Noob@40:
I have noticed a lot of people in many of the forms doing what I can only discribe as PADI Bashing and I would like to find out why.
I am very new to the sport but am already hooked and can not ever see myself giving it up. But apparently I am not a good diver. This is because I was trained by a PADI instructor. Even worse, I was trained in two weekends ( Two very long weekends, but none the less only two). It dosen't seem to matter that I was given a manual and DVD when I signed up for my course and told to review both before I showed up for class.It was only PADI material. It dosen't matter that I scored 100% on my written tests. They were only PADI tests. It dosen't seem to matter that I can use my c-card to dive anywhere in the world …
Please show me the light and tell me where I have gone wrong so I may be a diver fit to blow bubbles in the same ocean as the non PADI certified divers.
Please excuse the sarcasm. But I really would like to know why there are some people that really seem to have a problem with PADI.
Thanks for your input.
The sarcasm makes one question your desire to, “find out why?” You are confusing critiques of a particular training approach and corporate policy with your individual situation. Whether you are a “good” diver or not has nothing to do with PADI per se, it has to do with what you were taught and how well training program that underwent imparted to you the requisite knowledge and skills. There a is legitimate difference of opinion on both what the requisite knowledge and skills are and how well they should be performed prior to certification. Are you, personally, a “good” diver? That depends on the standard you’ve being judged against. I suspect that if you walked into say, Terry Rioux’s office at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and wanted to dive under auspices there you would not be good enough, but you could probably pass the mask clear check out dive at a Caribbean resort, there you would be good enough.
Your right, from where many of us sit, two very long weekends of training, 100% on the tests, etc. doesn’t mean a thing. We come from a tradition that is much more demanding in terms of both intellectual accomplishment and proficiency. And every one of us has, at one time or another, spent frustrating hours retraining people who learned to dive in two weekends or less. The greatest impediment to this retraining was often the mistaken impression that the candidate had left their entry level course with … that they knew better than I what they needed to know, and that they knew what they were doing.
But we do understand that you see your two weekends as an accomplishment, in fact the program that you’ve participated in is designed to make you feel that way. And we can see how your feelings are hurt when others don’t recognize your accomplishment and open their treehouse to you. But you’re to wrong to think that this “mark of Cain” will be with you forever. Once you’ve learned what bingo air (rock bottom) is and how to deal with it, once you get trimmed out and develop some buoyancy control so that you no longer play lawn mower on the bottom, once you can not only competently take care of yourself, but have developed enough technique and SA to also look after your buddy and a few other things … well, by then no one will care what card you started off with. It’s like going to take you a half dozen more courses and hundred dives or so before you being to approach that circumstance (some get it faster, some never at all). Hopefully you will hook into a good instructor an be one of those who gets it faster (and yes there are good PADI Instructors).
Advokat:
Nobody is a good diver,when they first start.
That’s simply not true. Given between 40 and 100 hours of training and 8 to 12 training dives, someone can start off as a good diver.
ehuber:
I think they're creating adequately trained divers just like the license bureau creates adequate first-time drivers. They'll need lots of practice before they are no longer a menace and sometimes it's entertaining to watch. You just hope no one gets hurt.
If PADI were to stand up and embrace that concept and design their program around that concept and consul their students appropriately, I’d stand up and applaud and encourage folks to train that way, but instead they issue a certificate that is good world wide to dive without leadership personnel when, quite frankly, as you observe, “You just hope no one gets hurt.” I don’t think that’s the way it should be. Especially since students are lead to believe that diving is “safe” rather than that diving is a series of risk-management challenges.
Stephi:
Certification does not mean "qualified" for a lot of people regardless of who gave them the card. Be responsible for your own proficiency … Just ignore the cocky, my-toy-is-better-than-your-toy types.
Much of what you say is true, but you do yourself a disservice to relegate the discussion to “my-toy-is-better-than-your-toy.”
matts1w:
… Although it is sometimes difficult, just let it go. In any culture there are always a few who are more hardcore, more moral, more whatver than any one else- and are thrilled to let everyone know much they know. Go to a Greatful Dead show and you can always find a group of bitter old hippies griping and pining about how it was and how it should be. I see the same with certain teachers where I work. Most find them pretty lame.
Sadly, it just seems to me people such as this are most happy crying and complaining.
Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. The problem is not PADI, they are just the most visible symptom of the problem. The problem is not the one or two weekend course, its what students who take those courses are led to believe. I’ve been doing this a long time, I know what it takes to train a self-sufficient buddy pair. It makes no difference to me if that is done it a single well organized and integrated course or in a scattered group of separate modules that are separately priced products, what I want to see is competent divers trained and effective supervision provided until they are competent. I hold the opinion that the training agencies today are taking advantage of unknowing people and pandering to the public’s desire for immediate gratification while not providing the information that is really needed for informed consent. I think that is wrong headed.
616fun:
To me - the organization you certify with has very little to do with your OW class experience. It's all about the instructor. PADI has done a nice job of spreading the sport of diving and creating a standard base that allows people to dive (within the class limits) safely.
With all due respect, how could you possible know that?
616fun:
All standards for most recreational certifying organizations are based off the Recreational Scuba Training Council guidelines (R.S.T.C.) for certification, so sayig that PADI's standards are sub par is a false statement, unless you are willing to say that YScuba, SSI, SDI, etc, are sub par as well.
Oh, you don’t know that. You don’t know where the RSTC standards came from or how they were developed or how they relate each agency’s standard. Do a search on “RSTC,” please, before you express unsupportable suppositions.
616fun:
All The fact of the matter is that PADI course materials are what I consider the best in the business. Very professionally put together with good information. What the instructor does to deliver that content determines how well you are trained.
Once again, do you really have either the background or experience to make that judgment? Just like your confusion about the RSTC standards you don’t understand PADI’s standards and how they limit the way in which a really good instructor can help you learn.
616fun:
My theory is that people who knock PADI are jealous they didn't come up with the idea first
An interesting theory, but one the lacks supporting evidence, basic knowledge and any discernment whatever. It is the response to this kind of foolishness that is most often confused with PADI bashing.
h90:
… I agree somehow to pro padi and to anti padi arguments both are somehow true....
Me too.
DiveMaven:
Good lord folks, who the heck CARES what agency issued the person's c-card!?!
No one, that’s never been the topic of discussion.
Walter:
I agree.
fisherdvm:
… suggests that SSI is a better shop.
It is not.
Interesting, I never noticed that being said. But I agree that, “it is not.”
Garrobo:
My real learning came shortly when, because I felt that I was inadequately trained, that I hired a lady instructor to go with me for a week of diving on the reefs in south Florida. It cost a few hundred bucks extra but I had with me a person who showed me the ropes, how to get out of trouble, and kept an sharp eye on me. That's where the real confidence came in although I wasn't afraid or nervous at all. I would reccommend that anyone whe doesn't feel this confidence or has fear about going underwater to do the same thing. You just don't get enough training in those two weekends especially in a group. I don't care if it's PADI or any other agency. I think that they are turning out untrained divers which risks their lives. It has to do with money not a desire to adequately train safe divers. And the AOW is a joke. Five dives which I have already done anyway and a $250 fee for what? A different C-card? That's all. Gimmee a break.
It’s always refreshing to be reminded that you can’t fool all the people all of the time.
