peak performance buoyance

[boulderjohn]

I'm sorry. I just can't understand getting AOW with 5 introductory dives. SDI requires full courses and a minimum number of dives. Even then the certs you get are learners permits. I simply don't see how you can master what you need for deep diving (or any of the other specialities) in a single exploratory dive.

The purpose of the AOW dives always was to introduce divers to different aspects of diving, not to make them masters of any of them. According to the History of NAUI, written by Los Angeles County and NAUI founder Al Tillman (NAUI #1), the AOW course was first created by Los Angeles County because they noted a large number of divers got certified and stopped diving. They thought introducing a number of different aspects of diving would renew their interest. NAUI followed suit for the same reason. PADI came later.

 

[RJP]

I simply don't see how you can master what you need for deep diving (or any of the other specialities) in a single exploratory dive.

How did you come up with the flawed expectation that someone would "master what they need" to do anything based on taking AOW? Here's the description right from the PADI website:

Exploration, Excitement, Experiences

That’s what the PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course is all about. You don’t have to be “advanced” to take it – it’s designed to advance your diving, so you can start right after earning your PADI Open Water Diver certification. The course helps build confidence and expand your scuba skills through different Adventure Dives. You try out different specialties while gaining experience under the supervision of your PADI Instructor. You log dives and develop capabilities as you find new ways to have fun scuba diving.

What will you learn?

You’ll plan your learning path with your instructor by choosing from a long list of Adventure Dives. There are two required dives – Deep and Underwater Navigation – and you choose the other three, for a total of five dives.

During the Deep Adventure Dive, you learn how to plan dives to deal with the physiological effects and challenges of deeper scuba diving. The Underwater Navigation Adventure Dive refines your compass navigation skills and helps you better navigate using kick-cycles, visual landmarks and time.
The other knowledge and skills you get vary with your interest and the adventures you have – photography, buoyancy control, fish identification, exploring wrecks and many more.

 

[archer1960]

I'm sorry. I just can't understand getting AOW with 5 introductory dives. SDI requires full courses and a minimum number of dives. Even then the certs you get are learners permits. I simply don't see how you can master what you need for deep diving (or any of the other specialities) in a single exploratory dive.

You don't master them, and PADI doesn't say that you master them. The AOW dives are only intro's, so you get an idea of what different kinds of diving are like. To certify in any of them, you have to take additional course work and make additional dives.

 

[Peter Guy]

OP -- as everyone has said, ALL AOW dives must be in "open water" -- but there is no prohibition for your instructor to take you to a pool and do a pool session PPB prior to, or after, doing the OW one. There are, in fact, many things you can learn, and work on, in a pool that will help with the OW session. It may well be easier to "play with" trim weighting, getting that horizontal feel, etc. A pool session can really speed up the learning curve if done properly.

 

[Mike126]

This is where I find the AOW sample specialty dives are less than effective for me. I am chipping away at my AOW by getting certified in each specialty rather than doing a sample dive. Sure it costs a lot more but at the end of the day I feel that I will be better served completing the individual cert for PPB or Dry Suit than just doing a sample dive.

The PPB course was one of the best/most useful courses that I have taken. It is a lot of common sense but until you have an instructor or really good mentor explain the concepts and practice with you it is hard to teach yourself.

 

[olphart]

I would think that PPB work in a pool is excellent practice. Maintaining trim and depth in less than 10' can be pretty challenging, and if you get a handle on that, the deeper stuff will be much easier.

 

[KevinNM]

During a class I took one of the instructors mentioned a scientific diving course where the final was a 1 hour written test. Which you did on scuba in the deep end of the pool, with the test on wet note paper on a clip board. If you touched the bottom or surface you failed. Probably helped develop decent buoyancy control....

 

[The Kraken]

When I take on a student for PPB, I start off in the tank/pool. The reason for this is that I'm not sure if the student is diving, currently, with the proper weighting.

What I do is take the student, select a tank that has only about 600-700 psi remaining and take him/her to the bottom of the tank. There at the bottom, I have the student diver slowly inhale and exhale and observe resulting position in the water column. I will make weighting adjustments until the student begins a very slow ascent upon breathing in deeply.

After proper weighting has been achieved, then we head to the open water where we practice ascending and descending simply by breathing, we do this in place. After a few repetitions of this, then we begin swimming about and descending and ascending just a few feet at a time. It helps the student master the "multi-tasking", if you will, of maintaining proper buoyancy and depth, along with proper B/C inflation/deflation control.

But diving is such a dynamic recreation and the parameters and environments constantly change requiring the diver to be aware, constantly, of maintaining proper buoyancy.

So, to that end, PPB is an ongoing, constant aspect of diving which any diver should be forever practicing.

Safe dives . . . . . .
. . . safer ascents !

the K

 

[Kharon]

OK. I get that PADI doesn't say you master them. What I don't understand is how it can be called Advanced OW when you can't possibly master any additional skills.

 

[tursiops]

OK. I get that PADI doesn't say you master them. What I don't understand is how it can be called Advanced OW when you can't possibly master any additional skills.

Once again: the "advanced" does not describe the diver, it simply means you have advanced beyond OW training.
And, yes, you DO master a few skills in each of the five dives...just not ALL of them associated with the specialty from which that single dive is extracted.