Which agency should I join if I wish to become an Elite Diver?

[pauldw]

Not trying to start a flame war here, but:
Is SDI better than PADI?
Is TDI better than GUE?
Was NAUI the original national thing?
Is SSI’s model to be cheaper than PADI?

 

[kelemvor]

Not trying to start a flame war here, but:
Is SDI better than PADI?
Is TDI better than GUE?
Was NAUI the original national thing?
Is SSI’s model to be cheaper than PADI?

"better" is 100% subjective. NAUI came before all the others you mention, but I believe "LA County" had the first scuba classes/certification. I'm not sure if NAUI or the YMCA came next. There's a few guys on the board that were involved in diving back then that could probably answer.

 

[PfcAJ]

Depends on how you define “better”.

Some would say that an agency that certifies more divers annual is “better” than another which certifies less.

That’s not how I chose to define “better”, though.

 

[Hank49]

Being an “elite” diver won’t come from an agency. Education is something that never ends.
Backrolling off a boat is easy. Learning to study the weather, surf, tides, currents etc, and knowing whether it’s even diveable, or if you should even be out there that day, is just as important as the diving skills.
Cave divers are an elite breed. Kind of like big wave surfers. Mistakes are much more expensive.
The learning never ends.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Not trying to start a flame war here, but:
Is SDI better than PADI?
Is TDI better than GUE?
Was NAUI the original national thing?
Is SSI’s model to be cheaper than PADI?

I've been an instructor for PADI, SSI, and currently am with SDI. I've trained with NAUI, TDI, and GUE.

And I'm not going to answer any of your questions, as I have MY perspective, which may not reflect reality, but only my perception. It may or may not align with the perception of others.

What is important is to research the training agencies for the framework in which they teach. As @PfcAJ said, some agencies do not allow instructors to add skills as a requirement for certification. Others do.

I would strongly recommend speaking with instructors of a number of agencies, have them describe in detail their open water course, how they teach skills. If they add skills, they should clearly explain what and why. They should also be able to answer any concerns regarding the theory of interference that @boulderjohn, an educator by profession, has brought up. The theory of interference has led me to restructure my open water class to ensure that the knowledge and skills learned are not less than if I had never augmented my course.

What you think your long term goals are right now, may not be the same in the future. Just go with what you think what you want to do now after speaking with different instructors.

I hope this helps you in the pursuit of your goals.

 

[tursiops]

So about the original question...not a mention of SDI anywhere. How does it stack up against PADI/NAUI/SSI?

Irrelevant. Ask any truly elite diver if the agency is relevant. The answer will be that you need adequate training and considerable, superior experience. Lots of it.

 

[rhwestfall]

as Pete mentioned, it is realistically the instructor, not the agency....

 

[Compressor]

Relating to the side-snark above about lingering residue from GUE's formative years, here's a link to a current statement from Jarrod Jablonski, looking back on GUE's first 20 years:

In Retrospect: Twenty Years of Global Underwater Explorers

Puts things in perspective. Thanks for the link.

The agency matters a LOT. You even use one agency for some classes and another agency for others. If the agency doesn't matter then why are you picking and choosing?

Agency sets their instructor requirements, the course content, structure, and materials.

NAUIs cave courses, for instance, are not equivalent to GUEs, which isn't equivalent to the NSS-CDS's courses. If I want to learn what GUE is teaching, I need to sign up for a GUE class. A CDS class won't contain the same information.

Thats WHY there are different agencies!

Very well put and true.

Being an “elite” diver won’t come from an agency. Education is something that never ends.
Backrolling off a boat is easy. Learning to study the weather, surf, tides, currents etc, and knowing whether it’s even diveable, or if you should even be out there that day, is just as important as the diving skills.
Cave divers are an elite breed. Kind of like big wave surfers. Mistakes are much more expensive.
The learning never ends.

Very well put.

as Pete mentioned, it is realistically the instructor, not the agency....

Thanks to you and Pete.

I've been an instructor with multiple agencies. They each have their own standards. So as others have said, talk with the instructors from different agencies and get a feel for it. Also remember that if you get your certification at one level, you are not bound to go up the education ladder with the same agency.

 

[BlueTrin]

So from my very little experience with 4 different PADI shops, I have seen variance in instructor skills and willingness to teach.

Some instructors will be very attentive and want to provide the most to their students, this is not sometimes correlated with their own skill: i have been in a class where the instructor was a very good diver but he just wanted to finish his day and rushed through things. He would just tell us in a quick briefing you’ll do this and that, then we would do the drill and move to the next one without much explanation.

Even within the same PADI centre I saw massive variance in instructor teaching skill.

 

[Sam Miller III]

@kelemvor

"better" is 100% subjective. NAUI came before all the others you mention, but I believe "LA County" had the first scuba classes/certification. I'm not sure if NAUI or the YMCA came next. There's a few guys on the board that were involved in diving back then that could probably answer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your attention is directed to to post number 64
A short genealogy of SIO, (the first!) LA Co (the second) and USN (the third)

Re YMCA--I began teaching the "YMCA program" after separation from USAF in 1956 at the Long Beach California YMCA, with Harry Vetter LA Co and later NAUI instructor #4. We had assumed the teaching duties from "Doc" Nelson Matheson (See cover SDM vol1 Nr. 1 December 1951 and Rory Page of Hope-Page mouth piece fame (@rhwestfall note)

I had been involved with YMCA swimming since I was 8 = from minnow to shark, so I had been involved and was knowledgeable of the Y and its programs. It was not an organized program , rather an individual YMCA ancillary activity which varied from Y to Y.
It was not until LA Co UW instructor Skip Dawson assumed control in 1970 -71(?) did the Y become a valid program - and then it was too late.

@Kevemvor
You are a very intelligent interested diver who post often with great authority and live some where in Florida .
Have you investigated the FSDA aka Florida State Divers Association which under the leadership of Pappy Flood ? (Yep ! that was his name ) Pappy wanted to and attempted to create a Florida program along the lines of LA Co. Might try to seek out some of the vintage divers from the late 1950s or early 1960s in your area for details

Cheers from California - where it all began

Sam Miller, 111