The LEARNERS PERMIT!

[CamG]

Greetings fellow Scuba Boarders. I was reminded yesterday of what a great group of people that the diving community is made up of! I was fishing my Adv. Nitrox and Deco. class after having a month long lay off due to illness. Less than flawless and rusty would be good descriptions of my dive. So why am I bringing this up?
Well it took me back to where it all began Open Water. I will never forget the struggles and mental battles I fought to get through the training. NOT EVERYONE IS A NATURAL!
If you are struggling with OW training right now know that you are not alone!
Many have been where you are at, HANG IN THERE, COMMIT TO TRAINING AND GUTTING THROUGH IT! It is so worth it in the end!
I have been Blessed in every sense of the word to have had stellar instructors.
Both are from different agencies but both have the same passion for dive training and diving! It has been my pleasure to get to know these individuals and call them friends.
Take your time finding instructors and get references, it pays off HUGE in the end!
A little time and effort will ensure a great experience.
Never forget that any card or certification is a LEARNERS PERMIT! You have been given the skills under supervision and now it is time to go out and build experience in a safe manor. Whether you are OW or doing Deco dives everyone starts from humble places. You are going to have less than perfect, down right miserable dives!
Welcome these, for they teach us the most. Please understand if everything goes perfect it is awesome but when the struggles begin it shows us what we really need work on. Then real training begins and we learn to overcome! Safer, better divers on a evolving path of learning that hopefully never stops!
I passed the class but with humility and was reminded that to struggle at times is better than never have a bump in the road! Welcome to humanity and learn to laugh at yourself and learn from your short comings.
Take heart where ever you are training and for what ever class, relax and have fun!
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!

 

[gypsyjim]

Greetings fellow Scuba Boarders. I was reminded yesterday of what a great group of people that the diving community is made up of! I was fishing my Adv. Nitrox and Deco. class after having a month long lay off due to illness. Less than flawless and rusty would be good descriptions of my dive. So why am I bringing this up?
Well it took me back to where it all began Open Water. I will never forget the struggles and mental battles I fought to get through the training. NOT EVERYONE IS A NATURAL!
If you are struggling with OW training right now know that you are not alone!
Many have been where you are at, HANG IN THERE, COMMIT TO TRAINING AND GUTTING THROUGH IT! It is so worth it in the end!
I have been Blessed in every sense of the word to have had stellar instructors.
Both are from different agencies but both have the same passion for dive training and diving! It has been my pleasure to get to know these individuals and call them friends.
Take your time finding instructors and get references, it pays off HUGE in the end!
A little time and effort will ensure a great experience.
Never forget that any card or certification is a LEARNERS PERMIT! You have been given the skills under supervision and now it is time to go out and build experience in a safe manor. Whether you are OW or doing Deco dives everyone starts from humble places. You are going to have less than perfect, down right miserable dives!
Welcome these, for they teach us the most. Please understand if everything goes perfect it is awesome but when the struggles begin it shows us what we really need work on. Then real training begins and we learn to overcome! Safer, better divers on a evolving path of learning that hopefully never stops!
I passed the class but with humility and was reminded that to struggle at times is better than never have a bump in the road! Welcome to humanity and learn to laugh at yourself and learn from your short comings.
Take heart where ever you are training and for what ever class, relax and have fun!
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!

Bravo.
You have learned more than just a few new diving skills. Too many times we have all seen the attitude that the C card is the end, not the beginning of developing and noning a new skill set.

 

[DCBC]

Never forget that any card or certification is a LEARNERS PERMIT!

Hi Cam, I agree that a diver should continue to further his/her diving knowledge and experience after certification. Unfortunately however, too many Instructors consider an OW certification as a "learners permit." They do not take the time necessary to impart the appropriate skills to the diver, to allow him/her to dive as a valued member of a buddy team, independently of a DM or Instructor.

Many so called "diving leaders" do not possess the necessary skill-sets to deal with the short-comings of these divers. All too often DMs are only at the beginning of the learning curve themselves and have gone too far too fast in the certification process (no insult intended to the many qualified DMs and Instructors that have developed the appropriate skill-sets). The zero to hero group just doesn't cut it.

Instructors certify weak students only to later say: "Hey, it's just a license to learn!" This cliche gets twisted from what I believe you were making as your point. It is too often used as a cop-out for not creating capable divers.

A C-Card is not a license to learn skills that are required to maintain diver safety. Other skills come with further training and experience, but nothing further is necessary for the diver to dive in conditions similar to those where he was certified safely. If the diver needs to learn more to insure his safety in these conditions; s/he shouldn't have been certified in the first-place!

 

[gypsyjim]

I have to say that, especially in the beginning certifications there is no way the instructor has done any more than "just cracked the door open a bit" for the new diver, with just a couple of days of class room and training dives. That is one reason many good instructors and LDS offer new divers the oportunity to continue diving with their group after issuing the certification; there is no way the new diver is fully trained in a few days of training and a small handful of dives.

New divers have been given a basic set of skills, and the knowledge that will allow them to begin to improve and expand on those skill, threw experience. Diving with more experienced divers for a while after they have been certified is a great way to grow ever more skilled and comfrortable in this sport.

The idea that having a card is the end on one's training can be a very dangerous attitude. I have dived with such people, once, and I much prefer diving with a diver who's attitude is one of ever searching to improve and grow. They are much safer to dive with, and a lot more fun too!

 

[Kingpatzer]

A C-Card is not a license to learn skills that are required to maintain diver safety. Other skills come with further training and experience, but nothing further is necessary for the diver to dive in conditions similar to those where he was certified safely. If the diver needs to learn more to insure his safety in these conditions; s/he shouldn't have been certified in the first-place!

Ultimately, DCBC, the market has moved on from the time when people would spend weeks and even months learning to dive so that they would have been trained with the skills to do whatever they wanted. And while I was not around then, I would be anything that even in that environment the diver was still on a learning curve and could not be considered as safe and skilled as a diver with much more experience.

Today's diver does not leave OW training and go make 200' dives to penetrate wrecks (if they ever did). They leave OW training to make a few dives under DM supervision on a vacation once every year (if not less frequently).

The industry has changed to reflect that reality as well.

There is no doubt that to be a frequent, regular diver someone coming out of OW needs more training. But there is also little reason to suspect that the training they are getting is truly insufficient for the diving they do.

The flip side is that because divers are diving far less frequently than the typical diver of the past, more in-depth training would likely be quickly lost on them anyway. Spending more time and money on training might seem like a good idea, but the question of actual return on that investment would certainly be up in the air for the average diver who is only making a few dives per year anyway.

Compare scuba diving to activities like bicycling and I'm willing to bet that you'll find that per participant, cycling is far more dangerous. Just by way of anecdote, in my neighborhood there are about 20 kids who ride bikes around the neighborhood regularly. I know that at least 4 of them have had to go to the hospital because of accidents over the last few years I've lived there. By the same token, the PADI dive shop I frequent has about the twice that number of regular active divers, and hundreds of vacation divers they have trained, yet not one of the regulars has ever been hospitalized for a diving related injury nor are we aware of any of the vacation divers ever having an injury related to diving.

Now, there are aspects of dive training I wish were significantly improved. I would like to see better buoyancy control simply to increase the enjoyment of the average diver an to protect reefs and underwater structures. I'd like to see slightly more basic rescue training for the OW diver and to have rescue not require AOW certification. But those issues aside, I'm wondering if there is any empirical evidence available to show that the current level of dive training is making diving unacceptably dangerous. I suspect not.

There are real advances and changes in the market that mitigate risk for this changed dive population. J-valves are no longer used, at least by OW divers, regulators are far more likely to fail open, DM's are part of the average dive, site selection limits environmental hazards for inexperienced divers, etc.

Bret Gilliam had a blog post on Undercurrent's web sight recently where he noted that in handling some where around 400,000 divers, with no restrictions on diver activity, he saw a total of 9 cases of DCS. That's not deaths, that's merely DCS cases. Compare that to your local ski slope. Or better yet, driving fatalities where experienced drivers who have frequently had a full semester of driving education classes in high school manage to kill themselves at much higher rates.

The problem with your view is that it simply doesn't reflect reality. In reality programs like PADI's are sufficient in their design. Certainly there are instructors and shops who are passing certifications on people who shouldn't get one. But many of those I'm sure you'd look at and claim are insufficiently trained simply are in fact adequately skilled for what it is they are going to do.

And the one's who want to do more are going to come get more training to fulfill those desires.

 

[DCBC]

I have to say that, especially in the beginning certifications there is no way the instructor has done any more than "just cracked the door open a bit" for the new diver, with just a couple of days of class room and training dives. That is one reason many good instructors and LDS offer new divers the oportunity to continue diving with their group after issuing the certification; there is no way the new diver is fully trained in a few days of training and a small handful of dives.

I totally agree; the learning process should never stop. The problem (as I see it anyway) with giving someone a card before s/he is competent to do their own dive planning and complete a dive safely, is that they may never seek further training. Although an Instructor may offer further training, the diver is in no way obliged to take it. People have the funny idea that when they go to an Instructor to learn something and pass a course, they feel that they are competent. Go figure.

 

[DCBC]

Ultimately, DCBC, the market has moved on from the time when people would spend weeks and even months learning to dive so that they would have been trained with the skills to do whatever they wanted. ...The industry has changed to reflect that reality as well.

Yes. The "market" has moved on;"the industry" has changed. The word "industry" itself implies "commerce." It's now all about the money.

The Society has changed, not just about diving, about many things. "The consumer" wants it all and they want it now! Some people see this as a way of turning a buck. Others see the change of standards as taking short cuts; the easy way out.

Despite the statistics, people will die that didn't need to if they received more inclusive training. I'm not saying a whole lot of them, but some. What is acceptable depends upon ones perspective. If the "one" happened to be my son, I'd look at things from a different perspective; as would you if the victim was your loved one.

I have acted as an expert witness in too many cases where death resulted from poor training. I'm aware that people choose to ignore the rules and that's not their instructor's fault, but when a person is not trained to plan a dive, made aware of hazards that end-up killing the diver, I cannot help but shake my head. Knowing that someone made a buck out of the process doesn't make things somehow right.

...The problem with your view is that it simply doesn't reflect reality.

Who's reality? What I see is quite a few divers who are unsafe. I don't know when the last time you were on a diving charter, but the one's I've been on indicate that many divers don't have a clue. To me, that's the reality.

I understand that most of these people do exactly what you suggest; dive a couple of times every other year, while on winter vacation in warm water. At other times however, I see poorly prepared divers wearing dry suits and diving in condition which they are just not prepared. When I ran a charter business, my staff and I ended-up having to save one every couple of weeks.

 

[N2DeepInAz]

Very well stated Cam and I totally agree with you. Was out diving on the boat this weekend with a tech instructor and during our conversation he said something to the effect of, 'if you're not working on a skill when you're in the water, you're just cheating yourself and you always need to continue to learn, practice and develop as a diver.'

No amount of training can replace the benefits of practical experience attained when diving regularly. Confined water is great to start skill development, but you won't gain much experience unless you dive in OW conditions over and over again.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Despite the statistics, people will die that didn't need to if they received more inclusive training.

Hasn't that always been the case though? Oh sure, the level of training or mentoring would perhaps have been on the higher end, but it still comes down to the same principle - there could always be more training. The debate isn't really about if someone is insufficiently trained to eliminate all risk. The debate is about balancing training costs with risk.

I'm not saying a whole lot of them, but some. What is acceptable depends upon ones perspective. If the "one" happened to be my son, I'd look at things from a different perspective; as would you if the victim was your loved one.

Are you arguing for more driver training this hard? Or more bicycle training? Or more ski instruction? My family engages in a whole host of activities that carry inherent risk and where risk can be reduced with more training. But honestly, diving is about the least risky thing we do in terms of recreation. If I had a couple thousand dollars and hundred hours more to spend on training for my kids, it wouldn't be in scuba diving for the simple reason that for someone engaged in a multitude of activities the risk-reward ratio for those training dollars would be better spent elsewhere.

I have acted as an expert witness in too many cases where death resulted from poor training.

Given the low number of deaths compared to the number of trained participants, is it possible that your perspective is skewed precisely because of these experiences?

. . . but when a person is not trained to plan a dive, made aware of hazards that end-up killing the diver, I cannot help but shake my head. Knowing that someone made a buck out of the process doesn't make things somehow right.

I know of no training agency that certifies OW divers without teaching them how to plan a dive.

Who's reality? What I see is quite a few divers who are unsafe. I don't know when the last time you were on a diving charter, but the one's I've been on indicate that many divers don't have a clue. To me, that's the reality.

I wouldn't say they don't have a clue. I would say they are largely unskilled and need to be right where they are -- on a charter diving under the supervision of DM's and skilled operators rather than out diving by themselves. I'll refer you again to the recent blog in Undercurrents -- at least one experienced vacation dive charter operator did't see the injuries you seem to expect.

At other times however, I see poorly prepared divers wearing dry suits and diving in condition which they are just not prepared. When I ran a charter business, my staff and I ended-up having to save one every couple of weeks.

I'm not sure what type of charter you ran or under what conditions you dove, so I can't comment on that point. What I do know is this: even if you're right that there could be significant risk reductions with more training (a point I'm not particularly willing to concede given the available data on how much risk there is to begin with) in a culture where people engage in multiple risky activities is Scuba the best place to spend that time and money?

If the scuba community really desires to see better training, then there are only a few ways to proceed:

* Engage the government to regulate training requirements in terms of course content, length and evaluation criteria.
* Return to a club system and get the money out of the process entirely.

I really don't expect to see many instructors following the second option, and I very much doubt people want the first.

 

[DCBC]

Hasn't that always been the case though? Oh sure, the level of training or mentoring would perhaps have been on the higher end, but it still comes down to the same principle - there could always be more training. The debate isn't really about if someone is insufficiently trained to eliminate all risk. The debate is about balancing training costs with risk.

Yes, training can always be increased. The philosophy has changed from becoming certified and being competent to be a member of a buddy team, diving independent from a DM or Instructor; to requiring someone to take you by the hand and not being competent to rescue your buddy if this is required (that's the DM's job). I just don't see the current formula to be the correct one.

Are you arguing for more driver training this hard? Or more bicycle training? Or more ski instruction? My family engages in a whole host of activities that carry inherent risk and where risk can be reduced with more training. But honestly, diving is about the least risky thing we do in terms of recreation. If I had a couple thousand dollars and hundred hours more to spend on training for my kids, it wouldn't be in scuba diving for the simple reason that for someone engaged in a multitude of activities the risk-reward ratio for those training dollars would be better spent elsewhere.

LOL Yes. Perhaps I could teach your family to parachute. I can hand you a chute, show you how to put it on and show you the ripcord. I'll take 10 other jumpers as well (I can increase profits this way). We'll jump-out together; if I see that you're in trouble I'll try to do something about it (unless I'm busy trying to save someone else.

As far as a risk-reward ratio is concerned, I don't encourage people who are non-swimmers to dive into the deep end of a pool because there's a lifeguard on-duty. If they do and the lifeguard saves them 100 out of 100 times, I won't be saying that the statistics promote a safety factor of non-swimmers to dive into deep water (even though I have the statistics to back it up).

Given the low number of deaths compared to the number of trained participants, is it possible that your perspective is skewed precisely because of these experiences?

Absolutely. Each of us develop opinions as a result of our personal experiences.

I know of no training agency that certifies OW divers without teaching them how to plan a dive.

So you're saying that every diver who is certified knows the ins and outs of rip currents, where they should enter and where they should exit? Can identify them accurately? Can project their air consumption for any depth? That sure isn't my experience. Most of the dive planning seems to be, go to a LDS and they provide a DM.

I wouldn't say they don't have a clue. I would say they are largely unskilled and need to be right where they are -- on a charter diving under the supervision of DM's and skilled operators rather than out diving by themselves. I'll refer you again to the recent blog in Undercurrents -- at least one experienced vacation dive charter operator did't see the injuries you seem to expect.

The divers to which I refer are OW and Advanced divers not requiring supervision. I was not a "vacation" charter operator (operating out of Vancouver).

If the scuba community really desires to see better training, then there are only a few ways to proceed:

* Engage the government to regulate training requirements in terms of course content, length and evaluation criteria.
* Return to a club system and get the money out of the process entirely.

I really don't expect to see many instructors following the second option, and I very much doubt people want the first.

The first has already started to happen. The province of Quebec instigated a government certification as a result of the high number of diving fatalities which were caused by an increasing lack of proper instruction.

I would be fine with the second point; I currently teach for free in a club setting. Many Instructors may not like this, as it will affect the bottom line. Again it comes down to money. I don't know many Instructors who feel that they couldn't do a better job, if they had more time to provide additional training. If they felt otherwise, they are not much of an Instructor.