When is a skill "mastered"?

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There have been so many angles to this topic it is just like most things in life which is open to interpretation. When my son was certified his instructor who is a personal friend told him that to have his name on my son's card meant my son had to demonstrate he can perform the basic OW skills on demand. We also worked to simulate pulling the reg out of his mouth to see how he handled the recovery.

Like many things today some businesses are more focused on the revenue than the quality. I agree we are responsible for our own safety and must accept that we need to practice it or lose it. The concept of personal responsibility seems to be going away in society today. We need to teach our younger generation they need to be responsible and work to gain and maintain the skills to do anything in life.

As someone else said just my .05 cents
 
Good thread, lots of reading which I admit I didn't read the full lot of them. Mastery you say. IMO Mastery is achieved first and foremost when a diver maintains a position of where they never have to demonstrate their proficiency of a skill. Now in terms of doing a skill as having achieved mastering of it; I believe one has mastered a skill when it can be performed regardless of environmental conditions and with no impact to any other skill or displacement in the water column in such a manner that the skill is performed as a matter of requirement as a first natured response. The skill can be repeated as desired or needed with no apprehension almost as if with a disregard to its purpose. A question I ask all my students is "What time is it" Almost immediately they all look at their watch, smart phone, etc. for the time of day to tell me; not realizing that I am wearing a wrist watch myself and thus really requiring no need to ask them for the time. The point I am getting at is that they have conditioned themselves to know where the timing device they have is and without much thought to it they acquire the time information, simply responding by turning their wrist or reaching for it : a skill acquired and perfected by repetition to a point it is performed effortlessly and calmly. If I require to know the time I simply turn my wrist and solve the question, a first natured response to the issue at hand.
 
Just going back a ways....

I received an email from LeRoy Wickham at PADI headquarters today related to the debate in this thread. It is a long letter that covers the issue discussed earlier regarding standards, teaching on the knees, etc. He gave me permission to forward the entire email to anyone who wants to read the entire thing. That way those of you who are concerned about it will have it in writing.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

The article in the Undersea Journal is just as official of a document as the Guide to Teaching. The Guide to Teaching contains suggestions and guidelines and is not standards. Those are found in the Instructor Manual, not in the Guide to Teaching.
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How these people can determine that it is a standard to teach all skills on the knees from this just shows their lack open mindedness and not actually knowing the standards or obtaining clarification from PADI. Many people will make their own interpretations no matter what we tell them.
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We have them do a weight check during training and I find nothing that indicates that it is appropriate to overweight your student divers. PADI does not believe that students have to be trained from their knees nor overweighted. We only suggest that they should have additional weight to compensate for air consumed during dives so that the diver can maintain a safe ascent and safety stop.
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It is also ridiculous that PADI would expel anyone for teaching student off their knees and not support them in the event of any legal issues.
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Feel free to forward my email to anyone who states that the knee issue is a standard. Have them contact me and I will clarify PADI position. Hopefully, the revised Open Water Diver course will open more minds to neutral buoyancy during training.

If you want his entire email, just give me an address, and I will forward it to you.
 
John,

Thanks for posting that, and making the effort to obtain a PADI position on the issue (no pun intended).

That said, I don't think the quotes you provided do much to clarify the previous debate. As quoted "Those [standards] are found in the Instructor Manual" - as demonstrated, (1) those standards still insist that skills may not be introduced before the designated training module and (2) those standards define neutral buoyancy, fin pivot and hover as skills.

It is also critical to state that analysis of standards given thus far on the thread have not attempted to prove that skills "must be taught off the knees", but rather those skills "must be taught in order, whereby neutral buoyancy/fin pivot/hover have a designated stage at which they must be introduced". That stage is significantly delayed within the confined water syllabus.

I don't think that I, or anyone else, is asserting that we must teach off the knees (or overweight students). But rather, that the formal standards serve to limit our flexibility to encompass the true spirit of 'an early transition to neutral buoyancy'.

The standards don't define what you can do, but rather, what you cannot.

"It is also ridiculous that PADI would expel anyone for teaching student off their knees and not support them in the event of any legal issues".

The preceding quote is very debatable - especially given the context of legal liability versus adherence to formal written training standards.

I, for one, would not be willing to put this assurance to the test...

I have seen... on this forum and through other communications... claims that PADI have not supported instructors in legal issues whereby no standards were breached. Only last week I read a claim that an instructor's membership was terminated in connection with an incident during which all standards were upheld - the reason cited was "...not in PADI's interests". It is hard to rationalize those statements against PADI's assurances.

The issue remains, if you deviate from PADI's standards then you should expect no support from PADI. That much is stated clearly in IDC materials and training. What I've attempted to illustrate is that 'an early transition to neutral buoyancy' IS a deviation from PADI standards.
 
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