caseybird
Contributor
God is this old.
Have training standards "slipped"?
- Thread starter tep
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I would have prefered to maintain my IANTD membership and go inactive with PADI, but the market forced me to go the opposite direction. My pipe dream is to someday work for my IANTD mentors, but for now the viable financial options are PADI.Thalassamania:
I now believe more good can be done from inside, as I know there are some good divers that have PADI c-cards, because some of them are my students. They are not great divers and they definately have more to learn, but the ~32hrs they spent passing OW with me results in them knowing what is expected of them by experienced divers and they managed to dive with decent trim and buoyancy by the end of our time together.
Once they are out of sight, many probably don't dive as well as I required on their final check-out dive, because not many vacation divers are worried about more than their own selfish pleasures. I believe most of the clumsy rototilers were taught better, they just aren't forced to dive that way in the real world.
I just can't imagine anyone going back to poor trim/rototilling after learning good trim .. It's just way too cool to be able go vertical head down, head up, or prone and be stable in any of them ... not being as good at buoyancy control after not diving for a while I can believe
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Stretching is good for you Pete, stretching is good for you.
I took a few minutes to think about and I remember two recent comments, one concerning referrals and one the lack of non-PADI shops. Now for the ultimate cop-out ... I think they were lost in the crash (or did my dog eat them?).
Actually, taking a quick look around I'd guess that you'd find the five you're looking for in the PADI - Stepchild thread alone.
I took a few minutes to think about and I remember two recent comments, one concerning referrals and one the lack of non-PADI shops. Now for the ultimate cop-out ... I think they were lost in the crash (or did my dog eat them?).
Actually, taking a quick look around I'd guess that you'd find the five you're looking for in the PADI - Stepchild thread alone.
Ok I will come by and see if I can play tomorrow cause it is close to my bed time. But IMO it is the instructor that makes the difference.
This is a fun to read thread
This is a fun to read thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thalassamania
Lots of folks have posted on this board indicating that they teach PADI programs not because they wanted to, but because they did not perceive an alternative, but I guess they were all just trolls poorly disguisedly as tools. Eh?
I guess I would be one of those. When I was first certified, there were two shops locally and both taught PADI programs. I continued taking PADI courses because that was what was available. I don't remember how aware I was of other agencies but they weren't around so I know I didn't give them very much thought. When I became a DM and later an instructor, I just continued on with PADI because that's what was there. I never "chose" them. They were just sort of "it" by default.
I wasn't on the internet in those days and the dive shop and a couple stupid dive magazines were our only real sources of dive information. I don't think I was all that aware of the other agencies at all, though I do remember hearing about how militaristic the YMCA is and how exclusionary their teatching methods were. Guess where I heard that?...you guessed it, from the PADI shop.
We were not only very sheltered but I'd even say brainwashed, in that we only knew what the shop wanted us to know...Of course, it's not like they really knew anything else.
It wasn't until I had been teaching for a while and saw problems that I started to think that things could be done much better and started looking at different ways of teaching and the difference between agencies.
When I started technical training is when I first started meeting people with dive experience beyond the confines of a 5 star PADI shop and that was a real eye opener let me tell you. In fact, it was a major step to even start technical training because we were always taught that it was pretty evil and would almost certainly get you killed...LOL"tech divers are just a bunch of crazies" And, starting that tech training pretty much made us more or less outcasts in the local dive club that was controlled by that same PADI shop. Actually, all that started when I took a nitrox course from an instructor in Arkansas...there was no nitrox around here. Taking a nitrox course elsewhere did NOT make us very popular.
Beyond that, and again, without the internet, I never got much of an idea what the dive industry was really like and what makes it tick until I owned a dive shop. It really was hard to gather much information because the manufacturers won't (or wouldn't at the time) say very much about anything until you already had retail space and were ready to cut a check. You couldn't even get a look at a dealer agreement before that. Other shop owners? They didn't have much to say and they definately stayed away from the important topics. the bulk of my information here came from a course director who, of course, was prepared to provide all the instructor con-ed that I would need as well as some of the "retail" related programs that PADI has.
Even when I opned the shop I didn't know very much about what else was out there. That sounds kind of stupid and I guess it is but what you have to understand is that I was a PADI master scuba diver, an instructor, an "experienced highly trained diver" LOL and I thought I knew something about what was going on. I knew the PADI way. What else could there be?
Originally Posted by Thalassamania
Lots of folks have posted on this board indicating that they teach PADI programs not because they wanted to, but because they did not perceive an alternative, but I guess they were all just trolls poorly disguisedly as tools. Eh?
NetDoc:
I guess I would be one of those. When I was first certified, there were two shops locally and both taught PADI programs. I continued taking PADI courses because that was what was available. I don't remember how aware I was of other agencies but they weren't around so I know I didn't give them very much thought. When I became a DM and later an instructor, I just continued on with PADI because that's what was there. I never "chose" them. They were just sort of "it" by default.
I wasn't on the internet in those days and the dive shop and a couple stupid dive magazines were our only real sources of dive information. I don't think I was all that aware of the other agencies at all, though I do remember hearing about how militaristic the YMCA is and how exclusionary their teatching methods were. Guess where I heard that?...you guessed it, from the PADI shop.
We were not only very sheltered but I'd even say brainwashed, in that we only knew what the shop wanted us to know...Of course, it's not like they really knew anything else.
It wasn't until I had been teaching for a while and saw problems that I started to think that things could be done much better and started looking at different ways of teaching and the difference between agencies.
When I started technical training is when I first started meeting people with dive experience beyond the confines of a 5 star PADI shop and that was a real eye opener let me tell you. In fact, it was a major step to even start technical training because we were always taught that it was pretty evil and would almost certainly get you killed...LOL"tech divers are just a bunch of crazies" And, starting that tech training pretty much made us more or less outcasts in the local dive club that was controlled by that same PADI shop. Actually, all that started when I took a nitrox course from an instructor in Arkansas...there was no nitrox around here. Taking a nitrox course elsewhere did NOT make us very popular.
Beyond that, and again, without the internet, I never got much of an idea what the dive industry was really like and what makes it tick until I owned a dive shop. It really was hard to gather much information because the manufacturers won't (or wouldn't at the time) say very much about anything until you already had retail space and were ready to cut a check. You couldn't even get a look at a dealer agreement before that. Other shop owners? They didn't have much to say and they definately stayed away from the important topics. the bulk of my information here came from a course director who, of course, was prepared to provide all the instructor con-ed that I would need as well as some of the "retail" related programs that PADI has.
Even when I opned the shop I didn't know very much about what else was out there. That sounds kind of stupid and I guess it is but what you have to understand is that I was a PADI master scuba diver, an instructor, an "experienced highly trained diver" LOL and I thought I knew something about what was going on. I knew the PADI way. What else could there be?
ScubaRandy:
Of course but the training and access has become much more accessible. For better or worse, you can line up a cave class and get certified just about as easily as you can get OW certified these days. I'm not saying that we should actively try to keep people out but I think that it's become much more casual. At one time, the training was harder to find and more of those who found it were really interested in caves or really really involved in diving.
I think both the NACD and the NSS used to have a policy of not promoting cave diving. The NACD still had that policy last time I looked but I no longer see it in any NSS-CDS materials. some of those NSS and NACD instructors make a living in diving, own dive shops and actively sell all the classes they can.
Again, I'm not trying to pitch a case for this being good or bad, just that it is the way things are changing.
Divers are getting hurt and they are having problems and I have seen plenty of both with my own eyes. I don't neeed CNN to tell me that it's happening. Whether or not it's happening has no bearing on whether or not it's news worthy. What makes it newsworthy is weather or not the news netwerks think it will boost ratings.
Lots of people go to the beach and the shark stuff is pretty sensational. People can get excited over being on the beach and getting eaten by a shark. Since such a small percentage of the population scuba dives, the whole subject just goes right over their heads and completely escapes their interest. There just isn't anyway to sensationalize it because there just aren't enough people who care one way or the other. It's pretty much off the radar.
News reporting is intersting all in itself. I travel by car a lot and about every 15 minutes I lose one radio station and have to switch. I listen to lots of different stuff but when I listen to NPR I hear about wars and genocides around the world that I hear little or no mention of from CNN or Fox. If I listen to a Christian radio station I hear about legeslation that I never hear mentioned by CNN, Fox or a local new netwerk.
The news that is reported is always chosen to fit the assumed interests of the audience and the fact that something isn't reported does NOT mean that it isn't happening.
To think that divers aren't having problems because CNN doesn't mention it seems pretty naive especially when out own accidents and incident forums make for such an obvious contradiction.
halemano:
I've seen too many classes to believe that. they rototill through their class and just continue right on rototilling afterwards. It's not at all uncommon to see an instructor who would make a better gardening tool than a diver. I believe that there is a large percentage of divers who just haven't seen anything else.
After what I saw at Dutch Springs this weekend I tend to agree 
At the end of my last dive I saw a guy dive bomb off the entry platform right down to the bottom, 15-20ft. maybe. Thing was it looked like he planned on it. He must have big E-tubes We saw an instructor and student on a horizontal line at about 40-50 ft. having some animated buoyancy related difficulties. Looked like someone was getting ready to bolt. Enough to cause us all to pause for a bit to see what might have happened. You could tell when you were around students when you ran into rolling, billowing nuke clouds.
At the end of my last dive I saw a guy dive bomb off the entry platform right down to the bottom, 15-20ft. maybe. Thing was it looked like he planned on it. He must have big E-tubes We saw an instructor and student on a horizontal line at about 40-50 ft. having some animated buoyancy related difficulties. Looked like someone was getting ready to bolt. Enough to cause us all to pause for a bit to see what might have happened. You could tell when you were around students when you ran into rolling, billowing nuke clouds.ScubaRandy:
Check out this thread and tell me that divers aren't dying or having problems and that it isn't attracting attention http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=196120
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