padi ow, why is CESA recommended to 9m?

[String]

(Which is why depsite the fact that it's "wrong" I never correct a student who takes another sip on the way up during CESA practice: because that's what they are supposed to do.)"

Unfortunately by "wrong" it's a direct violation of PADI standards and would earn you a 1 and immediate fail on an IE.

Watch to be sure the student exhales continuously. Stop the ascent if there is any doubt.

Like it or not PADI say you MUST do it that way. Failing to do it that way is a violation on your part and also completely removes any legal cover or protection you might have teaching it. If you're going to teach a PADI course you have to teach to their standards. CESA is pretty much the ONLY skill that gives an instructor absolutely no freedom or choice in the methods used.

If i had my way CESA would be ditched along with all the idiotic snorkelling crap and the new weight drop skill and smiley face slate. Unfortunately i don't so i have to teach skills i can see no point of and think are unnecessarily dangerous. The best i can so is teach those skills to the minimums and by the book to get them over and done with.

 

[boulderjohn]

The procedures for doing the CESA are very strict for just about every agency that teaches it for an important reason. There was a workshop conducted by UHMS a number of years ago that indicated that CESA instruction was the cause of most accidents during scuba instruction. The procedures that were recommended are now standard for almost everyone because of the desire to make training safer.

"Almost everyone" does not apparently include instruction in Belgium. We had a thread a year or two ago (which I looked for and could not find) in which we learned that instructors in Belgium rejected the findings of this workshop and continue to use older methods. This includes discarding the regulator at the beginning of the ascent. The reasons for this have nothing to do with making a safe ascent--the purpose is to demonstrate clearly to the instructor that you are not inhaling. Of course, this means that an ascending student who is running out of air is more likely to inhale water, gag, and begin the process of drowning. The thread also contained statistics showing that Belgium still has a high accident rate related to CESA instruction.

I agree with those who say that allowing a student to inhale during a CESA is a standards violation. As a professional educator well versed in instructional theory, I think this is a very serious mistake in the instructional design. That is also another reason why instructors in Belgium are wrong in requiring students to discard the regulator. The real OOA diver who inhales during the ascent will get air at best and will not get water at worst, so retaining the regulator is an important part of the ascent procedures for those two reasons. A critical concept in instructional theory is that instruction in a skill should look like that skill to the greatest degree possible. In athletic coaching, the principle is often called keeping practice "gamelike." When we fail the student who inhales in the last 5 feet of the CESA, we are teaching the student that no air will be available (not true), and we are teaching the student that the regulator has no value any more (not true). If we are to keep it "gamelike," we should reward the student for having the good sense for using that resource--as it should be done in a real situation--rather than punishing the student for doing the right thing. Unfortunately, that's not how it is. In my practice, I make sure students understand all this before we do the skill.

 

[knotical]

... We had a thread a year or two ago (which I looked for and could not find) in which we learned that instructors in Belgium rejected the findings of this workshop and continue to use older methods. ...

Is this it?: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/q-...ons-differing-dive-training-philosophies.html

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The procedures for doing the CESA are very strict for just about every agency that teaches it for an important reason. There was a workshop conducted by UHMS a number of years ago that indicated that CESA instruction was the cause of most accidents during scuba instruction. The procedures that were recommended are now standard for almost everyone because of the desire to make training safer.

"Almost everyone" does not apparently include instruction in Belgium. We had a thread a year or two ago (which I looked for and could not find) in which we learned that instructors in Belgium rejected the findings of this workshop and continue to use older methods. This includes discarding the regulator at the beginning of the ascent. The reasons for this have nothing to do with making a safe ascent--the purpose is to demonstrate clearly to the instructor that you are not inhaling. Of course, this means that an ascending student who is running out of air is more likely to inhale water, gag, and begin the process of drowning. The thread also contained statistics showing that Belgium still has a high accident rate related to CESA instruction.

I agree with those who say that allowing a student to inhale during a CESA is a standards violation. As a professional educator well versed in instructional theory, I think this is a very serious mistake in the instructional design. That is also another reason why instructors in Belgium are wrong in requiring students to discard the regulator. The real OOA diver who inhales during the ascent will get air at best and will not get water at worst, so retaining the regulator is an important part of the ascent procedures for those two reasons. A critical concept in instructional theory is that instruction in a skill should look like that skill to the greatest degree possible. In athletic coaching, the principle is often called keeping practice "gamelike." When we fail the student who inhales in the last 5 feet of the CESA, we are teaching the student that no air will be available (not true), and we are teaching the student that the regulator has no value any more (not true). If we are to keep it "gamelike," we should reward the student for having the good sense for using that resource--as it should be done in a real situation--rather than punishing the student for doing the right thing. Unfortunately, that's not how it is. In my practice, I make sure students understand all this before we do the skill.

So why not shut their air off and purge the regulator and then allow them to do the CESA? They would learn to keep the regulator in their mouth, so they don't "inhale water and start to drown" and you can make sure they are not cheating?

 

[String]

Nice except if they don't get to the surface you now have a student with empty lungs AND no immediate way of breathing. It's a ridiculous skill but i cant think of a single valid reason to do it without a reg in, either simulated OR real.

 

[beanojones]

So why not shut their air off and purge the regulator and then allow them to do the CESA? They would learn to keep the regulator in their mouth, so they don't "inhale water and start to drown" and you can make sure they are not cheating?

Two separate reasons, that kind of figure back to the same original reason:

One: Turning off the valve does not teach a diver how air runs out in the real world. In the real world someone "Out of Air" has the volume of the tank, not just the volume in the hose to breathe from, so the extra breath they get is real and significant. It is in fact why people can dive without gauges, and did so in the past, and not have to do panicked ascents when breathing the very last of a tank. Because once ambient drops below the remaining tank pressure there is more air left.

(Of course this does not help with dealing with catastrophic gear failure like a yoke retaining bolt, or a second stage lever failure.)

Two: What BoulderJohn said. PADI has their head up their heinie when it comes to the CESA.

a. PADI asks that the CESA be mastered in confined, swimming horizontal, when all of the teaching points are lost. There is no air expansion so the instructor has to swim alongside the diver adding air to their BCD with the inflator so the divers do not go negative to counteract the loss of buoyancy from the exhalation.

b. PADI also foolishly asks us to guarantee that the teaching point of oding it vertically is lost because they do not allow an inhalation near the surface, which would bring home the point that "out of air" usually means cannot get the remaining pressure out of the tank due to ambient pressure being equal to residual tank pressure.

Overarching idea here:

This is not the instructor forum, but its worth pointing out that experienced instructors have often driven standards changes. PADI HQ is no longer in the business of teaching OW (unlike the days of the PADI Dive College, or whatever it was called). That was the whole driving force behind the updated OW course in the first place. BoulderJohn et al put together a well-researched convincing case that said the 'standard' PADI kneeling teaching position was not just ineffective, but actually counter-productive to teaching bouyancy.

I have influenced PADI Instructor Examiners (the persons) far more than Instructor Examiners have influenced me in the last twenty years. Watching the change in how they conduct themselves with regards trim, to give an example, has been an eye opener. Of course the CDs are still stuck in the past. Watching a course director try and figure out how to teach the new OW system, or even do the skills is pretty hilarious, it if weren't so sad.

Also in a PADI update, the PADI Area Reps pointing out that making OW students kneel in the pool is boring to the students and is a waste of the student's time comes from certain PADI members pointing out that out to them, not from them discovering it themselves. PADI simply no longer teaches OW, and we working instructors do. They were completely unaware that they did not show anything but kneeling in CW in the old materials. We working instructors were well aware of it, having to fight to reprogram the bad first impressions OW divers got.

---------- Post added June 29th, 2014 at 10:18 PM ----------

Nice except if they don't get to the surface you now have a student with empty lungs AND no immediate way of breathing. It's a ridiculous skill but i cant think of a single valid reason to do it without a reg in, either simulated OR real.

Hopefully at least some of the divers doing CESAs are getting to the surface with mostly full lungs from the expansion on the way up. Guys with bigger lungs can usually be coached into being able to manage it pretty easily.

 

[String]

Very common for students no matter how briefed to actually breathe out too much and/or fail to get properly neutral to start or fail to kick to start and end up going nowhere.

 

[ballastbelly]

thanks for all the info.

if on your way up in a real life CESA you start getting air again (either because whatever mechanical fault rectified itself or air started supply due to the lower pressure ), do you abort the CESA and do the normal safety stop?

thx

 

[boulderjohn]

thanks for all the info.

if on your way up in a real life CESA you start getting air again (either because whatever mechanical fault rectified itself or air started supply due to the lower pressure ), do you abort the CESA and do the normal safety stop?

thx

No. You won't get anywhere near enough air for that. You will be able to start the CESA over again from scratch, but not much more than that.

Remember that the safety stop is just an extra measure of safety. If you stayed within decompression limits prior to your CESA, you should be just fine without it. Get to the surface! That is your main job in that situation.

 

[String]

thanks for all the info.

if on your way up in a real life CESA you start getting air again (either because whatever mechanical fault rectified itself or air started supply due to the lower pressure ), do you abort the CESA and do the normal safety stop?

thx

No. At BEST you'll get the occasional part breath at each depth and it'll get less and less the shallower you get. You'll be OOA again less than a second after getting "air".