ScubaInChicago
Contributor
Bwahahaha, I would never lower myself to that "level" for a certification.
Teaching it Neutral Style... a paradigm shift in Scuba instruction
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Bwahahaha, I would never lower myself to that "level" for a certification.
LowDrag
Contributor
Nope...I am not the "diver", I am the diver shooting the video from behind. This diver had 12 logged dives at the time. This is a good example of how not to teach someone to dive IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwFMugOZR2k
These guys were nice guys but the newer "diver" of the two just was not taught properly from the start. I felt bad for him because he was really struggling thru this dive. The second diver is an instructor but yet you still see him standing on the bottom. Luckily it was only seaweed for the most part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwFMugOZR2k
These guys were nice guys but the newer "diver" of the two just was not taught properly from the start. I felt bad for him because he was really struggling thru this dive. The second diver is an instructor but yet you still see him standing on the bottom. Luckily it was only seaweed for the most part.
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I had a wrote a response earlier but I accidentally closed out of my browser so I lost it. Trying to re-write from memory..
For the last year or so I've taught all my PADI Open Water classes neutrally buoyant. My methods are not perfect yet by any means but I really do believe it makes a big difference and it's not that hard to incorporate into your classes. Your divers will spend more time practicing neutral buoyancy and will come out of the pool looking and feeling better if you spend a little extra time working on their trim and weighting.
Although I only have jacket BCDs and weight belts (and trim weights) to work with, even with this equipment I can have my students looking "pretty good" at the end of most pool sessions. You DON'T NEED a backplate/wing to trim out your students.
I teach exactly two skills on the knees, initial regulator recovery (just to get them comfortable in stand up water) and equipment removal. For most everything else I expect my students to be neutral or maintain only light fin contact with bottom. If someone is on their knees I make them repeat the skill. I won't outright fail anyone if they're on bottom but I will encourage them to become neutral before attempting the skill again.
Part of the way I do it is to make sure I'm setting appropriate expectations for students that I expect them not to be on their knees for skills. You'd be surprised how much this works by simply setting the expectation that they can't be on the bottom. I also make sure that everything I demo is neutral buoyancy and in trim. It's been said here a million times before but students will often imitate their instructors, including fin kicks and hand placements.
I admit this is not perfect. Part of the challenge I have is I often work with 2 or 3 other instructors who teach a traditional on the knees approach while I'm also in the pool. I'm not knocking them; They're great instructors and are extremely thorough but it's just the way they've taught for decades. For our open water classes we take a maximum of 12 students and split them up between 3 instructors with a DM that rotates between groups or helps with refresher students. My ratio is never more than 4:1 which I know is not possible for people in large dive centers. We have the pool 2pm-7pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Most students usually spend ~6-8 hours in the pool for confined water.
The small challenge I had this weekend was my students whom I felt had already progressed beyond "buddha hover" positions and "fin pivots" were asking me why other groups were doing this things. I didn't want them to think I was skipping skills or not introducing something to them so in the end I made them do these as well in confined water 4/5 after we had already spent the majority of the dives focusing on not being on the bottom.
I simply explained to them that there are different methods and ways to teach neutral buoyancy and that is another method which there is nothing wrong with. I explain that since we started off doing all our skills already neutrally buoyant we've been practicing "those skills" the entire pool session
When I first started teaching "neutral" I had some initial concerns that my students (or other instructors) would think I was skipping something or I was trying to be elitist if that make sense. It really hasn't been the case at all.
I just finished some confined open water dives last night and I took a small amount of GoPro video that I will try to edit/upload when I have time. (Note: There were 4 instructors in the pool (one in particular watching my students) so I was not ignoring or neglecting my students...)
For the last year or so I've taught all my PADI Open Water classes neutrally buoyant. My methods are not perfect yet by any means but I really do believe it makes a big difference and it's not that hard to incorporate into your classes. Your divers will spend more time practicing neutral buoyancy and will come out of the pool looking and feeling better if you spend a little extra time working on their trim and weighting.
Although I only have jacket BCDs and weight belts (and trim weights) to work with, even with this equipment I can have my students looking "pretty good" at the end of most pool sessions. You DON'T NEED a backplate/wing to trim out your students.
I teach exactly two skills on the knees, initial regulator recovery (just to get them comfortable in stand up water) and equipment removal. For most everything else I expect my students to be neutral or maintain only light fin contact with bottom. If someone is on their knees I make them repeat the skill. I won't outright fail anyone if they're on bottom but I will encourage them to become neutral before attempting the skill again.
Part of the way I do it is to make sure I'm setting appropriate expectations for students that I expect them not to be on their knees for skills. You'd be surprised how much this works by simply setting the expectation that they can't be on the bottom. I also make sure that everything I demo is neutral buoyancy and in trim. It's been said here a million times before but students will often imitate their instructors, including fin kicks and hand placements.
I admit this is not perfect. Part of the challenge I have is I often work with 2 or 3 other instructors who teach a traditional on the knees approach while I'm also in the pool. I'm not knocking them; They're great instructors and are extremely thorough but it's just the way they've taught for decades. For our open water classes we take a maximum of 12 students and split them up between 3 instructors with a DM that rotates between groups or helps with refresher students. My ratio is never more than 4:1 which I know is not possible for people in large dive centers. We have the pool 2pm-7pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Most students usually spend ~6-8 hours in the pool for confined water.
The small challenge I had this weekend was my students whom I felt had already progressed beyond "buddha hover" positions and "fin pivots" were asking me why other groups were doing this things. I didn't want them to think I was skipping skills or not introducing something to them so in the end I made them do these as well in confined water 4/5 after we had already spent the majority of the dives focusing on not being on the bottom.
I simply explained to them that there are different methods and ways to teach neutral buoyancy and that is another method which there is nothing wrong with. I explain that since we started off doing all our skills already neutrally buoyant we've been practicing "those skills" the entire pool session
When I first started teaching "neutral" I had some initial concerns that my students (or other instructors) would think I was skipping something or I was trying to be elitist if that make sense. It really hasn't been the case at all.
I just finished some confined open water dives last night and I took a small amount of GoPro video that I will try to edit/upload when I have time. (Note: There were 4 instructors in the pool (one in particular watching my students) so I was not ignoring or neglecting my students...)
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I teach for UTD and it is their standard to be neutrally buoyant to teach and perform skills, the students must also perform mid-water skills with minimal buoyancy change.
I also teach for SDI/TDI and until recently, PADI. I've used that method for all my OW courses, regardless of agency.
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Having just watched the link - that was painful to see (can see the trim is pretty poor with feet about 3-4 feet lower than the head at points, seldom finding neutral buoyancy, flapping the arms about to regain some semblance of trim etc). Kicking lumps out of objects on the bottom, standing on the bottom - I think I was doing better when I was doing my OW course dives!
Great post! Just a couple comments....
This cannot be emphasized enough. I became certified to coach at a pretty high level by both the United States Volleyball Association and the United States Soccer Association, and in the training for both certifications, the fact that athletes will imitate what they see and ignore what they hear (when it is contrary to what they see) was absolutely hammered into my psyche.
Here is a suggestion. I have students start off in the shallow end ("stand up water") just swimming on the surface, BCDs inflated. Then I have them dump air and swim on the bottom, still in the shallow end, adding short bursts of air until they are swimming in mid water. This allows me to correct weighting, kicking skills, etc. Most importantly, it gets them comfortable. You will see in post #79 that NetDoc does something similar to achieve the same thing. We then go to what I call the instructional position (and, IIRC, NetDoc calls the "scuba position") and just stay there, looking at each other and getting comfortable for a minute or too. All of that extra time pays off in their comfort and ability to do the skills in that state of comfort. I mention this because I feel there is no skill that is more completely different between kneeling and being horizontal then regulatory recovery. Leaning to the right for the sweep method is a completely different skill. Reaching easily behind the ear to hook a hose that is inches away is completely different from reaching back with the left hand to push up a tank that is falling away from your back because of gravity before reaching for that still distant hose.
This cannot be emphasized enough. I became certified to coach at a pretty high level by both the United States Volleyball Association and the United States Soccer Association, and in the training for both certifications, the fact that athletes will imitate what they see and ignore what they hear (when it is contrary to what they see) was absolutely hammered into my psyche.
The old adage was "monkey see, monkey do" IIRC and it is so true when teaching any practical skill (I did first aid training for years and any minor mistake from the instructor during a demonstration was copied multiple times before it could be ironed out of the trainees)
[video=youtube;LDDInObqT2U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDDInObqT2U&feature=youtu.be[/video]Here is a quick video of the confined water session 5 from last night showing two students. Unfortunately I didn't really take a lot of video of my students demoing skills as I was busy teaching. I will try to position the GoPro on bottom of pool next time or get a DM to perhaps take some short video.
While I don't think my students were perfect, the video shows they were able to maintain basic trim and buoyancy without having to resort to on the knees teaching. Of course there were a few contacts on the bottom and their kicking technique can be improved but overall I don't think they did bad at all. Prior to this, neither had ever taken a SCUBA course before.
I was very hesitant to post this as I know how critical scubaboard can be when judging others teaching styles and techniques.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDDInObqT2U&feature=youtu.be
While I don't think my students were perfect, the video shows they were able to maintain basic trim and buoyancy without having to resort to on the knees teaching. Of course there were a few contacts on the bottom and their kicking technique can be improved but overall I don't think they did bad at all. Prior to this, neither had ever taken a SCUBA course before.
I was very hesitant to post this as I know how critical scubaboard can be when judging others teaching styles and techniques.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDDInObqT2U&feature=youtu.be
Macado, big thanks for the post, I admire the courage to put things out there, knowing "the board".
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I thought I might ell a story that may illustrate the difference we are talking about.
One day a couple years ago two friends and I were doing a series of 1-tank dives in Akumal Bay in Mexico. As we were coming in from our first dive of the day, the DM (who had not been with us on our previous days diving) came to the 3 of us and said he noticed we were the only ones signed up for the next dive of the day. He wondered if we were interested in going to a more challenging site, something more fitting to our experience and skill. We of course agreed. As we were getting our gear together for that dive, though, we saw another couple had signed up and were joining us for the dive. As soon as we got to the site, we saw it would be trouble. The DM took the wife to a sandy area near the reef and gave her a basic buoyancy lesson. THen he took us into a narrow area between the coral, but it was obvious neither the wife nor the husband had the buoyancy skills necessary for the planned dive. The DM led us on a dive near, but not in, the canyons and swim throughs he had obviously planned for us to explore.
As we went back to the shop after the dive, the DM apologized to us. He said the couple that had signed up late only had about 25 dives--nothing like the experience the three of us did--and so were not ready for an advanced dive site like that.
He was quite surprised to learn that my two friends had just finished being certified by me the day before. The two dives had had done with us that day were their first OW dives after certification.
One day a couple years ago two friends and I were doing a series of 1-tank dives in Akumal Bay in Mexico. As we were coming in from our first dive of the day, the DM (who had not been with us on our previous days diving) came to the 3 of us and said he noticed we were the only ones signed up for the next dive of the day. He wondered if we were interested in going to a more challenging site, something more fitting to our experience and skill. We of course agreed. As we were getting our gear together for that dive, though, we saw another couple had signed up and were joining us for the dive. As soon as we got to the site, we saw it would be trouble. The DM took the wife to a sandy area near the reef and gave her a basic buoyancy lesson. THen he took us into a narrow area between the coral, but it was obvious neither the wife nor the husband had the buoyancy skills necessary for the planned dive. The DM led us on a dive near, but not in, the canyons and swim throughs he had obviously planned for us to explore.
As we went back to the shop after the dive, the DM apologized to us. He said the couple that had signed up late only had about 25 dives--nothing like the experience the three of us did--and so were not ready for an advanced dive site like that.
He was quite surprised to learn that my two friends had just finished being certified by me the day before. The two dives had had done with us that day were their first OW dives after certification.
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