Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Guy IANTDs basic OW course like all courses is skill intense as compared to other programs. At the diver level in technical diving we have expanded theskills physcially to a rather rigrous degree. They are practical. Some include swimmining in full gear without breathing to a buddy 60 feet away and then commencing gas sharing via the long hose. Instructors have manadatory fitness swims I do not beleive diving is a safe as bowling as stated by some agencies we may not have more accidents than bowling but in diving the accident is often death whereas in bowling it is a pulled muscle. So I think diving is serious business and the training needs to be intense. Go to our web pages and look at trhe skills section in the standards this provides the minimum we require. I go well beyond those miniumus as we encourage instructors to exceed the standards but not the limits of each course. Tom Guy Wittig wrote: > > Dan / Tom > > When I did my first Open Water course in '75 we had to endure all sorts of > what would be considered macho stuff to get certified. > > My wife did her course a couple of years ago. She had to do a 200m swim in a > pool. An overweight student was unable to complete this swim. He stopped > every length of the pool for a few minutes, and only covered about 1/2 the > required distance. The PADI instructor overlooked this as they now tend to > focus on being kind and sensitive and ensuring everyone passes. I am sure > this diver is diving happily, probably passed his PADI advanced by now. > > Apart from dodgey open water tests like this I have never really seen any > systematic fitness assessments being carried out. > > Would it be unreasonable for IANTD or TDI to put some focus on a reasonable > level of fitness assessment as part of more advanced dive courses like > Extended Range, Trimix. E.G. (pulling this out of the air here) a 400 to > 800m swim geared up with a time limit (You could even do a gas consumption > calculation.) Or a medical with an ultrasound for PFO ? > > I think if we ever want to learn from accidents and improve training we have > to cut all the rhetoric and ego "stroking", which is getting a little > sickening here, do some objective analysis of root causes, and see if the > training can reasonably be improved. > > Tom - does IANTD systematically analyse dive accidents for root cause and > feed this back to training development ? > > Guy Wittig > Sydney > Australia -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]