until my experience warrants it.

 

[UnderwaterMedic]

This topic really could open a can of worms. My input: (and it's not nearly as backed by experience as many of the divers, DMs and instructors) Is that for a true "fill in the gap" solution to be found, it'd have to be so individually tailored, that it would be difficult if not impossible to standardize. Some people will find certain skills easy, and others may need some extra practice to gain the same level of proficiency. My suggestion would be to recognize the extra training time on your C-card. Regardless of the agency you trained in, everyone loves stickers right? Put a sticker or some other identifying mark that says you attended some extra training with a DM/instructor. Heck, I'm sure PADI could charge a few bucks for a sticker. In my mind, this would achieve a few things. Give a bit more training purpose to the fun dives conducted after OW and before AOW and prepare the diver for AOW better. I think that adding a course in between would really just be a money sink for most divers as it wouldn't be tailored to THAT individual diver. Myself, I always pick a skill to work on when i'm with the DM or instructor so that I have a focus for that dive. (none of them have ever charged me for the instruction) This focus has proven invaluable for me. I don't have a million dives, but I feel that every dive I have has been a dive where I've been able to gain a bit more mastery on a single skill. I think your purpose is sound: better prepared divers make safer and more confident divers. And like you, every diver is unique. Some are totally content to set at 10m and wander around the reef taking pictures where others want to get down deep and explore a wreck, and still others (brave souls) want to swim into a cave for miles. I think it's best to leave this sort of individualistic training to those instructors that make diving what it is and spend a few extra minutes with a diver to help them master a skill.

 

[hmacdiver]

As I read the opening post I can't help but think I am one of those that would love a workshop inbetween OW and AOW. Although I do plan to do AOW, it has been a while since OW and haven't been diving as much as I would have liked so skills need updating anyway. In my mind, the workshop you are proposing is something similar to the PADI Scuba Review (although instead of refreshing the knowledge from OW, its more of further developing them).

 

[gypsyjim]

I am not an instructor, so my input is going to be minimal, but I strongly agree with Jim's idea that skills are not to be taught sitting on the bottom of pool or on the sand, but only begun AFTER adequate buoyancy control has been achieved and divers have mastered the idea of a true buddy team.

When a buddy team can stay together, and control their buoyancy as a team, in the water column, and not just been planted on the bottom, they are ready to move on to other skill sets.

I have had the luck of training with the Y in the 70's, PADI more recently, and some training with GUE even more recently. It is really a sad fact that today's new diver often "graduates" with no real control under water, and actually needs to be retrained to become even a half way decent diver.

Just my opinion, of course

 

[Jim Lapenta]

First of all you do not have to stick with PADI or any other agency for your training. In fact I'd advise you not to. I don't tell my students they have to stay with me. In fact I refer them to instructors from other agencies if I think it will benefit them and if they offer courses I don't. Tom you are in Ohio. I had a student come for my rescue class last year from the state of Delaware. It looks like I will be doing another rescue class sometime this season and may bring my students to Ohio to do it for a weekend away from this area. Maybe the new quarry in Newark that is now open. I will be at portage in july and will offer workshops there. Plans also include whitestar, gilboa (hopefully twice there so I can get ok'd Mike to do deep training there), and maybe circleville. With the price of airfares it may be another iffy year getting away to Florida or other warm location. But as a big proponent of local diving I can do a few long weekends around here. And with a vehicle that now gets 27-28 mpg highway it is very doable.

As for stickers and such printed out by an agency for workshops, why? You don't need em to dive, it's more expense for the instructor or DM, and it's what your logbook is for. Any time you get an agency involved there will be problems with this type of instruction. Make sure your insurance covers it (mine does), get the appropriate waivers signed, and teach it. No need to get the agency involved at all. Tailored instruction is possible and encouraged by some agencies. Others no so much unless they get a piece of the pie and can tell you what to do. That goes against what the workshop or course is trying to accomplish.

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