PADI Certification too quick?

[MikeFerrara]

I am going with her this weekend on her checkout dives. There were 3 people in her class. She says that she is comfortable with the class. It just really concerns me that is was so quick. I know it took me a while to learn to hover.

What make you think that she learned to hover?

I just dont see how they crammed it all in to a day at the pool.

It doesn't take long to demonstrate each skill and let each student try it once.

 

[SDAnderson]

I am going with her this weekend on her checkout dives. There were 3 people in her class. She says that she is comfortable with the class. It just really concerns me that is was so quick. I know it took me a while to learn to hover. I just dont see how they crammed it all in to a day at the pool.

Rightly or wrongly, PADI standards allow the class/pool session to be completed in two days. Open water dives require an additional two days. Hovering is not on the list of required skills.

Many, especially those who learned to dive in the old days, find ourselves aghast at the perceived shortcomings of the PADI program. We fear that new divers are being sent out into the world insuffiently prepared. Maybe with some cause, but remember that the objective of the open water class is to provide the basic skills needed to (a) safely and (b) enjoyably participate in scuba. The days when scuba classes were a proxy for SEAL training are long gone, thankfully.

PADI and the other CMAS training agencies are living up to their end of the bargain - only rarely do you find the bodies of newby divers washed up along the shoreline and the numbers of participants has gone through the roof in the past 30 years.

Training requirements are fine right where they are. New divers are reasonably safe (you weren't expecting perfection in this world, were you) and are having fun. They have a long way to go before they become proficent divers, but it's okay to let them crawl for awhile before insisting that they run a marathon.

 

[BradfordNC]

well, hate to burst anyones bubble, but i see NAUI and SSI doing the dame thing. its the way the shops run their courses.

and the last two replies are right, the basic openwater is just to get certified. they are not to create SEALs. if you want that kind of training, join the navy.

they are learning the basics, the VERY basics of scuba diving. i doubt any of you had to be scuba hover masters in order to get your C Card.

newbie divers are not drowning at amazing rates, or even in any kind of significant numbers.

so why not let them get their cards, start diving, have fun, and then, along the way, mentor them.

and another thing, seems like people want to make it seem like diving is such a difficult and demanding activity. put the reg in your mouth and breath, sink, swim, surface.

its not rocket science, and your not launching the space shuttle.

 

[BIGSAGE136]

I must admit that things are much improved over 30 years ago. Heck when I started there were no C Cards.

 

[freediver]

I teach scuba as well as lifeguarding. The lifeguard course is a 28 hour course. Just curious how many think that is too "quick". I also tell the lifeguard candidates that it is a certification course, not a qualification course. You meet the requirements set forth by the agency and you receive cert card. However, becoming a qualified lifeguard, or diver for that matter, would require you to continue working on skills and in the case of scuba, going out and enhancing your skills with other "competent" divers. My scuba classes are around 30 hours in length but are also fully dependent on the student feeling competent enough to go into an open water environment and dive safely.

 

[TDunbar]

................. Hovering is not on the list of required skills.

Check your/an instructor manual. Try page 2-14 of the Open Water Diver section.

Todd

 

[Queen]

The days when scuba classes were a proxy for SEAL training are long gone, thankfully.

I was going to reply to this thread earlier today and had the same sentiments you expressed here! When I was first OW certified I honestly thought they were trying to make a SEAL out of me. What a course that rigorous seemed to accomplish was to create two groups of graduates: hardcore divers and people who would have loved diving but washed out of the training. It's sad to think of all the people who missed out on the joy of diving because they weren't Special Forces material.

 

[jepuskar]

What is wrong with doing 84 quarry dives and 16 ocean dives? Are you trying to imply that people who have more dives in the ocean are better divers or would make better instructors?

 

[jepuskar]

Hovering is required for the PADI OW, but watching students hover over a platform a few moments and then leaving the platform and dropping like a rock is an eye opener and makes you wonder.

Anyway, the PADI course is sort of performance based, you go as fast as your skills allow you too. You perform the skills to your instructors liking and move on...complete all the skills, pass the test and your on to the open water dives. That is how my training went anyway...2 pool sessions and a couple classroom sessions and to the quarry we went.

This has been debated over and over though. Make the classes harder/longer, less people are interested or have the time, make the classes shorter/easier....more people get certified, but are not as prepared.

I plan on becoming a PADI instructor. I have already decided that I am going to expect a lot from my students, I won't teach any other way. That I look forward too.

 

[plcmd]

Hovering is required for the PADI OW, but watching students hover over a platform a few moments and then leaving the platform and dropping like a rock is an eye opener and makes you wonder.

Anyway, the PADI course is sort of performance based, you go as fast as your skills allow you too. You perform the skills to your instructors liking and move on...complete all the skills, pass the test and your on to the open water dives. That is how my training went anyway...2 pool sessions and a couple classroom sessions and to the quarry we went.

This has been debated over and over though. Make the classes harder/longer, less people are interested or have the time, make the classes shorter/easier....more people get certified, but are not as prepared.

I plan on becoming a PADI instructor. I have already decided that I am going to expect a lot from my students, I won't teach any other way. That I look forward too.

I also plan on becoming a PADI Instructor, and like you I too will expect a little more of my students as well as myself. When I got my cert the core requirements seemed to be a little more stringent. I'm not saying lets make them SEAL's, but lets not take their money stick a regulator in their mouth and let them breathe, go under and come back up and tell them what a wonderful job they did. I may be suprised this weekend. I'll let you all know how it turns out.