Nitrox course instruction has changed dramatically over the years, along with the attitudes toward diving with Nitrox in general. Different people have their attitudes shaped according to where they are on that path of change. You will see some of those differences in the cost of the courses and the opinions expressed in this thread.
If you go back around 25 years ago, Nitrox was considered to be so dangerous that most agencies refused to teach it at all, and DEMA refused to allow anything related to it in its annual trade show. At least two agencies were created to focus on using nitrox. (ANDI--American Nitrox Divers International and IANTD--International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers)
Go forward only a few years and you are in the era when I got my nitrox certification. The class was a very big deal, ending with a 50 question test full of fairly challenging math problems and two dives. You had to know a number of formulas and use several charts. The toughest math problems involved determining whether concerns about pulmonary oxygen toxicity or residual nitrogen were the most limiting factors in a multiple dive day.
The problem with what I just described is that anyone with a few firing brain cells came to the same conclusion I did after taking the class--most of that was unnecessary for recreational diving. As I did the aforementioned problems on my exam, I tried to imagine when I would ever be in a situation when anything related to pulmonary oxygen toxicity would ever come into play. I was reminded of that many years later when I took my exam to be a technical instructor and encountered the same thing. In one of the problems I had to do all the math calculations prior to determining that a certain technical dive was limited by pulmonary oxygen toxicity concerns. The diving scenario they had to concoct for that problem was absurd--I couldn't imagine ever getting myself in that situation.
Consequently, pulmonary oxygen toxicity is pretty much eliminated from modern recreational nitrox courses, as is just about all the math that used to be involved. That's just an example--a lot of other stuff was justifiably dropped as well. The course is much, much less intense than it used to be, and that is because of the realization that it did not have to be all that difficult in the first place. As a technical diver, I deal with high partial pressure of oxygen, including breathing pure oxygen, for extended periods of time, and I never have to think about most of the more complicated stuff of that in my personal diving--I only have to deal with it when teaching students.
Course prices and attitudes thus differ greatly depending upon where individuals fall on that scale of change. Some prices are still very high, reflecting the old attitudes about how much time needed to be devoted to the course and the importance of its content. Other prices are more in line with the lessened amount of content. Some people lament the loss of some of the stuff that is no longer taught, decrying the dummying down of the course, without really considering whether or not it is needed.
A friend of mine, a technical diving instructor, thinks that he could teach a full recreational nitrox class in 5 minutes and teach students all they need to know, Others would react with pure horror at that suggestion. I think that disparity is reflective of the spectrum of attitudes in the industry.
If you go back around 25 years ago, Nitrox was considered to be so dangerous that most agencies refused to teach it at all, and DEMA refused to allow anything related to it in its annual trade show. At least two agencies were created to focus on using nitrox. (ANDI--American Nitrox Divers International and IANTD--International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers)
Go forward only a few years and you are in the era when I got my nitrox certification. The class was a very big deal, ending with a 50 question test full of fairly challenging math problems and two dives. You had to know a number of formulas and use several charts. The toughest math problems involved determining whether concerns about pulmonary oxygen toxicity or residual nitrogen were the most limiting factors in a multiple dive day.
The problem with what I just described is that anyone with a few firing brain cells came to the same conclusion I did after taking the class--most of that was unnecessary for recreational diving. As I did the aforementioned problems on my exam, I tried to imagine when I would ever be in a situation when anything related to pulmonary oxygen toxicity would ever come into play. I was reminded of that many years later when I took my exam to be a technical instructor and encountered the same thing. In one of the problems I had to do all the math calculations prior to determining that a certain technical dive was limited by pulmonary oxygen toxicity concerns. The diving scenario they had to concoct for that problem was absurd--I couldn't imagine ever getting myself in that situation.
Consequently, pulmonary oxygen toxicity is pretty much eliminated from modern recreational nitrox courses, as is just about all the math that used to be involved. That's just an example--a lot of other stuff was justifiably dropped as well. The course is much, much less intense than it used to be, and that is because of the realization that it did not have to be all that difficult in the first place. As a technical diver, I deal with high partial pressure of oxygen, including breathing pure oxygen, for extended periods of time, and I never have to think about most of the more complicated stuff of that in my personal diving--I only have to deal with it when teaching students.
Course prices and attitudes thus differ greatly depending upon where individuals fall on that scale of change. Some prices are still very high, reflecting the old attitudes about how much time needed to be devoted to the course and the importance of its content. Other prices are more in line with the lessened amount of content. Some people lament the loss of some of the stuff that is no longer taught, decrying the dummying down of the course, without really considering whether or not it is needed.
A friend of mine, a technical diving instructor, thinks that he could teach a full recreational nitrox class in 5 minutes and teach students all they need to know, Others would react with pure horror at that suggestion. I think that disparity is reflective of the spectrum of attitudes in the industry.
