"Family of drowned Tennessee diver sues dive shop"

[cerich]

Furthermore, neutral buoyancy with first time divers leads to positive buoyancy (they breath too deeply while concentrating on skills), and a resulting s***show ensues, with students floating to the surface in random directions. That's fine in the pool, not so fine in the ocean.

if we actually taught people in CW to the pointthey got it, it would make the "not so good in ocean" a non issue as they would not still be uncomfortable and incapable of controlling their buoyancy.

Look, we know that many(most??) students have no buoyancy skills or very, very little (and positive or negative is not what I am talking about..) when they get taken to OW for their check out dives, we also know that is really potentially fatal in the OW environment... yet it continues

 

[mdb]

I was first certified in 1971. NASDS, San Diego Divers Supply.

There was never any "kneeling".

Proper control of buoyancy was taught both in the pool and open water.

Much later when our oldest son was certified at a PADI store they were using the on the knees method for mask clearing etc.

I questioned the method. The Instructor told me: "This is how we are told to do it."

The PADI instructor, a very good gal, said "He is a fish. He can swim by himself while we get the others ready."

Short courses equals short students.

 

[cerich]

BTW, our original very long draft of the article included a history of instruction using the kneeling technique, with that section created by dive historian Dr. Sam Miller. He had a lot of trouble finding out when it started, and we eventually realized it had always been done that way because instruction began with no means of achieving buoyancy whatsoever--wet suits had not even been invented yet. The old kneeling technique for skill introduction was a relic of old fashioned instruction that did not change when the BCD was invented.

aye...which brings another "symptom" of the depth of the issue (pun intended)

In the industry the general consensus is that for temperate diving the recerational BCD MUST have 40lbs of lift. I have been told that, asked for that countless, countless times by stores and instructors. Yet it makes no sense at all. In the old days what did a horse collar provide in lift? half that generally. yet now we need 40!! WTF over. There is no combination of exposure protection and correct weighting that would ever require 40lbs of lift...NONE in recreational configuration... except to compensate for gross over weighting.

In truth the work on trim is really secondary to the overweighting problems we have. That leads to the trim problems.

 

[Wookie]

And to go full circle, it's why students who have been lost by their instructors are found on the bottom dead instead of flailing about at the surface, scared and alive.

 

[mdb]

aye...which brings another "symptom" of the depth of the issue (pun intended)

In the industry the general consensus is that for temperate diving the recerational BCD MUST have 40lbs of lift. I have been told that, asked for that countless, countless times by stores and instructors. Yet it makes no sense at all. In the old days what did a horse collar provide in lift? half that generally. yet now we need 40!! WTF over. There is no combination of exposure protection and correct weighting that would ever require 40lbs of lift...NONE in recreational configuration... except to compensate for gross over weighting.

In truth the work on trim is really secondary to the overweighting problems we have. That leads to the trim problems.

My first BC was a Nemrod. We kept the BC totally deflated until time to ascent. .A few breaths into the BC and then a slow ascent

Hand above the head, breathing slowly, kicking up, that was the drill.

Keeping students pinned to the bottom produces nothing except poorly trained divers, unlikely to continue diving.

It is time for some major overhaul of the dive instruction regimen.

Do not make it "harder" -just make it much more comprehensive and complete.

The result will be better divers.

 

[cerich]

The result will be better divers.

well that feel good safety aspect aside, the other result will be divers that keep on diving and keep spending money and tell their friends how fun it is. The other result is I will make more money. That so many in our industry think they make more money by going as cheap and fast, cutting corners on training to try and make it profitable is beyond me

 

[Dan]

And to go full circle, it's why students who have been lost by their instructors are found on the bottom dead instead of flailing about at the surface, scared and alive.

This reminds me of my last check out dive in Chac Mool cenote in Mexico with an excellent DM, Rafa of Pro Dive. He asked me: "what weight do you use in salt water?". I said: "12 lbs" (which I've been using for 9 years, dropping from as much as 16 lbs when I started it, 11 years ago). He gave me 7 lbs. I'm aware of needing less weight in fresh water, maybe 2 lbs less, but not 5 lbs less (> 40% less of the weight I usually use in salt water). But, I didn't argue. We then went into the entrance pond. He then watched my rate of descent as I completely deflated my BCD & exhaled. My thought was I bet you that I'm not going down, but I was wrong & he's right. I went down slowly, at the rate that satisfied his observation, not sinking like a rock & not staying afloat either. I wish I went through such check out dives early on 11 years ago.

In my next reef diving trip, I'm going to try 10 lb weight during a check out dive with such procedure.

 

[Vieques Arnaud]

Yep, there are places that are violating standards, as that one clearly is. It happened to me in my OW training as well. It was not until years later that I actually looked closely at my log book and saw how many standards had been skipped in my certification class. I am not condoning this.

Actually nothing in PADI Standards stops you from teaching an OW class in 2 days!!! Only caveat is no more than 3 ow dives in a day. So you could technically do 5 confined water dives and 1 ow dive in one day followed by 3 ow dives the next...et voila OW certified in 2 days!

if we actually taught people in CW to the pointthey got it, it would make the "not so good in ocean" a non issue as they would not still be uncomfortable and incapable of controlling their buoyancy.

Look, we know that many(most??) students have no buoyancy skills or very, very little (and positive or negative is not what I am talking about..) when they get taken to OW for their check out dives, we also know that is really potentially fatal in the OW environment... yet it continues

This is actually another huge issue: PADI standards rely on "mastery learning" which means that you're not to take a student on in open water until he/she has mastered a skill in confined water. This is the responsibility of the instructor!

 

[cerich]

This is actually another huge issue: PADI standards rely on "mastery learning" which means that you're not to take a student on in open water until he/she has mastered a skill in confined water. This is the responsibility of the instructor!

it's only a issue because so few follow that standard.

When I became a PADI instructor in 97 we were told that the students only needed to demonstrate each skill once "satisfactorily" to move on to the next. Thankfully that has changed in standards, unfortunately it hasn't changed much in practice.

If mastery was achieved in CW then we would have a much better industry. That said, I don't see any real energy to actually care about that "mastery" when you see articles like this.

Getting Scuba Certified On Vacation: It’s Easier Than You Think

One hour of CW, 25 skills per standards (not likely all done) and not a chance in hell that mastery was achieved, even if he was a gold medal swimmer.

Is PADI aware of that article? Well the picture is supplied by and they are well branded... I suspect they are.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I just posted a link to it on their facebook page. With suitable commentary.