PADI cert

[RJP]

Wow! Props to PADI for stepping things up.

I wonder if my LDS price for a PADI cert will go up, making the difference between PADI and SDI even greater than the current $50.

If so, they would have gone up a year ago... when the new standards went into effect. (Might want to let them know )

 

[kd2bmu]

Guys,
I get all of the debate on this thread. My question had been answered before my last post.

Dave
KD2BMU

 

[Hawkwood]

Guys,
I get all of the debate on this thread. My question had been answered before my last post.

Dave
KD2BMU

Welcome to ScubaBoard...you get the answers to your questions plus a whole lot more.

 

[stuartv]

Why would the price go up?

If I'm paying for a class, and the class now takes longer because there are more skills to learn and/or more time spent on skills that were already being taught, I would expect the class to cost more. Ultimately, taking a class means you are paying someone for their time plus overhead, right? More time means more expense, in my mind. Of course, the instructors could just take a pay cut (on a per-hour basis) to keep the tuition the same.

If the class doesn't take ANY longer, then is it actually better? Was there just time being thrown away before that's now being used? Are the course improvements strictly based on increased efficiency of time utilization? Otherwise, you have to rob Peter to pay Paul.

 

[RJP]

If the class doesn't take ANY longer, then is it actually better?

The course isn't any longer... it's just better. (ie - it doesn't take any longer to teach skills neutral vs planted on the bottom.)

 

[stuartv]

The course isn't any longer... it's just better. (ie - it doesn't take any longer to teach skills neutral vs planted on the bottom.)

Interesting.

...
more practice with OOA scenarios, emergency weight drop, and increased practice in oral inflation of the BCD. Students are also required to inflate an SMB.

They also added a significant increase in practice in neutrally buoyant swimming. ... students MUST spend a significant amount of pool time swimming while neutrally buoyant to be within the standards. (In the RSTC standards, one trip around the pool is about all that was required.) There is more hovering in the confined water course than before, including hovering after ahcieving buoyancy through oral inflation.

Gas management is now taught reasonably well in the course. On the final exam, for example, students have to identify the proper turn pressure on a dive after identifying a gas reserve and deciding to use the rule of thirds on the remaining gas.

Although they do not practice it in the pool beyond what was previosuly taught, the academic postion of the class includes all the main rescue skills included in the rescue diver course.

They must fix a loose cam band under water.

Dive planning is included. At the end of confined water course, students must plan and execute a mini-dive, during which the instructor will introduce problems (like OOA) for students to solve. In the OW dives, the final dive is completely planned and executed by the students, with the instructor simply attending to make sure all goes well.
All of that is new and in addition to the RSTC standards.

All of that stuff made me think that surely the course must take longer. But, obviously, I am not an instructor....

 

[boulderjohn]

All of that stuff made me think that surely the course must take longer. But, obviously, I am not an instructor....

It can be a bit longer, but less than you might think.

One big difference is the strategy of teaching students while neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim, right from the start of the first dive. Instructors who have never seen it done this way are reluctant to try it, and they fear it will make the skills harder to perform and thus add time to the course. The opposite is true. The skills are easier to perform in that posistion--sometimes MUCH easier. Students are working on buoyancy from the first time they dip under water, so when they get to the more difficult buoyancy skills later in the class, they do them easily and in a fraction of the time it often takes. By the end of the confined water sessions, they usually look like confident, experienced divers, so everything usually goes much more smoothely.

Of course, as I said, most instructors refuse to believe it and refuse to try.

 

[Max Speed]

Tighten their own cam band or somebody else's? Just curious about how much thrashing around is going on.

 

[stuartv]

Tighten their own cam band or somebody else's? Just curious about how much thrashing around is going on.

Funny thing (to me) about that. A friend got OW certed last Fall (along with me). She is in FL this week and wanted to go diving. She has not been diving at all since OW class, so she wanted to have a refresher session before going to FL. So, she rented gear and I went with her to be her buddy at our local quarry 2 weeks ago.

Her first dive was (relatively) fine. At least, after the first 10 minutes of yo-yoing from the surface to 20'. After the first dive, I suggested she practice changing tanks by removing and replacing the tank she rented, which she did. The second dive, we swam out and descended to the 15' training platform.

All of a sudden, she started thrashing around and pointing behind her. I turned her around and discovered that her tank had totally slipped out of the (single) cam band on her rental BC and was just hanging there by the hoses.

So, I got to practice this very skill in (more or less) real life, at 15'. Afterwards, she said that when she re-installed the tank in her BC, she even picked up the BC by the handle and shook it, like they taught us in class, to make sure the tank strap was tight enough. Oh, well....

I am now decidedly in favor of OW training that includes some practice at dealing with a loose tank strap!

 

[boulderjohn]

Tighten their own cam band or somebody else's? Just curious about how much thrashing around is going on.

All of a sudden, she started thrashing around and pointing behind her. I turned her around and discovered that her tank had totally slipped out of the (single) cam band on her rental BC and was just hanging there by the hoses.

So, I got to practice this very skill in (more or less) real life, at 15'. Afterwards, she said that when she re-installed the tank in her BC, she even picked up the BC by the handle and shook it, like they taught us in class, to make sure the tank strap was tight enough. Oh, well....

That''s what I do. While the dives are swimming as a buddy team and geting used to neutral buoyancy, I come up behind one of them and undo the tank band. The buddy has to fix it.