blue steal
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It not about the agency, It's all about the instructor.
SSI certified for OW & AOW
SSI certified for OW & AOW
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I have quibbles with both organizations training material, but they are very minor and I can address them in class....I am becoming more SSI oriented, as I feel they are more customer oriented. SSI ALLOWS and ENCOURAGES me to add to the base curriculum, PADI discourages this practice, I believe as it opens me, and them up to additional liability. SSI has a program that the text book is available on line after student is certified. PADI requires you to purchase a text book. I REALLY like the idea that my students can access the training material any time to brush up and refresh their knowledge.ALSO, importantly for me....SSI allows me to not license somebody who I feel is genuinely NOT safe and NEVER will be safe, with PADI..if they can meet the performance requirements, I MUST license them. There have been a few, that I wish I could have with held certification.
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I'm PADI OW certified, and last summer I spent a week diving with a group of fellow noobs who were SSI certified. There were two differences I found. First: was that the table they used was slightly different than mine. Second: when doing a skill review deal they hadn't learned what to do if a regulator freelfows, and I had. Neither mattered when we were actually diving though.
the instructor does not need to teach tables anymore
I explained this rather fully here.It's going to be VERY hard to compare. Take a single dive shop, two instructor at the same shop will have different methods for teaching the same skills. While they both follow the same course guidlines and standards students of Instructor A will learn slightly different than Instructor B.
Actually, as I demonstrated, it is rather easy to do so, it just takes a little statistical acumen to understand the comparison.With that said, it's near impossible to compare two instructors classes let alone different instructors at different stores in different agencies.
That's a lot of happy horse pucky. If you want to learn to dive, find someone who dives the way that you'd like to be able to and find out who trained them. Don't worry about you "mesh" with the instructor, put yourself in the instructor's hands and carefully follow instructions. Low and behold ... you will be diving like the person whom you wanted to model yourself after.At the end of the day what you should be asking yourself is, is the dive shop and instructor you selected a good fit for you. Are they easy to talk to, does their personality mesh well with yours?
We've all had students that were not "perfect fits." I'll still say that they came out much better divers than they would have had they found their Instructor soul mate who just happened to be teaching an 18 hour, 3-day, 4-dive course.If someone is uncomfortable with an instructor for what ever reason, the over all learning process will be hampered and it wont matter if they're the best instructor in the world, the student will be distracted and wont be at their best.
Both agencies abide by the same rules and regulations.Hi,
I am PADI certified and my family is getting ready to be certified SSI - I didn't even realize there was a difference when I signed them up for the classes until I picked up the info. Are there any serious cons or pros to an SSI certification?
Thanks!
I got my OW with an SSI shop, at the time, I compared my OW book to my wife's PADI book from a couple years earlier and they seemed almost identical. I have since gotten my AOW and Nitrox through PADI and working on my Rescue with a PADI shop. I've got to agree that it really is the instructor and the shop that makes the difference and not the agency.