Instructor Requirements- continued...

[MikeFerrara]

which is exactly what I have been trying to tell Mike for nearly a year now....

he only difference, is Mike believes that students need to do this uncertified and under supervision,

I on the other hand, believe that a diver can progress under their own steam as long as they understand the basics and have a level of skill and knowledge of the limits of their education.

I agree. With emphisis on the last paragraph (bolded). I don't think all students are getting that and I certainly don't think it's built into a canned course (standards).

Also my concern isn't at which point they get habded a card so much as it is whether or not they end up in a situation where they need skills they don't have or even know they need.

Now, this might be a leap of faith but I'd bet that, considering the kind of diving you do for fun, you have a pretty good idea what skills make the difference on a dive especially if things don't go perfect. Maybe you have an edge on a new instructor who has only barely met the minimums. You might even give your students a good deal of insight and instruction the you take for granted but that new instructor has no clue about. That's all just a guess but I'll stick with it.

See? right back where we started...so no kiss.

 

[jbd]

simple:

.. time has nothing to do with ability,..

Can you explain your meaning :06:

In my mind time does have something to do with ability, in that it takes practice to perform a task fluently. I will grant that some will gain fluency quicker than others , and that some will need more practice(therefore time) than the average person. Still, it takes time.

If you have topics A, B, C, & D to present to any given audience and the average audience can grasp the material in 4 sessions then indeed it would be folly to think that just because you decided to use 6 sessions to present the same material that the course was better.

Likewise, if it takes the average audience 6 sessions to grasp the material from topics A, B, C, & D and you cut the presentation back to 4 sessions with less comprehension, it is folly to say that the course is better or even adequate.

 

[FatCat]

Hey Guys,

Admit it, the buddha is nicely impressive and great for demo purposes, because you can face the students and holding your fintips demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to hover without sculling.

It's a demo, nothing more. Remember that novice divers need to learn to get the "feel" for buoyancy. So practicing in a pool in a posture that allows for easy air dumping without having to trim and roll to dump air is fine by me. Practical training in real life circumstances comes during the OW dives.

Don't make it more complicating than it has to be...

 

[Diver0001]

Hey Guys,

Admit it, the buddha is nicely impressive and great for demo purposes, because you can face the students and holding your fintips demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to hover without sculling.

It's a demo, nothing more. Remember that novice divers need to learn to get the "feel" for buoyancy. So practicing in a pool in a posture that allows for easy air dumping without having to trim and roll to dump air is fine by me. Practical training in real life circumstances comes during the OW dives.

Don't make it more complicating than it has to be...

There is another point to be made about this: the hovering excercise is about the connection between breathing and neutral buoyancy and if you're focussed on getting that point across the orientation is secondary to making the message stick.

And as an aside, the CA has a big roll to play in helping students learn buoyancy control while diving. For example I tell students to pretend that the bottom of the pool is a big electric plate that will zap them if they touch it while they're swimming. Then when I have a chance, I'll stop them in mid water while they're swimming around and ask them to read gauges and sign back their pressure. Most students think I`m asking them for their pressure but what it´s really about is to see if they can do it hovering. Not surprisingly, if you're clear about the expectation most of them can do it consistently once you´ve worked on it a bit.

R..

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hey Guys,

Admit it, the buddha is nicely impressive and great for demo purposes, because you can face the students and holding your fintips demonstrates that it's perfectly possible to hover without sculling.

It's a demo, nothing more. Remember that novice divers need to learn to get the "feel" for buoyancy. So practicing in a pool in a posture that allows for easy air dumping without having to trim and roll to dump air is fine by me. Practical training in real life circumstances comes during the OW dives.

Don't make it more complicating than it has to be...

I demo it like we dive (horizontal). I have students practice it that way. The advantage I find is that we work on balance and trim at the same time...which means adjusting weight position (if needed) and body position. If they are ever going to be any good they need to understand how to put their equipment together so it and body position work together to control their attitude in the water. A few hours of this combined with work on finning technique and other skills and you end up with a group that can really dive.


This stuff isn't in "the book" (at least not many OW books) but IME it makes the difference between a diver who can scoot along inches above the bottom without silting and one who dives head up, working dard and silting even when 10 ft off the bottom their whole diving career.

IMO, demonstrating buddha style just demonstrates poor position and little else of value. Demonstrating horizontally lets you demo how leg position, arch of the back, head position...ect all work to control attitude by moving the center of gravity.

Even though students may not "master this by the end of an OW course they can understand it and be well on their way. When they understand these basic principles they have something to practice and improve on. Without it they just keep doing the wrong stuff over and over and the make very slow progress if any at all.

And you'd be suprised in that, once it's explained some can just do it with very little practice at all.

What's complicated is trying to do a decent job of diving without an understanding of these most basic principles and skills.

 

[diverbrian]

Actually, I will confess that my buoyancy when vertical is not near as good as I would like. The way that we teach, it much easier to obtain and maintain neutral buoyancy when horizontal for a reason.

It is much like skydivers. If they want to drop fast, they go vertical to cut the wind resistance to their fall. When they want to slow, they flare out to use that air resistance to start slowing them.

It is much easier for me to hover by using the water column to "help" me out. This is far more forgiving than a vertical orientation (which I hate and almost never use). I have two or three reasons for being vertical at all and the major one is to force air from my drysuit boots if I accidently add too much air to my drysuit. I won't be there long. I can guarantee that, LOL.

 

[-hh]

prioritization of what??

All my students learn:

prioritization of emergency ascents
prioritization of dive planning
prioritization of comfortable descents and ascents.

Not the prioritizations that I was referring to.

Suppose one of your students gets kicked in the face by someone's fin (a not unlikely event) and he gets his mask flooded and loses his regulator at the same time.

What's his response? Will he clear his mask first,or will he recover his regulator? The problem-solving here requires prioritization, and this was what I was talking about.

And its easy to parrot back in the classroom "restore air supply first", but talk is cheap: where have we provided any confidence in the student that they'll actually be able to apply what they've been taught?

The answer is that we haven't: the skill of clearing a flooded masks is done without a lost regulator and the regulator recovery skill isn't done with flooded masks.

And granted, it is best to learn each skill separately, but we never go to even the very first next logical step and ask the student to start to put them together.

The reality is that the Student don't really know if he can handle it until he tries. That's exactly what Confidence Drills did in a controlled pool environment, such as the Ditch-n-Don (aka Recover) and the NAUI Bailout: they gave the student a basic challenge where he had to decide which of his skills to apply in which order.

Even if the student never has an accident where he needs to apply this in real life, these drills still will have served at least two beneficial purposes:

1. Doing something that you thought you wouldn't be able to do, but perservered and accomplished, is a fundamentally wonderful thing.

2. Confident, comfortable divers are better divers. Maybe that can help minimize the industry's new diver drop-out rate...


FWIW, please note that I'm not talking about 'Harassment' training...that's another discussion entirely. I'm talking about nothing more than skill integration while in a very basic dive troubleshooting environment.



Re: August fatality spike in DAN reports...

Or it could just be school holidays..

Which in the USA, start by the end of June. They then take their OW-I training in July and start diving on their own in August.

-hh

 

[DiveTyme]

jbd: In my mind time does have something to do with ability, in that it takes practice to perform a task fluently. I will grant that some will gain fluency quicker than others , and that some will need more practice(therefore time) than the average person. Still, it takes time.

I agree with that statement completely, however I have seen instuctors with poor time management skills. I have seen instructors spend half of the confined water time explaining skills rather than having the students doing them. An organized class will give the student more "hands on" time than a longer, unorganized class.
Tim

 

[jbd]

I demo it like we dive (horizontal). I have students practice it that way. The advantage I find is that we work on balance and trim at the same time...which means adjusting weight position (if needed) and body position. If they are ever going to be any good they need to understand how to put their equipment together so it and body position work together to control their attitude in the water. A few hours of this combined with work on finning technique and other skills and you end up with a group that can really dive.


This stuff isn't in "the book" (at least not many OW books) but IME it makes the difference between a diver who can scoot along inches above the bottom without silting and one who dives head up, working dard and silting even when 10 ft off the bottom their whole diving career.

IMO, demonstrating buddha style just demonstrates poor position and little else of value. Demonstrating horizontally lets you demo how leg position, arch of the back, head position...ect all work to control attitude by moving the center of gravity.

Even though students may not "master this by the end of an OW course they can understand it and be well on their way. When they understand these basic principles they have something to practice and improve on. Without it they just keep doing the wrong stuff over and over and the make very slow progress if any at all.

And you'd be suprised in that, once it's explained some can just do it with very little practice at all.

What's complicated is trying to do a decent job of diving without an understanding of these most basic principles and skills.

Exactly!! Ditto!! I agree 100%.

Its just as easy to demo and teach the students buoyancy in the horizontal attitude, so why not go to that straight away?

 

[jbd]

I agree with that statement completely, however I have seen instuctors with poor time management skills. I have seen instructors spend half of the confined water time explaining skills rather than having the students doing them. An organized class will give the student more "hands on" time than a longer, unorganized class.
Tim

Indeed wise use of ones time is critical. In regards to buoyancy and trim training I see no point in spending time with fin pivots and buddha position since they aren't things that will be done during normal diving. Spend the time straight away on buoyancy control in a horizontal position. Diving students really do catch on to this very quickly when shown what they are aiming for.