Interesting class to attend

[boulderjohn]

But some shops make more money if they pack 8 students to 1 instructor. Shops are rewarded for churning through as many students as possible without proper training. My question is, how do we stop this?

I would say that more than a few shops have just such an attitude. As the training director for the shop where I formerly worked said, "Instructors are a dime a dozen." He had someone new coming in about once every other week looking for work. Every one of them was capable of doing what was necessary in OW instruction--certify a diver who can go on group trips and buy equipment. An instructor who pushes for more than that is a troublemaker who should be replaced by someone who will not rock the boat.

I am of the opinion that such a viewpoint is shortsighted. If a diver finishes a class with a justified feeling of confidence in both diving skill and diving safety, that diver is more likely to continue diving, meaning more equipment being bought and more trips being taken. When I was doing my IDC, I did some of the open water dives in Key Largo. On one memorable dive, I saw an incredibly overweighted woman literally crawling on the sand floor. The look on her face showed her misery. That was a diver who will quit at the first opportunity. I swore than that my students would never look like that.

 

[scubadiver888]

I completely agree with you John. I checked out a few shops in my area when I started diving 16 years ago. Of the shops I did look into a number of them have gone out of business. Now that I have worked at shops which are doing well, I still see divers who really shouldn't be certified. Im not sure who is certifying them but there still seems to be shops which just churn people through here as well.

The last shop I worked for is now my regular go-to shop for equipment, service, gas, etc. and I'd say I've dropped $5000 this summer at their shop. According to one of the owners, I'm not one of their big customers. They are happy to tell a student they aren't ready. I've never seen them pass someone just to get the money for the certification. So you can have a thriving business and not just hand out certifications but it feels like it is hard when you have shops that churn through students and make a tonne of money selling overpriced gear.

That is another thing which hurts the industry here. Some shops will pressure a student into buying all their gear at "50% off". But the gear is really overpriced. So 50% off is still more than a good shop would sell it for. The student does not get good training. They have a face of misery. They quit after one year. Then they try to sell all their gear on ebay or craigslist. Now, not only has the industry lost a potential customer but they flood the market with discounted gear.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

A painful video to watch, partly because I'm so familiar with that site and have seen similar scenes there so frequently. It's the major reason why I refused to teach through a dive shop ... because they're more interested in churning people through the classes than in teaching them how to dive.

I don't doubt for a moment that after those dives that woman was given a c-card that indicated she was now qualified to dive to 130 feet ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TMHeimer]

Wow, hard to even comment. What was all that finning while on the line about--overweighted? Lots of air sharing, walking and dragging. I was on a cruise in '99 and saw what was a DSD course (I guess, I wasn't a diver yet) in the ship's pool. I passed on that to take the snorkel tour. I guess they could've taken me down 113' in a drysuit then and I may have fit in with the video here. The Deep course I took (from what I recall from 10 years back) included going to 120' & 130'. Following the line down on a 45 degree angle without touching it (I always pull myself down head first in real life, but deep dive rarely), doing the "task at depth puzzle", shooting an SMB and following it up to safety stop, reeling it in to prevent slack line, freezing for 3 minutes in a wetsuit in 35F water (in late May). Other of our (4) dives included just normal swimming around and even collecting quite a few nice Buccinum whelks. Oh, and more freezing.
Where was the beer? It was on the emergency air supply rack at 15' and was nice and cold as well.
I thought most Deep courses were like that. What were these people doing?

 

[tomfcrist]

What was all that finning while on the line about-overweighted?

I initially thought she was having a seizure...

Probably a combination of overweighting and stress induced panic.

 

[scubadiver888]

@TMHeimer @tomfcrist

Whenever you see FFW in the video it is for "Fast ForWard". So the rapid finning at the beginning is actually normal finning but fast forward video. She should be negatively buoyant as she descends. Because she is wearing at least 7mm of neoprene, the suit will compress as she descends. If she had good buoyancy control, she would have added just enough air to her BCD to compensate. Since she probably didn't learn this during OW training, it is not surprising she is still having trouble during deep diving.

 

[Neilwood]

@scubadiver888 the issue is not that she didn't learn it in OW, it is the fact that it is repeated behaviour over all the dives. What should happen is remedial advice/tuition to the diver to cure the problem before taking them down to that depth again. I certainly would not want to be in that water with that diver even as a group of three. We have a situation that is borderline out of control, the instructor appears to do very little about the root cause or to control the issues (it is the second student that appears to do more about the venting) and it appears that the smallest thing going wrong would quickly lead to very serious consequences with the high likelihood of an uncontrolled ascent or (if there is a failure of the BCD) the diver being stuck down due to overweighting.

The rapid finning is also not normal - look at the direction of the fins. It is more bicycle kicking that flutter kicking.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Wow, hard to even comment. What was all that finning while on the line about--overweighted?

Severely overweighted ... notice how much air was in her BCD while she was finning ...

Lots of air sharing, walking and dragging. I was on a cruise in '99 and saw what was a DSD course (I guess, I wasn't a diver yet) in the ship's pool. I passed on that to take the snorkel tour. I guess they could've taken me down 113' in a drysuit then and I may have fit in with the video here.

The video tells me more about the instructor than the student. I can perhaps give him some margin for the initial attempt if he'd never been in the water with this student before. But after the failed attempt and resurfacing, the fact that he took this student down again with the intent of going below 100 feet showed appallingly poor judgment. This student has no business going that deep, given her lack of buoyancy control and her obvious emotional state (watch the body language while she's hanging on the line). The fact that he has to hold her hand tells me she should not have passed OW without additional remedial training, and clearly does not belong in a deep dive class. The fact that he took her on two additional dives after the first one tells me that the instructor's priority was completing the class, not teaching safe diving practices.

This student should have been told early in dive 1 that she was not yet ready for a deep class, and perhaps referred to a different class or to a mentor who could help her gain some additional skills and mental comfort level before going that deep. I say this as someone who used to teach at that site ... under no circumstances should an instructor be taking someone with her demonstrated ability to those depths.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Neilwood]

Severely overweighted ... notice how much air was in her BCD while she was finning ...

The video tells me more about the instructor than the student. I can perhaps give him some margin for the initial attempt if he'd never been in the water with this student before. But after the failed attempt and resurfacing, the fact that he took this student down again with the intent of going below 100 feet showed appallingly poor judgment. This student has no business going that deep, given her lack of buoyancy control and her obvious emotional state (watch the body language while she's hanging on the line). The fact that he has to hold her hand tells me she should not have passed OW without additional remedial training, and clearly does not belong in a deep dive class. The fact that he took her on two additional dives after the first one tells me that the instructor's priority was completing the class, not teaching safe diving practices.

This student should have been told early in dive 1 that she was not yet ready for a deep class, and perhaps referred to a different class or to a mentor who could help her gain some additional skills and mental comfort level before going that deep. I say this as someone who used to teach at that site ... under no circumstances should an instructor be taking someone with her demonstrated ability to those depths.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

As you say the video says a lot about the instructor.
He has the duty to manage the situation which he patently fails to do on a number of occasions:
1) Overweighting the student - no weight check done?
2) Lack of management of the situation - he appears to be very very passive as opposed to actually trying to sort the issue of the buoyancy control.
3) No apparent attempt to address the poor body position or any attempt at trim.
4)He should not be allowing someone in that mental state in the water on repeated occasions without remedial work.

The whole thing is one minor issue away from disaster imho.

 

[RayfromTX]

How common is this? Rare? Far too often? Common?

I keep hearing about the instructor but I saw no evidence of an instructor on this video.