Instructors who yell for no reason

[Neilwood]

I talked with a PADI instructor examiner about this. He said that the really big IDC centers guarantee that their people will pass the IE by having them do a very carefully choreographed routine for each skill they have to demonstrate. He said that the choreographed routine includes any step they think any examiner will want to see in the skill, meaning that the demonstrations are unnecessarily long and complicated. They practice them over and over and over and over until they do it perfectly. He said that if you put all the instructor candidates from one of those centers in the pool together and gave then the signal to perform a skill, it would look like a synchronized swimming routine. These skills are almost invariably done overweighted and kneeling, because there will be no tendency to float at all, which would disrupt the perfection of the routine. He said he personally hates to see it done that way, but under current standards, there are no rules against it, and the students get top scores.

The Director of Instruction for a local dive shop came from one of those programs, and he made following those procedures (he had videos) mandatory for DM training, even though the DM graduates would be assisting instructors who will invariably teach the skills differently. Ironically, he had learned about neutral buoyancy instruction after getting that training, agreed that it produced far better graduates, and did it himself while he was instructing. That means that he was teaching DMs to do a skill in a way he himself believed to be inferior, and the graduates he had just taught to teach that way might then assist him in a class and see him doing it completely differently. He had no problems with that. He said that once people learn to teach the skills the way he had been taught, they were free to do it another way in the real world.

That did not make any sense to me personally, but who am I to argue?

BTW, PADI is currently redesigning the IE, and I was assured that buoyancy instruction would be emphasized.

I realise that you, as one of the instructors who helped institute the neutral buoyancy reform, are one of the converted. As you say that really doesn't make sense does it.

It really beggars belief that the new standards for OW focus on more neutral buoyancy but the instructors are effectively coached during their IDC that kneeling is a better way to "teach" to pass the IE.

If I were looking at IDC at the moment (which I am a long long way away from - if indeed I ever go down that route) I would specifically ask whether the skills were demonstrated neutrally or kneeling. It stands to reason that if an instructor learns how to do things on their knees that will have an effect on how they teach at a later date.

I would have thought that PADI could have put out a directive stating that, for IDC/IE that neutral buoyancy was preferred and would rate higher than the equivalent skills done kneeling (something like the kneeling skills get a 5-10% deduction of marks as they are "easier").

 

[boulderjohn]

I would have thought that PADI could have put out a directive stating that, for IDC/IE that neutral buoyancy was preferred and would rate higher than the equivalent skills done kneeling (something like the kneeling skills get a 5-10% deduction of marks as they are "easier").

I have my hopes for something like this in the new system currently being created.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

BTW, PADI is currently redesigning the IE, and I was assured that buoyancy instruction would be emphasized.

I'm curious as to what this means. Doing skills midwater is either mandatory or it isn't. My hopes is that one day it will be, but my understanding is that there are IDC's that crank out a lot of instructors that protest against such a requirement.

 

[Ankush Mittal]

Unless IDC Dive Shops protest and force a point based system I highly doubt PADI would implement that. Like @wetb4igetinthewater said, neutral buoyancy should be required or not. I am guessing the major change everyone is talking about is coming around because of this exact issue where there are certain rules that IDC shops find loopholes for and also the fact the recently big IDC shops have been just churning out instructors without giving much regard to quality and it may be hurting PADI's image.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Unless IDC Dive Shops protest and force a point based system I highly doubt PADI would implement that. Like @wetb4igetinthewater said, neutral buoyancy should be required or not. I am guessing the major change everyone is talking about is coming around because of this exact issue where there are certain rules that IDC shops find loopholes for and also the fact the recently big IDC shops have been just churning out instructors without giving much regard to quality and it may be hurting PADI's image.

I'm not very hopeful, as mandating skills to be performed neutrally buoyant in IDC's/IE's is going to cut down on the number of new instructors. My old CD told me that now that he has switched to teaching everything midwater, his IDC candidates are really struggling and need more training/time. We'll see what happens.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Unless IDC Dive Shops protest and force a point based system I highly doubt PADI would implement that. Like @wetb4igetinthewater said, neutral buoyancy should be required or not. I am guessing the major change everyone is talking about is coming around because of this exact issue where there are certain rules that IDC shops find loopholes for and also the fact the recently big IDC shops have been just churning out instructors without giving much regard to quality and it may be hurting PADI's image.

... and what's it doing for the people who are getting trained by these new instructors?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TMHeimer]

I've always been split on the neutral thing. I do think it can probably be very valuable for someone who dives very infrequently. And it obviously starts beginners out on the right foot. OTOH, many of us were trained on the bottom and did OK by sorting buoyancy out for ourselves soon after OW, some becoming fine instructors. Only maybe about half of the (20?) pool skills can be done neutrally. I would think that removing and replacing the unit mid water would be considerably be more difficult for a "non-water" beginner, though I have been told this is not true. I can't think of when I would ever do this--caught in fishing line 40' from both the surface and bottom?

 

[scbaNE2179]

While on the surface, I'll have this handy if the instructor decides to yell:

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

OTOH, many of us were trained on the bottom and did OK by sorting buoyancy out for ourselves soon after OW, some becoming fine instructors.

I feel I did a huge disservice to my students whom I taught on their knees when they first started diving. And those who continued onto AOW with me struggled with their buoyancy. I honestly feel like I violated standards, as I followed how things were being done at the shop where I first taught. Moving onto another shop, I started teaching midwater immediately and the results in buoyancy control between the students I taught on the knees and midwater is staggering. I've had to do a lot of remedial work with one AOW student whom I taught on the knees. It took him quite a while to meet the performance requirements of the PPB adventure dive (almost 20 attempts), but that's my fault. I gave him a poor foundation, and I own that. Fortunately it is now fixed, but I had to work really hard at it. I wouldn't have if he had been taught properly in his OW class.

 

[Diver0001]

I'm not very hopeful, as mandating skills to be performed neutrally buoyant in IDC's/IE's is going to cut down on the number of new instructors. My old CD told me that now that he has switched to teaching everything midwater, his IDC candidates are really struggling and need more training/time. We'll see what happens.

That's what happens when you actually teach instructor candidates how to dive. For some of them it might be the first time in their life that they've had the bar held up above the knees.

Let them struggle. The people who will wash out are the ones we didn't need teaching the next generation of divers. There is a paradigm shift happening and enough people will be able to make the transition.

Also, Kosta, don't confuse neutrally buoyant with doing all skills while hovering. You seem to use those terms interchangeably in some of your posts.

That said, some skills are also considerably easier to teach and learn while hovering. The equipment R&R, for example, is very easy when done from a hover. I've tried to get some of my colleagues to try it and to date I'm still the only one teaching this skill in mid-water. One instructor even literally told me "it's too hard". We were going to the pool that day so I asked him to watch how it was done. Then I showed him an 11 year old boy who had about a grand total of 5 hours of in-water time to his name do it almost flawlessly on his first try.

That's how "hard" it is.

Frankly a lot of this stuff is harder in your mind than it is in reality. Yes, the instructor must learn new skills and learn new ways to demo a lot of stuff, but given the results you get it's hard to understand why a person wouldn't put in the time.

R..