Zero to Hero? The Good ole' Days? You can't please anyone!

[TSandM]

I'm not quite sure why everybody thinks this is a dead horse being beaten. I don't think Cave Diver meant to start another thread about the "good old days". I think he meant to ask about the fundamental inconsistency between beating the "it was better when the courses included all of this" drum, and telling new divers they shouldn't do class after class in short order, despite the fact that the sum of the classes resembled the "old days" curriculum.

We DO often tell new divers not to go from class to class, but to take time out to get some experience in. And I think it IS inconsistent with the idea that the old classes included a great deal more, and were therefore better. Why NOT tell a new diver to do OW, AOW, Nitrox, Deep, Nav, and Rescue in as short order as possible . . . wouldn't that basically give them that great, expansive class we are all mourning?

 

[rjack321]

Why NOT tell a new diver to do OW, AOW, Nitrox, Deep, Nav, and Rescue in as short order as possible . . . wouldn't that basically give them that great, expansive class we are all mourning?

It would on paper, but instead of making them realize how close to death they were at all times like in the days of yore, today's class would allow them to walk out with "master diver" cards taught by a yaahoo trying jack up his cert numbers to make course director. They'd honestly think they were "master divers" or even "dive masters" after their $499 16 dive super class too.

 

[Hammerhead]

I dont really agree with this, as its very easy for over-confidence and confidence to look a lot the same until something goes wrong.

...

I've seen some pretty "confident" people fall to pieces very fast under small amounts of stress.

Point taken, but surely someone who is a confident and competent swimmer, in the event of Murphy turning up, would be more likely to say "right, well it's all going a bit pear shaped, but I'm still in control, I can still swim and I'm not dead yet. So let's try to fix this problem."

The poor swimmer OTOH, is more likely to think "right, well it's all going a bit pear shaped, and I've never really liked swimming and there's water in my mouth and, oh my God, I could drown here oh shiiiiiiiii!!!"

 

[Sas]

I think he meant to ask about the fundamental inconsistency between beating the "it was better when the courses included all of this" drum, and telling new divers they shouldn't do class after class in short order, despite the fact that the sum of the classes resembled the "old days" curriculum.

Are they they sum of the old days curriculum? I don't know what those classes were like so I am wondering if someone can fill me in on how closely all those classes combined equate to old style of training.

If they are, cool, same thing achieved but in a slightly different way. I think to be honest though, I wish I had not done all those specialty classes myself (I did my AOW through SSI so did a number of specialities). What I would have liked better is an experienced diver taking me 'under their wing' and showing me a lot of the stuff rather than doing them all through a shop that pushed heaps of inappropriate equipment on me and rushed through skills I really wasn't comfortable with at the end of the course. I didn't like how each of my classes was a sales pitch coupled with me not really being taught comprehensively. I guess that is why I hang out in an independent club now where I still get training done at my own pace and without the salesy stuff.

 

[Thalassamania]

Despite the superficial analysis that the sum of a bunch of classes resembles the "old days" curriculum, the final effect is simply not the same. There are any number of reasons for this ranging from the details, like the fact that the segments the "old course" has been cut up into often displaces items from their most effective location in a sequence, such as waiting for Peak Performance Buoyancy until well after crappy overweighting habits have been deeply inculcated into the new diver, to the destruction of a course gestalt that produces a beginning diver who is well balanced and well prepared to go out and learn on their own.

 

[Sas]

Despite the superficial analysis that the sum of a bunch of classes resembles the "old days" curriculum, the final effect is simply not the same. There are any number of reasons for this ranging from the details, like the fact that the segments the "old course" has been cut up into often displaces items from their most effective location in a sequence, such as waiting for Peak Performance Buoyancy until well after crappy overweighting habits have been deeply inculcated into the new diver, to the destruction of a course gestalt that produces a beginning diver who is well balanced and well prepared to go out and learn on their own.

Yea ok that makes a lot of sense. I did OW, AOW, Deep + Rescue before I even sorted out my weighting problems...

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

At least with PADI, the Peak Performance Buoyancy Adventure dive could easily be the students 5th dive, on their 3rd or 4th day of training, and if one teaches to standards proper buoyancy checks have already been made both in confined and open water.

 

[Thalassamania]

At least with PADI, the Peak Performance Buoyancy Adventure dive could easily be the students 5th dive, on their 3rd or 4th day of training, and if one teaches to standards proper buoyancy checks have already been made both in confined and open water.

True, but if the student has spent all of his or her time in the pool and first 4 dives grossly overweighted, as is typical, that is not something that is going to become magically right on their 5th dive; whereas if they are weighted right and up off the bottom from the get-go, PPB becomes a complete irrelevancy. Face it, PPB only exists because instructors were doing such a piss-poor job to begin with.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I personally don't see a bunch of overweighted students. Here on Maui I see a bunch of packhorse instructors taking 2-3 lbs more weight per student with them on first dives, in case they have underweighted everyone.

Perhaps the PPB Adventure Dive and Specialty exist because the "diving is easy" campaign was more successful than expected and the cliental model moved significantly towards the average Joe. Does the vacation diver need to be more than the an average Jane, or does average Jane just need a little more buoyancy training to be fine? Is that the agencies fault?

I know I have no doubt certified some losers, who give both PADI and me a bad name every time they dive. But I also know they were not allowed to dive like that to get certified. I also do not see Island instructors sell their course by claiming the training works as well here as in Puget Sound.

Considering the fact that todays divers do not dive everywhere, why make them train to dive everywhere? If they want to dive in different waters from their open water training, the training instructs them to get appropriate training. If Wayne teaches everything for Nova Scotia in 50 hours, everything for Hawaii should be easy in 24 hours. If the student choses to ignore his training is it the instructors fault?

 

[Thalassamania]

I have no problem with most of your suggestions, but until the agencies grock them and embrace the concept of regional or local certification they're just a pipe dream.

If you think you've taught, but they have not learned, have you, in fact, taught?