Ssi vs padi certification

What's more important in an open water course? The Agency, or the Instructor?

  • Agency

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • Instructor

    Votes: 28 75.7%
  • Yes

    Votes: 7 18.9%

  • Total voters
    37

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There's a pretty good argument and rather convincing data that suggest students who are trained in longer classes are more confident about their diving and thus are more likely to stick with it and not contribute to the observed attrition rate.

Totally. I don't think I'd be diving as much if I didn't spend as much time as I did doing classes, but there's no way I would've considered this sport at the time if it would've cost me $900+ in classwork.

... Mind you, how many thousands of dollars later...
 
It's an optimizing problem, what's better, support your shop with lots of divers buying masks, fins and snorkels and little else or a few divers buying everything including drysuits, scooters and the occasional rebreather.
 
I think the guy I deal with makes more off of "discounting" mask/snorkel/fin packages and selling drysuits to OW students on dive 5 than anything tech related.. At least all the ones I know are cheap bastards asking for deals.
 
Sorry, deleted my entire original post, it wasn't productive.

Even if SSI encourages instructors to teach more than the BASE and PADI discourages it, it still comes down to the instructor. Now I'm sure someone will quote me and ask if I get it, or missed it, but I was just trying to help out the OP with my personal experience.
 
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Even if SSI encourages instructors to teach more than the BASE and PADI discourages it, it still comes down to the instructor.

I don't really know what you mean by this, but I assume that your saying that if a PADI Instructor was a better instructor than a particular SSI Instructor, the Student may learn some skills better from the PADI Instructor when compared to the SSI Instructor. You do not address the additional skills that the SSI Instructor may teach, which the PADI Instructor may be prohibited from teaching. Do these have no value to you?

Personally, I find this to be a real stretch, as both Agencies have good instructors. The major differences I see are what is taught, in what order and what cannot be taught. The best instructor in the world can't change that if s/he wants to obey their Agencies Standards.
 
DCBC... Sorry, I didn't really explain it that well. It was stated earlier in the thread that SSI encourages instructors to teach things not in the material and that PADI discourages that teaching.

I'll see if I can put this in a better way. If I had my choice between a good instructor only teaching the book or a bad instructor teaching the book plus 10 extra things, I'll take the good instructor teaching the book. Now if both instructors are good, I'd go for the one teaching the 10 extra things.

I can only go from my peronal exprience my SSI OW instructor covered the book really well and taught some other things that he felt were important. My PADI instructor for AOW and now for Rescue have done the same thing. I wouldn't hesitate to refer people to either PADI or SSI shop that I've dealt with, but I still feel that's more of a reflection of the individual shop and instructors than the agency.
 
I also think that pool time should be at least double the time needed for skills introduction and assessment. Plenty of "goof-off" time is very beneficial.
Rick

As a DC, I got to see a lot of "goof off" time and came to question its value. Aside from intro and assessment, students were pretty much left to do whatever they wanted and that typically consisted of standing around on the bottom, doing somersaults, tossing pool toys back and forth or the like. The students really enjoyed the free time, but it didn't seem to yield much in the way of positive results.

I don't use toys and am challenging the students virtually every minute they are in the pool. It's a great time to assign work to students based on their current capability and move each to the next level as their individual abilities allow. In one instance, that might be challenging a student to stay off the bottom or it could be adding task loading with a student who has a good handle on the skills and buoyancy control.

Pool time is precious and students need to use every minute of it to work on skills to have a chance, in most cases. I appreciate the flexibility SSI allows me in introducing skills and drills not found in the manual which allow me to maximize productivity in the pool.

I haven't had any complaints to this point and as long as I continue to get positive feedback from students, I'll continue to look for new ways to push them.

How do I know they're having a good time? They tell me in a variety of ways, but this has to be one of my favorite:
AMY.jpg


Learning to dive well is fun!
 
I Second: when doing a skill review deal they hadn't learned what to do if a regulator freelfows, and I had.

@ Splash-X -

From my own experience - in my OW I was taught computation of SAC rate, how to use it to plan a dive to 130 feet, how to determine (during planning) if NDL limits or the amount of gas I carry would limit the dive, etc. My wife, who was PADI trained, was not taught these items in her OW.

I'm not saying ALL SSI instructors go this far, but from the quote above, I believe it is fair to say PADI discourages doing this.

That depends how much you were taught. We learned about it. Regs shouldn't be freeflowing if they're working properly should they?

Breathing from a free flowing reg is a required skill for PADI. It is supposed to be practiced in the pool in confined water dive #3, and the technique used is a question on the final exam. Perhaps the individual instructor chose not to teach the PADI people how to do it in the pool, but they sure should have noticed the question on the exam.

My PADI OW students learn how to figure a SAC rate and use it to plan a dive to any depth.
 
... "goof off" time ... typically consisted of standing around on the bottom, doing somersaults, tossing pool toys back and forth or the like...
I do have some restrictions... "no standing or sitting on the bottom. If you see a fish in your aquarium with it's tail or backside laying on the bottom you know it's time to flush it, right? Let's be healthy fish. Try to keep belly down, try not to touch the bottom or the surface unless you intend to go to the surface."
Somersaults are beneficial. Blowing bubble rings is beneficial. Throwing toys while maintaining neutral buoyancy is beneficial. Swimming around experimenting with kicks is beneficial. etc...
Rick
 
My PADI OW students learn how to figure a SAC rate and use it to plan a dive to any depth.

Thanks John - Glad to know that some PADI instructors do teach this. Just based on this I would venture that you are a better instructor than the one my wife had.

BTW - do you also cover hooded vests, dressing rooms, and emergency procedures for hood removal? That remains a SB classic! :rofl3:
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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