Has anyone not passed their OW? Just finished our confined water and classroom sessions, will be taking our final written within the next week or so and open water dives in Maui next month. Our instructor said we're doing well but that we're not quite ready for the final open water and need a couple more practice pool sessions. Getting nervous....
I've never failed anyone outright but I have refused to accept a few into training and advised a few that it was my opinion that they should give up.
Learning to dive isn't hard for most people but there are a few that come with baggage that goes WELL beyond what the course is set up to handle. Substance abuse, psychosis, some physical disabilities that need specialized instruction, severe phobias that almost completely road-block learning....
The trick (I believe) as an instructor is to identify people who are not going to become divers on day 1 and offer to refund their money before both student AND instructor are frustrated. I'll give you a couple of examples.
- a student who came for an intro dive. I spent 45 minutes with her before I could get her to lay flat on her belly on the surface with a regulator/mask and breathe. After another 45 min I got her to submerge in 1.2 meters of water. It was the most mind blowing experience she had ever had. She wanted to sign up for OW the same day. I said no. She couldn't swim and told me before the dive that she was terrified of water, which she was! I told her to come back with a swimming diploma and then we would talk. She never came back.
- A student in a DM class (I was not the instructor I was DM-ing) who flew into a full blown panic every time she needed to remove the regulator from her mouth. She bounced on day 1.
- A student who was pretty much literally dragged by her hair to class by her boyfriend. "YOU WILL LEARN TO DIVE BECAUSE I DEMAND IT". We identified this relationship dynamic almost immediately but took her to the pool to evaluate her. She *really* didn't want to be there and resisted EVERYTHING. After the pool session we asked her to stay after the debriefing. We took her apart into a private room, refunded her money, asked her about her relationship. She cried and opened up a bit and we asked her if she wanted us to help her escape, which was a bridge too far for her at that time......We told her that the offer stood if she wanted our help. The boyfriend, of course,.... er..... "disagreed" with our decision not to train her.... Yeah, let's say he "disagreed". I hope he didn't beat her that night for being a bad OW student but he was REALLY mad at us. I think the chances are 90% that he did.
- Many students who take part of the class and then make excuses to "delay" further training. about 80% of those are delaying further training because they don't want to proceed but don't know how to say it. If a student wants to delay I always ask them if they want to delay or if they are having doubts as to whether diving is for them or not. I try to be as empathetic as possible. Most want don't want to stop but don't want to go on either. Human beings can be complex that way.
You do get the odd one who sticks it out even though you really think they have picked the wrong hobby. One case I can recall was a person who spent 20 hours in the pool and had another 20 dives in open water before I could certify her. For her, learning diving was a confrontation with herself. She didn't really want to become a diver. She wanted to tackle certain insecurities head on and overcome them. To her the diving course was a means to that end. She told me the day I certified her that I was the only person in the world other than her father who really understood her and that learning to dive gave her a new start in life. To be honest I was a little surprised. She was higher educated than I am and professionally more successful. TBH I hope she never dives much but uses that experience to boot-strap herself to the next level.
R..