Redesigning AOW

[Blackwood]

My mistake, it was at Miramar until 1996, when the USMC took over the base, is that right? Thanks for setting the record straight.

Yah. I grew up down in San Diego and went to the NAS Miramar air show annually since I was about 5 years old. When the USMC took it back (I think it was theirs up through WW2 or so) in 1996, the show seemed to lose a bit of its awe, but it was probably just psychological (since it was no longer the home of the TOPGUN school).

 

[DevonDiver]

From an instructors perspective....

I have four dives with an OW student. I do my utmost to make them the best possible divers in that time. If that student opts to do the AOW course, then I have a further 5 dives to develop them (more than double). Those extra 5 dives work wonders.

Some have suggest that instructors add extra dives etc to the OW course. Nice idea - but I have rent to pay, food to buy, equipment to service etc, so students pay for my time. When they pay for that time, they get my utmost attention and the full benefit of my experience and the HUGE amounts of money and time that I have invested getting to this level of diving.

jsdavis.....read this thread properly. Nobody who dives professionally would ever consider the AOW course to be an 'advanced' diving qualification. IMHO, I wouldn't consider someone to be a 'real' diver until they had the full spectrum of rescue skills - that is the minimum I'd want from a buddy for recreational diving. Anything less is just work for me, as I'd be holding their hands and have no confidence in their ability to help me if I had any sort of problem.

Comments on 'Boat Diver' - generally a useless option for AOW - unless you did the OW course as shore dives (happens in some locales) or if you are going to be diving from a drastically different type of boat, requiring new skills and techniques (i.e. RIB diving).

Redesign AOW?....well, the whole POINT of the course is that any student has the option to mould the course to their own personal requirements and gain from the course what they feel they need. Why do some people (normally the least experienced) feel that they need to tell the agencies, the instructors and another world's supply worth of students what they should be doing with their diving?!?!?

 

[dbulmer]

"Why do some people (normally the least experienced) feel that they need to tell the agencies, the instructors and another world's supply worth of students what they should be doing with their diving?!?!? "

Because feedback from those who have taken a course can help to identify areas of weakness and strengths in diver development.

 

[DevonDiver]

"Why do some people (normally the least experienced) feel that they need to tell the agencies, the instructors and another world's supply worth of students what they should be doing with their diving?!?!? "

Because feedback from those who have taken a course can help to identify areas of weakness and strengths in diver development.

Thanks for using my quote out of context and in isolation from the rest of my post. Really - the course is designed to be flexible and modular - allowing an element of choice and adaptation by the individual student. It also designed to develop the confidence and basic skills of entry level divers - only to such a level where they would be capable of carrying out a rescue course and/or diving with a little more personal responsibility. If you got nothing out of it, then you need to blame yourself - as either you chose the wrong dive options or you chose the wrong instructor.

 

[dbulmer]

I think you are protesting too much. You posted your instructor view and the quote out of context is in reply to a specific concern that you had as an instructor.

First of all I did not attack AOW - I think it's a good idea for some divers but the motivation behind doing AOW can be different for some divers.
I did AOW for insurance purposes. I was already familiar with a lot of the course content before I set off as I got the AOW manual myself before attending the course in Mexico. I dive regularly in the UK in an SAA club so I already had a good understanding of gas management. As a UK diver I also have to be proficient in DSMB deployment as you know - it's not one of my strengths - I did a mid water deployment with a spool and lost about 4m in buoyancy control - my instructor then showed me how to do it - he lost 8m in control. When the instructor did the DSMB deployment with my father his buoyancy did not move more than a metre or so.

The AOW was Deep,Navigation, Drift, Underwater Naturalist and Fish ID. Fish ID was what I enjoyed the most but I was offered a choice over the electives - take it or leave it.

Yes I could have gone to another shop but chose the operator for convenience and I liked the instructor. He did tailor the drift dive and offered advice to me and my buddy (my DAD who at the time had 200+ dives in various warm water location and I had to persuade him to do the course ).

On the subject of the instructor, before I went to Mexico I was given the name of a good instructor from someone on Scubaboard but he'd left when I got there so I stayed with the shop.
That was my choice - right or wrong.

The instructor from the shop looked at our log books and you could see him thinking what the hell do I do with these guys ? He saw my sac and minimum gas calculations and I think he was genuinely trying to find something to add but could not think of anything - BTW that's not ego talking - I'm not a natural diver I've had to work harder than most to get comfy in the water.

I never play the blame game - ultimately the diver has to learn how to dive safely and responsibly - courses such as AOW can indeed accelerate that learning process for some people particularly those who dive perhaps one or twice a year but for others such as me who dive all year round AOW is not the only way to advance diving skills.

 

[fisherdvm]

Redesign AOW?....well, the whole POINT of the course is that any student has the option to mould the course to their own personal requirements and gain from the course what they feel they need. Why do some people (normally the least experienced) feel that they need to tell the agencies, the instructors and another world's supply worth of students what they should be doing with their diving?!?!?

I don't know if half of the students out there have the option to "mould" the course to their own personal requirements - unless they were willing to pay private lesson price. They might be lucky to have one elective - ie - one fluffy course for another fluffy adventure dive. But I think the majority of AOW classes do not give great flexibility. The second part of your question, why should the "least experienced" be telling agencies and instructors what to do? Because they are the one closest to the answer of the initial question. Where the rubber meets the road.

 

[scubajcf]

I was Redoing my lesson plan for my Advanced Diver course when I came upon this thread. I decided to write down a lot of the ideas generated in it. I came up with a pretty comprehensive list of ideas. Most I agree with, but all valuable nonetheless. I think it is very objective (I left out a lot of the commentary and redundancy). I did paraphrase on occassion and hope I did not take anyone out of context. I apologize in advance if I did. I thought I would share my findings with all the good people here. Thanks for your input!

• FisherDVM: Keep the following: Navigation, Search and Recovery, Deep Dives
• FisherDVM: Eliminate “garbage” like photography, naturalist and boat
• FisherDVM: Add Peak Performance Buoyancy, proper weight balance and management, Rock Bottom Management.
• GUBA: Require Night Diving
• Randy43068: Proper Trim and Holding Stops, Discussion on Pros and Cons of BP/W vs. Jacket Style BC, Discussion on Neoprene causing dynamic instability
• Rick Inman: Gas Management
• Teamcasa: Search and Recovery is of little use. See Safety Stop holding without a line and expand navigation to more than a simple square route. AOW should include more buoyancy activities and buddy diving experiences (awareness)
• Diver85: Change Name to something that does not represent an advanced diver after 20 dives (paraphrasing)
• Walter: Require night, deep, low viz, wreck and search and recovery, increase the required dives to 10 and throw in some real academics
• UCFdiver: More buoyancy, better communication (low viz) and get rid of the deep dive. See GUI Fundamentals
• NWGratefulDiver: How to plan a dive, how to be a good buddy, diving at night or in limited visibility, techniques for efficient trim and propulsion, managing stress, (how to deal with task loading), proper ascent/descent techniques, deploying an SMB.
• UCFDiver: Be able to hover (not moving) at the same elevation for 1 minute, Not have any lose gear, know basic decompression planning (gas management and gas matching), basic field fear troubleshooting.
• BDub: bubble management (Buhlmann vs. minimum deco, etc.)
• PCBCaptChris: Offer Nitrox as an upgrade on every AOW
• Change from AOW to OW2 – multiple sources
• Littlejohn:
o Basic OW – 6 Dives, 60’ max …
o OW – 12 Dives Buoyancy/Trim/Deep/Gas Management to 90’/Night
o AOW – 30 Dives, Deep and Gas Management to 130’/Peak Performance Buoyancy/Stress and Rescue/Navigation and Search
o Master Diver – 60 Dives, Advanced Stress and Rescue/Overhead Penetration/Recreational Dive Lead/Advanced Search
• BDub: SAC/RMV Calculations
• NWGratefulDiver: AOW up, Interview students prior to the class. Discuss Goals. Eliminate Card Collectors
• BDub: Horizontal Descent, face to face, not touching the bottom when reaching the bottom, proficient buoyancy control throughout the dive, even when tasked with OOG, Mask Skills, Navigation, Horizontal ascent, face to face, holding all stops (typically, three stops) Do stops while sharing air.
• BDub: Teach not diving deeper than the volume of air in your tank (you carry)
• TSandM: Topics not problem, no meat behind the topics.
• Shoupart: Beach Diving, Night Diving, Deep Diving, Navigation Skills and Buoyancy Skills. Something about gauging a site (boat or shore) Maybe some fun topics on top of that.
• NWGratefulDiver: 3 minute, 20’ Triangle. Navigation on every dive.
• Garrobo: CESA from various depths and compass navigation
• Nannymouse: Buoyancy control / Gas Consumption (all dives), Navigation (Natural and Compass – 2 Dives, or parts of several dives), Situational awareness / good buddy (1 full dive or parts of others), Night/Low Viz (2 dives), Deco Awareness/Narcosis (1 or 2 dives), Propulsion/Finning (1st dive and parts of others)
• Blackwood: Sees this as a part of a BOW – (1) Proficiency of Safe Dive techniques including pre-dive, inwater and post dive activities and assessment, (2) Awareness of team member location and safety (responding to visual cues), donate gas to out of air diver, donate gas to OAD and do direct ascent, demonstrate two propulsion techniques in silty water, safe demeanor during all training, deploy spool and marker, proficient buoyancy and trim, proficient in underwater communication, proficient with equipment, aptitude with open water skills such as mask clearing, removal and replacement, regulator removal and replacement and long hose deployment, safe ascent and descent procedures, proficient valve drill.
• NWGratefulDiver: (sums it up) Dive planning, gas management, situational awareness, communication, buoyancy control, propulsion techniques. More emphasis on proper dive preparation
• Owlbill: Bundle AOW, Deep and Nitrox. Add a day of screening dives, followed by an apprenticeship style course that lasts until instructors feel they have earned their certication. Make it an advanced course, not an intermediate. They charge $440 for instructor time and books.
• JSDavis: Intro to Rescue. Up minimum requirement to 20 logged dives.

 

[Thalassamania]

I was Redoing my lesson plan for my Advanced Diver course when I came ...

Great list. For the Do it Your Selfers: Sodium Acetate hot packs.

 

[on_two_wheels]

Okay, after 5 pages I finally just decided to share my thoughts rather than reading on and on. First, let me say that for a new diver, this has been a GREAT thread.

Second, let me address the difference in opinions here. UFCDIVER, I totally understand your point but, unfortunately, you're way of thinking is similar to that of public schools. Modify the training for the dumb ones rather than making the dumb ones smarter.

Third, if peak performance buoyancy skills include being face to face, helping them maintain their position, then they aren't exhibiting "peak performance." They should be able to do so with just a guage, particulates, etc.

Lastly, I think AOW is a joke. It's purely a money maker. The whole idea of it is to get people interested in taking more classes, thus spending more money. If they really were interested in making people better divers, I agree with those that suggest better dive planning (incl gas mgmt), buoyancy control, etc is they way.

If AOW wasn't required for Rescue Diver, I wouldn't have taken it. Mine consisted of turning in knowledge reviews, then 5 dives. Deep, Night, Nav, Fish ID, and photo. The first three were fun. The only true learning experience was during the nav dive. The last two were useless to me because I, like everyone else here, could not relate them to "advanced" diving. I had no options on the 5 dives....they were chosen for the students.

 

[leapfrog]

Lastly, I think AOW is a joke. It's purely a money maker. The whole idea of it is to get people interested in taking more classes, thus spending more money. If they really were interested in making people better divers, I agree with those that suggest better dive planning (incl gas mgmt), buoyancy control, etc is they way.

If AOW wasn't required for Rescue Diver, I wouldn't have taken it. Mine consisted of turning in knowledge reviews, then 5 dives. Deep, Night, Nav, Fish ID, and photo. The first three were fun. The only true learning experience was during the nav dive. The last two were useless to me because I, like everyone else here, could not relate them to "advanced" diving. I had no options on the 5 dives....they were chosen for the students.

Well, I think you are making a statement based on your personal experience. Nothing wrong with that but the whole point of AOW is that you do a proper deep dive, which if done correctly gives you an idea of what going down to thirty meters is all about, especially the effects of narcosis on your reflexes compared to being at sea level. Navigation can be as advanced as the conditions and the Instructor allow. Not the same navigating at night or no viz than in the Carribean on a sunny day.

Night should have been good and can also be advanced....or not. Obviously Fish ID and Photo are hardly advanced but other options are "better"... Wreck Diving, etc