How many of you had bad instructors?

[Web Monkey]

I would like to hear from some of you others. Crazy as it seems. I couldn't wait to get back in the water and go again :11:
You know what they say: No Brain-No Headache

Although this may seem like a shameless plug, it is my experience. I've taken 8 courses (OW, Night & Low, Navigation, Stress & Rescue, Deep, Wreck, Drysuit, Nitrox) from National Aquatic Service in Syracuse, NY and all the instructors and classes were great.

Classes and pool sessions last until the student feels they have learned the material and are comfortable with the skills and the instructor feels that the student has mastered the required material and and skills can perform them. There's no open water until both the student and instructor are satisfied..

If you live anywhere in the central part of New York State, it would be worth the drive to take the classes.

Terry

 

[mech]

When I first joined this board I started a topic about one of my instructors that hated my long primary hose as well as the rest of my gear.That darn thread was like 700 relpies long before it was deleted
One thing that I didn't mention was that he constantly verbally abused me in front of my daughter and the class.
This stopped after I slapped him in the face with my fins and told him what he could do with his class.
I was so shocked at my behavior and was embarrassed for my daughter ( this happened right in front of the 10 AOW students).
I couldn't believe that I actually hit him,but it felt soooo good.
He then appologized, asked me to stay and finish it,which I did.
The worst part was that my daughter said he made diving not fun for her.

 

[jbd]

Much of my early instruction was pretty similar to what others have already mentioned. From rescue through AI, and IDC, I learned a lot and found considerable value in each of those parts of my training. Now that I'm an instructor, I have taken a personal vow that I will never let any of my clients feel let down or shortchanged in any of my classes.

 

[cth6]

I had a great OW instructor. The only problem was the class above water was too big. We had 24 people for one classroom instructor. The group was way too diverse in age and experience. I felt that he rushed through to get done before the last surface class ended. Too many "If you want to know about that take the advanced course" The questions being asked were not outside of the realm of an entry OW diver. He just did not have the time to answer the questions.

The water experience was great 6-8 people per instructor. We had plenty of time to do all of the skills and then some extra time to get comfortable with everything.

 

[rje634]

About two years ago my wife and I decided to try a resort course in the Bahamas (yes I know that the resort courses are not the best thing to sign on for). We went to a well know operation on Nassau. First we got tossed to the side for paper work, which is understandable, then they told us to wait for the rest of the people and the instructor. Well I guess we didn't rate because they left to do the pool session without us. Of course after a while we inquired as to when they might be getting around to us only to get "Oh we're sorry they left for the pool already.". So they rushed us thru the pool session, I had dove in a pool before this however my wife hadn't. To say the least she was NOT comfortable with the equipment or being underwater in the pool. She decided that it wasn't the that bad and she would try the 30 ft reef dive. We get to the boat and there is me and my wife and the other three girls from the class one decided to bag the dive (she was the smart one!).
Now on the boat are certified divers who have completed their first dive. Needless to say they didn't want to do a 30 ft reef dive they wanted to do a 75 ft wreck dive. So we didn't have a say in the matter and we really didn't know anything until we were at the wreck site, I mean hey how are we supposed to know we've never been on a boat to dive before, silly us believing that the DM wouldn't try to kill us on the very first boat dive of our lives. We followed the DM into the water and start the descent, oh I forgot, they suited us up and during the giant stride entry my wife's weight belt fell off so they had to wrestle one on her while in the water. We start the descent and get about 25 - 30 ft and my wife is getting nervous and just wants to stay there for a minute. The assistant to the DM had other plans though, I guess he decided we were taking too long and grabbed my wife by her BCD and pulled her down to the deck of the wreck 75 ft. AND LEFT HER!!! So of course I'm frantically trying to reach my wife and the DM sees me and thinks I'm in trouble, I signal that I'm OK and point down to my wife the DM looks at me with a horrified look and she tears off after my wife. Meanwhile the Assistant to the DM is looking for others to terrify! Luckly the DM reached my wife and got us back to the boat.
Now never having been certified and not doing much studying on diving we had no idea that this whole scene was highly wrong. In telling people about the fiasco they all say we should have turned the Assistant and the DM into PADI but we where alive and not really thinking much further than getting out of there. Had we been thinking we would have gotten there names and done something if only to save other from our fate.
I am glad to say that after a lot of bravery from my wife, and a lot of coaxing from me, we found a great LDS to certify with and since the resort course debacle we've had nothing but good experiences from instructors and DM's that we have dove with. Of course now we are very careful about who we dive with.
By the way we are both now OW, AOW, Drysuit, and Nitrox certified.
I guess the moral of the story is to know whose hands your putting your life into.....

 

[hambone79]

Wow, after hearing all these bad experiences I feel very fortunate to have found the instructor I found for my basic scuba certification. He is actually a very good friend of my boss and is certifying myself and another guy as a favor to my boss. With only two of us in the class he is able to take the time to work with us until we have mastered a skill and feel totally comfortable doing it.

He has even taken extra time to have us work on skills that I didn't expect to be covered in the course. For example...he had us remove a fin and swim laps in the pool with only one fin until we could move through the water with very little effort (so we would know what to do if we every lost a fin). We also worked on some buddy skills...for example, one buddy would remove their mask and keep their eyes closed while the other buddy led them around the pool (the 2nd buddy would hold the 1st buddy's mask). At the end of the trip around the pool, the 2nd buddy would help the 1st buddy put the mask back on and let them know when they had the mask cleared. We did alot of little exercises like this to build on our experience of working with a buddy underwater.

BTW, did everyone else have to swim laps during their pool sessions? At the end of our pool sessions our instructor had us swim a minimum of 10 laps before we left for the day.

 

[rje634]

BTW, did everyone else have to swim laps during their pool sessions? At the end of our pool sessions our instructor had us swim a minimum of 10 laps before we left for the day.

Yes the swim is part of the OW training (they need to see that you can swim, a useful talent when diving) you'll also probably have to tread water for some period of time as well.

 

[waterwraith]

sadly some of these tales of terror are quite common. fortunately me and my wife did not have that problem. We actually had three instructors for OW who were with us in the pool and in the quarry. Two of the instructors were salvage divers and one was a research diver. In all areas they where thorough and patient if you were having problems they worked with you one on one until you solved the issue. In my experiance salvage divers are the most fun to dive with they really are a crazy fun bunch, but caution is there main concern.

 

[ScubaFreak]

I was lucky that my OW instructor was absolutley fantastic. Safety safety safety.
He brought me the whole way up to DM. I sat my IE last year and felt thoroughly confident the whole way through. I have worked with instructors who were....interesting.....

One day after we had just finished the boat dives, i drove around to the beach where we do our training dives. The instructor who had just done a drysuit Dive as part of AOW complained that his suit was leaking.

His zip was open almost a quarter of the way.

 

[baitedstorm]

Man, some of these stories are pretty darn scarey. I "shopped" around for my instructor (thank God) I went to every shop within a reasonable distance and chatted with the different Instructors. When I met my Instructor, I knew he was the one for me. Everyone learns differently and personalities can clash I think it's very important to know whose teaching you.. Glad your all here to tell your tales..