Finished my DM!

[k11dorf]

Nicely done and welcome to PADI Pro membership!

 

[ae3753]

Congratulations!

The best part of the DM class was getting to work with the students. I got very attached to some, and I also learned some things about myself. I also learned that herding students is VERY different from diving in perfect horizontal trim with a well-trained team, and many of the skills I've worked so very hard to master aren't even particularly USEFUL in that setting

I agree that working with students is the best part of being a DM.

I am curious about your comment about the many skills aren't being useful. For me, the detailed planning, the focus on team, task loading, the situational and environmental awareness that is so stressed in technical diving have direct applicability (and benefit) to working with new students.

The one thing I'd say to anybody about doing a DM class is that it isn't about you . . . it doesn't improve your diving (except that working with students will, eventually, give me eyes in the back of my head). It's a specific skill set for assisting an instructor or leading a group, and you ought to come into it with VERY strong personal diving skills and a real sense for what you do under stress.

Very true.

 

[Diver0001]

That he gets to order me around?

No silly....

It means you'll have to become an instructor (and I'm convinced you'll be a damned good one) so that Peter doesn't get the last word every time.

R..

 

[wrybosome]

Congrats Lynne, I bet you will be a terriffic DM.

Do you have to haul tanks for the students?

 

[Steve50]

Congrats ~ a great addition

 

[Teamcasa]

Congratulations Lynne! I'm sure you will make a terrific DM.

 

[liuk3]

I don't believe that I know a person who has worked harder than you to achieve your levels of proficiency in diving. You've always opened yourself up and shared your own flaws and struggles in ways which most people would not due to their own self-inflated ego (esp., tech divers and dive professionals). Many (if not most) of the divers I know would not fully admit to their own deficiencies much less broadcast them so publicly on the internet. In doing so, you've already achieved your goal of broadly reaching out and inspiring others to overcome their own challenges. I applaud your courage and tenacity, and offer you a much well earned congratulations!

 

[Peter Guy]

Do you have to haul tanks for the students?

Nope -- part of the physical fitness aspects that students haul their own tanks.

 

[merxlin]

Congrats Lynne! Your students will be lucky to have you to emulate and learn from. And I'm sure you have set the bar pretty high for the rest of the DMT's!

 

[TSandM]

Don, I agree with you that the situational awareness I've had drilled into me is VERY useful in working with students -- in fact, doing that has honed my SA even further, as what my teammates do is generally predictable, but what students do is NOT But hovering quietly is rarely something you do with students (they can't, so you don't) and light discipline and communication is pretty useless (even when they are coached on it, they're so bandwidth-deficient they don't notice signals) and instead of a nice, controlled, horizontal ascent and descent, I'm generally chasing somebody . . . It's as though all my training has been to bring diving under a very tight degree of control, but working with students, one has to embrace a certain level of chaos.