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-----Original Message----- From: Raimo4252 <Raimo4252@ao*.co*> To: dlv@ga*.ne* <dlv@ga*.ne*> Cc: techdiver@aquanaut.com <techdiver@aquanaut.com> Date: Saturday, February 28, 1998 7:29 PM Subject: Re: Tragic technicaldiving >In a message dated 98-02-28 14:06:45 EST, you write: > ><< As to the garbage quality tech training, or Terribly Deviant > Instruction(TDI) available all over the world today, it will be here to > stay, and I need to do nothing about it. > It will be the right, and the legacy, of the obese, the foolish, the lazy, > and to those too incompetent to make it in the more elite agencies. And > anyone, no mater how obese, no mater how lazy, no matter how many drugs they > do, will have the ability to get certified by these agencies. I'm hoping > that in a year from now, there will be a couple of "better choices", which > smarter, better divers, can make, in choosing who will train them. > Regards, > Dan Volker >> > >Are you saying that ALL IANTD instructors teach better than ALL TDI >instructors?? > >Or does the quality of the program boil down to the instructor and what he >teaches?? > >Are all NAUI instructors better than all PADI instructors?? Bashing any of the >agencies at this point does no good. We need to identify what Instructors do a >good job, regardless of agency affiliation, and which ones should go back and >learn to dive before they take responsibilty for the training of others. > >Safe diving, Raimo >Bob Jones wrote in article <6c7j39$p9@bg*.wo*.at*.ne*>... Raimo, This was a post I put in rec.scuba, related to this thread, about 2 and a half weeks ago. From Rec.scuba: >So your willing to hang an instructor/dive store/agency because they >thought a student (that was outstanding in all the class, pool and open >water sessions) that decides not to dive for five years. NO!!!!! My post is ONLY dealing with the student ability as they are being given the C-card. The instructor who does a good job, will leave each student with the knowledge that you have to keep diving to stay proficient at it----the ones who forget this, and then don't dive for 5 years, only to jump back in the water without any refresher, do so at their own risk, their own responsibility, and they are NOT the responsibility of the instructor. This is why if I ran into a REALLY BAD diver, I would always want to know WHEN they were certified, and how many dives since. If they say the c-card was issued several years ago, no real conclusions can be reached, since we can not know how good this person's memory is, and how much they have lost through time. The only real conclusions we can draw from a poor diver's instruction, occurs when it was very recent. I would add here, that I am not bashing good instructors. I have met some instructors that Should earn three times what they do, because of the great job they do. And there is a small number of instructors , who are so bad, they should lose their ability to teach. but they don't....And then there is the huge middle group--the "average Instructors"---I would love to find a way for them to strive towards becoming a really great instructor, and recieve huge recognition for this, and much more income.. Right now , the really great instructors don't get the recognition or income they truly deserve---and there is no good "vehicle" to drive this information to the diving masses, or to the general public. The top ten list, and the worst ten list, if we could make intelligent guidelines for it, would be one way to start this. In the more dangerous realm of cave diving, where potential cave divers look for a class and teacher, knowing that their choice may be a factor in their future health or death, the BEST of the BEST, gets passed around----this honor right now is usually attributed to Jarred Jablonski in Gainesville. But the only reason this honor reached Jarrad, is the realization that death could occur from choosing the wrong instructor--this led to more of a comparison process in cave dive certification, with much more incentive than is found in recreational diving. But the need is perhaps even greater in recreational diving , because of the much larger numbers of peoples lives who will be effected by instructor choice. I'm not responsible for what you have >told them. Only for what I have told them. You tell them they don't >need to spend that extra money on another class, so they don't and then >dive beyond their training on your encouragement and get themselves into >trouble. And then you want to say it is my fault. Well, I always tell divers they should go to at least Nitrox level certification, because I think it is important for them to understand more about gas physics than they get from OW1 or OW2, and its means they have to be more involved in learning how to plan their own dives. It also means they get alot more general dive education and instructor time prior to Nitrox card, and this is usually needed. But I'd prefer a situation where I could always say, "Find a 5 star instructor, and take nitrox from them"----the issue here is that I don't correlate a 5 star Dive shop, to a 5 star instructor---sure, some may have good instructors, but the store is not the issue, its the instructor ability, which is WAAAYYY more important than whether the shop has 2, 3 or 5 stars. You must remember >that as a fellow diver that your words hold weight also. New divers >look up to you and will want to show that they can do anything you can. >You have to be able to say no to a new diver that wants to tag along on >a dive they should not be making. Don't take them along and then blame >their training when they get in over their head. You have to remember >that divers learn as much if not more from fellow divers than they learn >in the classroom, good or bad. We only get them for a few weeks, you >get them for the rest of their diving careers. Make sure what you teach >them is GOOD information. I'm very careful in choosing which of my past dives I talk about in front of new divers. If I talk about the deep air I did in the old days, I constantly refer to it as past , really stupid behavior on my part, and behavior that relied heavily on luck for survival......When I talk about tech diving today, it involves trimix and Hogarthian philosophy. And this whole picture applies to recreational diving, since it is safe procedure and safe gear configuration based. Well I guess I've ranted about this long >enough but I just want you to be sure that before you slam an >instructor/dive store/agency that you have ALL the facts. In this "Not >my fault" world we live in it is so easy to place blame on someone else >and not where it truly belongs. Hopefully instructors will not think I am slamming instructors in general. I want the good ones to be recognized and make more money. I want the average ones to try to get better---and have a powerful reason to do so ( and some targets in "top guns" to shoot for) , and I want the bad instructors OUT. I do not believe there are huge numbers of terrible instructors, but when a bad instructor gets "installed" at a huge shop, and starts cranking out huge numbers of poor divers, too much damage can be done. > >Dive safe >Bob Jones MI27902 Regards, Dan Volker South Florida Dive Journal http://www.sfdj.com/ The Internet magazine for u/w photography and mpeg video -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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