Diver Training: How much is enough?

[Colliam7]

This response raises some very interesting points. The excerpted question was:

How many times are students asked to perform a verticle CESA during the open water training?...

And, although I didn't see a specific answer, I think you are saying 'one', with the 'recommendation' to do several more. Is that correct?

Every dive requires an ascent. I recommend that the diver undertake a CESA (regulator in the mouth) on each ascent as a matter of routine.

This is an interesting idea, and I really like the concept of having students practice the CESA multiple times during the OW dives (particularly without me having to go up and down with each student individually, each time), and I had not thought of trying this approach. As I understand your post you ask (but don't require) them to perform a CESA each time they ascend. Is this the ascent to the safety stop? Or, to the surface? Yes, I gather that you are not doing it this way to meet the performance requirement of the OW dive, but you are using an ascent that they would be doing anyway to give them more practice on the CESA.

In OW, the CESA is done in 60 FSW to the safety stop. . . . I have yet to have a Student be unsuccessful on his/her first attempt.

I read this as a 45 foot CESA, if you are starting at 60 FSW. Is this the one you do to meet the performance requirement? While this could not be done in PADI OW (at least, not from 60 FSW), I am not familiar enough with other agency standards to know which ones specify what maximum depths (PADI specifies 30ft). Which agency are your certifying OW students under, where you apply this? The idea of more practice to allow them to become more comfortable on the CESA seems very appealing.

 

[DCBC]

DCBC, what's your problem with holding people to the standards of the agency?

Peter, I have no problem with "holding people to the standards of the agency," as long as the Standards specified are reasonable for the normal diving conditions where the Diver is being trained. If an Instructor is prohibited from increasing (in this example) the minimum required in-water ability of his students, you get people who have poor skills and who find themselves in more challenging conditions than they are prepared for. For the sake of student safety, it's not something that I agree with.

Diving Training Standards are put in-place to ensure that a Student possesses specific knowledge and skill-sets to safely dive under specific conditions. The Course Training Standards direct the Course Training Plan (which outlines what is to be taught and tested to achieve these goals). As the diving conditions change, the course content must also change. In other words, "One Standard" which is designed to prepare an OW Diver for "ideal conditions" isn't sufficient for more demanding conditions.

---------- Post added January 28th, 2013 at 02:25 PM ----------

As I understand your post you ask (but don't require) them to perform a CESA each time they ascend. Is this the ascent to the safety stop? Or, to the surface?

To the safety stop and subsequently to the surface. My Advanced course does CESA from 100 FSW to the safety stop. Unless they carry a redundant gas system, I encourage students to be prepared to CESA to a secondary gas source that's independent of their Buddy (the surface or a tied-off bottle) regardless of depth.

Which agency are your certifying OW students under, where you apply this? The idea of more practice to allow them to become more comfortable on the CESA seems very appealing.

I certify NAUI and CMAS. Thanks for your input.

 

[Peter Guy]

As the diving conditions change, the course content must also change.

Why? What "content" needs to be changed? Of course I don't have the experience that so many others have -- I'm a newish instructor -- but I don't see where, for example, GUE changes its course content depending on location. What is emphasized by the instructor might well change, but not the basic standards set by the agency (much like PADI in fact).

DCBC, you have identified several items in your couse (content if you will) which you seem to imply are really only relevant in an environment such as Nova Scotia. What is so special about Nova Scotia that you require all your students to do chamber rides? Why isn't that as relevant to the "Warm Water Wuss" diver as the spirited diver of Port Hardy?

You cry that your students need to be "comfortable in the water" and have some swim test (whatever it is) but why isn't it necessary for a WWW to be comfortable in the water and pass a swim test (whatever it is)? And so on.

You cry that your students needs to understand cold, current and tides because you have big tidal shifts and bad currents. Well, ALL students need to understand the environment in which they are trained. The STANDARD (i.e., understanding the enviroment) is the same but the information is necessarily focused on the local situation. Unless I am totally mistaken, your local environment is different from Cozumel or Byron Bay and thus specific information may well be different and I hope you are teaching your students to get local knowledge before they dive into a new, and different, environment. (But we PADI instructors have been writing this all along, have we not?)

Anyway, DCBC, we do know you are convinced that there can not be "standards" for the training of a basic open water diver which apply everywhere. Many of us disagree.

The end.

 

[NAM001]

Well Dcbc.

I think that the answer to your question is the position of some in this thread. Pass on minimum standards insures tht the GI JOES of the instructor community do not redesign the course and sell it under the agencies name. There seems to be a premis that

1. if you cant run a mile in 7 min you are not fit to dive.
2. New divers can not be trusted to know when the dive is over thier head and call it ,,, so you have to train them for all circumstances. So you have to be able to save your buddy in low vis and have so-so aow skills to get the OW cert.

I doubt that anyone could argue that n hte north atlantic, the couse content is not only going to be different,,, the leignth of the course will also be different along with the course costs ect.

What seems to be missing from the talks is that in those areas is where is the line in the sand that the diver should not cross. I am a firm believer that an ow has no business the ocean at 100 ft. If he was sillled for a dive like that,,,,, he would have an AOW and not just the OW. And that AOW is perhaps where many of the varying skills being argued about should be taught. It is my opinion that OW's souuld be limited to lakes ect. If you want to get out of the basic open water ENVIRONMENT then take the advanced open water training to go into the more unforgiving open water environments such as the ocean with currents and walls ect. Too many are trying to make students have skills beyond thier certification title. Its fine to add to a course more complex aspects but that is desert and not the main meal that was paid for or guarenteed to be served.

The only way a Student should be able to meet "the minimum general OW course requirements" for certification, is that the Student "is ready for independent buddy pair diving in the local oceanic environment" (where the training is being conducted). If the Instructor doesn't believe the student is ready, they shouldn't be certified... Certification is the Instructor's choice, not the Student's.

If the certification Standard (what the diver must know and be able to physically do) is designed for ideal conditions; why would an instructor be prohibited from basing certification on all of the material the diver needs to know to dive safely where the training is being undertaken? I believe that the Standards either have to stipulate all requirements for certification, or specify minimum requirements and allow the Instructor to add what's necessary above those minimums.

A Certification Agency cannot reasonably be aware of what is minimally required to dive safely in every area. This is why I question the 'only one International Standard approach.' I believe that any Agency that sets such a low in-water performance Standard and prohibits an Instructor from requiring more (for harsher conditions) is in error. This isn't the direction the industry should be heading in imo and it certainly isn't in the best interests of the Student.



I think that most Agencies take the approach that the course content/Standard will change depending on where the training takes place. Diver's must be trained for the conditions in-which they will dive. I believe that's why the certification stipulates "in conditions the same or better than where the certification takes place."

---------- Post added January 28th, 2013 at 07:01 AM ----------



Spoken like a fair-weather Diver... If you ran a course in the North Atlantic (normal conditions) and the Student only achieved minimal in-water ability (non-swimmer with a mask), they would be totally unsafe to dive imo. So much for "International Standards" that are based on ideal conditions. When the conditions are "not ideal," what a Diver requires to dive safely also changes.

---------- Post added January 28th, 2013 at 07:07 AM ----------



So when the Student complains to the Agency, your going to tell them that the Student's lack of water ability prevented him from being "comfortable in the water." Even though the Student passed the Agencies in-water skills assessment? I'd love to be there during that conversation...

 

[drrich2]

I am a firm believer that an ow has no business the ocean at 100 ft. If he was sillled for a dive like that,,,,, he would have an AOW and not just the OW. And that AOW is perhaps where many of the varying skills being argued about should be taught. It is my opinion that OW's souuld be limited to lakes ect. If you want to get out of the basic open water ENVIRONMENT then take the advanced open water training to go into the more unforgiving open water environments such as the ocean with currents and walls ect.

Many people get their OW cert., dive and grow as divers through independent study and experience, and are quite capable of deep & sub-optimal conditions diving without any cert. beyond OW. If you are referring to 'newbie' OW cert. divers, that may be different. Cert. level doesn't always dictate competence level.

I feel much more comfortable shore diving the west coast of Bonaire, or 'follow the leader' guide-led dives in St. Thomas or Grand Cayman, vs. lake diving. I tried lake diving at Dale Hollow Lake, so my idea of lake diving isn't wreck diving the great lakes. I don't care to try something like the latter without 'veterans' of the environment along for the ride.

Richard.

 

[BDSC]

Many people get their OW cert., dive and grow as divers through independent study and experience, and are quite capable of deep & sub-optimal conditions diving without any cert. beyond OW.

Exactly. The idea that you need AOW to be "skilled" for a dive to 100 ft. is ludicrous.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Exactly. The idea that you need AOW to be "skilled" for a dive to 100 ft. is ludicrous.

... particularly the way many AOW classes are marketed and taught as little more than 5 more dives with an instructor. I've seen many AOW graduates who have no business at 100 feet, because it's clear that if anything went wrong at that depth they wouldn't have a clue how to handle it.

Conversely, I've seen many divers with no certification beyond OW who are very skilled, and who I would be comfortable going on deep dives with. One of my all-time favorite dive buddies dove for years with nothing beyond OW. He's deaf, and had a hard time finding someone who he felt comfortable taking another class from. So he just went diving. By the time I met him, he was quite skilled, and we did quite a few dives below 100 feet together.

You shouldn't really make blanket statements without evaluating the individual diver.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[BDSC]

Bob, was that you I saw in a picture where you appeared to be ice diving? It kinda looked like you with a lot of gear on.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob, was that you I saw in a picture where you appeared to be ice diving? It kinda looked like you with a lot of gear on.

I don't ice dive ... but I do dive in winter ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[BDSC]

Does that ever more look COLD!!!!!