YMCA, this may be the way to go!

[DiverBuoy]

Walter am I right that you are the author of this comparison page?

Did you personally take these courses from each agency?

 

[Rick Murchison]

Walter once bubbled...
Most agencies require 4 dives for OW certification. SSI requires 5, NAUI requires 5 (one of which may be a skin dive), YMCA requires 5 (one of which must be a skin dive).

SSI requires five scuba dives and recommends a skin dive as well. SSI used to require six Scuba dives, and we still have six in our course, plus a skin dive - typically the skin dive and four scuba dives in the springs or lake and two scuba dives offshore in the Gulf.
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As for YMCA recognition and acceptance, I've never been anywhere where YMCA wasn't accepted, and I've never seen any instructor from any agency not accept YMCA certification at any level as equivalent to ratings from the agency that instructor represents. And I would hold the motives of any instructor that did refuse a YMCA cert as highly suspect.
Rick

 

[WreckWriter]

Walter once bubbled...
WreckWriter,

"there's probably about 12 active YMCA instructors left in the world"

You know that isn't true.

You also know YMCA certifications are as widely accepted as any.

True, there's at least 25

You're right though, I do know it's perfectly accepted. I was just jerking your chain

Tom

 

[Walter]

WreckWriter,

I'm not sure there are quite 25 of us, but there are definately more than 12.

DiverBuoy,

"Walter am I right that you are the author of this comparison page?"

There are two comparison pages posted. I wrote the one posted on Diverlink. I had nothing to do with the other.

"Did you personally take these courses from each agency?"

Only two of the three. That has no bearing on the comparison for a couple of reasons. First, the standards of all three agencies have changed many times since I took my courses. Second, it is not a comparison of experiences in various OW classes, but only of published standards. Instructors of all agencies frequently add topics/skills not required by standards to their course. From time to time, topics/skills are left out even though required by standards.

Anyone interested in locating a YMCA Instructor can do so at http://www.ymcascuba.org/

 

[MikeFerrara]

JT2 once bubbled...
Mike, I agree but how are they going to do this, or maybe my question should be, how can they do this in your professional opinion? I have read many of your posts and I personally think that your students are extremely fortunate individuals. I have seen a lot of instructors that are bad divers who teach for both PADI and NAUI, and I have seen a few that are excellent divers and great instructors with both organizations, and one thing that I have seen as a common similarity amoung the great instructors is that they are willing to not sign off on someone just because they paid their money, but instead offer them extra time with a divemaster or AI, or sometimes the instructor themselves to hone their skills and try again, and these instructors also will not teach weekend classes. One of the things that I liked about the YMCA training is that yes, it is far more indepth and difficult if you will, to complete their classes, and that alone seems to weed out the type of people who are not willing to really learn properly. After watching this class I asked three other local instructors what they thought about it and I was shocked at their answers. First off I found out that two of them are certified YMCA instructors but they do not teach the class through the Y because it is difficult to get enough people together who are wiling to go through that kind of training for entry level diving and therefor they can't make as much money, but they both agreed it was a far better class.

I wish I had a good answer. The only answer I have is that I think the how part is easy. The question I have is do they want to? In my experience, by far the most successful shops and instructors in terms of numbers of students certified and dollars made are also by far the worst. I have seen more of these that are PADI but PADI is by far the biggest so most of the good instructors I have seen are also PADI. All that is no doubt at least in part because most of the instructors I have seen are PADI. When I became an instructor I did not choose an agency I thought was the best. I was PADI trained as a diver and I became a PADI instructor. That's simply all there was in the area and I never considered a need to look elsewhere. Now I find myself wishing I could teach independantly of any agency. There are things about all of the I'm not happy about. Now, these are personal opinions and preferences to be sure but I have seen what I have seen. Based on that I have no burning desire to run out and jump through another agencies hoops so I can hand out a card with a different name on it. I do, however, wish I could hand out a card that was different. One who's name implies quality. As long as every one is happy nothing will change.

 

[Walter]

Mike,

"I do, however, wish I could hand out a card that was different. One who's name implies quality."

There is - YMCA.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Walter once bubbled...
Mike,

"I do, however, wish I could hand out a card that was different. One who's name implies quality."

There is - YMCA.

There is only one agency that requires its instructors be monitored and reported on by management (ie non-students) every year... "SSI is the only agency that requires instructors to affiliate with a full-service Authorized Dealer. SSI Instructors are monitored on-site for adherence to the SSI Training Standards, professional conduct and performance, to ensure your course is taught right."
As far as I know, all the other agencies "monitor" their instructors by screening student feedback, and the occasional complaint from a concerned customer or observer who reports something. Otherwise they are essentially unsupervised. And while there can be outstanding instructors in an unmonitored structure, it invites less than sterling performance in far too many cases.
Rick

 

[Butch103]

Rick.. assuming your response that only SSI requires their instructors to be "monitored" thru a shop is correct ( and I have no reason to doubt you ) would this not be the answer to Mike's dilema.....??? Mike design your own course (which would encompass the minimums of PADI) and turn out the divers that you feel comfortable unleashing on the wetunderworld.....

I can imagine that this will be more costly to offer (more pool time etc), but if you can show a comparison between your course and your "competitors", with yours being more encompassing.......

BTW Mike could you (this is an open ended thought on my part) not offer a combination OW and AOW all in one ?? It seems to me that the AOW is just a continuim of the OW ( at least with PADI)............

Don't have any answers for you, wish I did........:boom: :boom:

 

[zboss]

Both my sister and brother are YMCA certified and I would be also if there were a YMCA cert offered in my area that didn't take an hours commute time to get to...

with that said - both my siblings are YMCA snobs and their OW skills are not any better or worse than the OW skills of equivelently trained divers from other organizations - meaning that the material is pretty much the same. Based on talking to them about their training experiences I have to say that the only thing they did in their OW class vs. mine was they spent a great deal of time in the pool playing games - literally - which I assume was to get them more comfortable with the scuba gear and being underwater.

As a matter of fact the "YMCA's the best" attitude has interfered with their desire to learn other techniques, for example the use of other organizations dive tables; which makes it difficult to dive with them sometimes.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Butch103 once bubbled...
Mike design your own course (which would encompass the minimums of PADI) and turn out the divers that you feel comfortable unleashing on the wetunderworld.....

I can imagine that this will be more costly to offer (more pool time etc), but if you can show a comparison between your course and your "competitors", with yours being more encompassing

We are lucky in our immediate area that no one has surfaced offering the cut-rate "training" you can find in many areas. It would be extremely difficult to compete with a shop that handed out C-cards after four dives in the springs - and many do, but not in our immediate vicinity. We are able to offer a quality course largely because of the absence of the sorry ones.
Sad but true.
Rick