No, PADI did not require it, but the degree to which they have advocated it is frankly encouraging...In that discussion, I got the very clear sense that the idea was new, and they were a bit defensive about the status quo.
Yeah if they had made teaching neutral part of the standards then I would have first hand knowledge of many instructors in violation of standards. My personal observation is that many dive pros don't seem to have great skills themselves, to say nothing of teaching these skills to students.
Maybe I'm pessimistic but I don't see PADI making teaching neutral mandatory even though some members of their leadership team thinks it turns out better students, at least in the short to medium term, because they have a vested financial interest in not doing so. To do so would really thin out the instructor ranks if enforcement was any good, and we all know that it is really hard to get someone to understand something if his/her salary depends on him/her not understanding that particular something.
What I would like to see is for this neutral style of teaching to become part of the standards and failing to do so to be considered a violation. HQ might consider offering assistance in the form of workshops for instructors who themselves need help with these skills or teaching these skills. I feel that PADI is in a dominant enough market position to push through changes like this, it is simply a question of whether they can muster up the political will internally to do so.
My job was to try to convince teachers to adopt revolutionary new (and highly effective) methods. It was like shoveling against the tide. I learned that as long as they are allowed to do what they have always done, they will continue with the familiar routines until they see the difference with their own eyes. The same is true of scuba instruction. Until old-style instructors see it done differently and see how much difference it makes, they are unlikely to change.
The thing is that the dive centre I refer to in my earlier post knows about such teaching methods but choose to carry on with business as usual. I still DM for them on a semi-regular basis and most of their full time crew have seen first-hand the change in my proficiency post-fundies. My observation is that they probably dismissed it as a GUE thing. For example, one of the instructors who in my opinion is more inclined towards the neutral style of instruction than his colleagues told his group of AOW students that the trim position and frog kick were something cave divers did. It is hugely frustrating when instructors make comments like this but as a mere DM I have little standing to correct them, and it would also not be professional to undermine an instructor in front of the students.
The conclusion I drew from my personal experience is that any such changes to the prevailing on the knees methodology will have to be driven from within the internal PADI organization for it to gain traction among the instructor corp and dive centres, at least in my part of the world. I am hopeful that organization insiders like boulderjohn who have the ears of the higher-ups in PADI will be able to drive institutional changes to instruction methodology, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.
Setting aside my personal gripes about PADI, I am curious if any of the instructors who went from the old way to teaching neutral and in trim can tell me about whether and how execution of any skills have changed with the new teaching philosophy. One example I can think of is that there is little need to teach the sweeping regulator recovery if you teach in trim, other than that current PADI standards require it (I thought the old 5th DX exaggerated reg recovery was just plain silly). I've never seen a PADI class taught in the neutral and trim manner so this should be enlightening.
