Northwest Dive Club

I just thought that I would ask this question, or perhaps open a whole can of worms, to those of you that are instructors and others who have been certified for awhile. For those of you that got certified when I did (1991 when I was 12), I remember in OW class having to take my BCD, weights and mask off underwater and then putting them back on again. I also remember buoyancy training where I had to hover for a few minutes without touching the ground.

I am not sure if this was or is a PADI regulation, or if my instructor was just doing some extra stuff. I never saw OW students doing these drills either in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. I went on the SB forum and saw that some DM trainees are doing it and others have not.

In addition, I have been reading some recent articles saying "the old days when people were using dive tables" as if using tables is something prehistoric. I remember in the early 90s when dive computers were just really gaining popularity and were much more expensive then they are now (similar to the cost evolution of the personal computer). Computers were seen as something that were not necessary, but a luxury and convenient, especially when doing multiple dives. Throughout my short diving career, I have witnessed PADI moving from the blue table to the wheel and now to the eRDP.

I was trained with the blue table, I like it, and it is like the yellow EAN table. Yes, the eRDP is useful, but there is just something about being able to calculate and plan your dive without relying on an eRDP or dive computer that really satisfies the soul. I was talking to some OW, AOW and some rescue students about the dive tables one day and it was as if I was giving a lecture on quantum physics - big question marks written all over their faces. However, I did see the little eRDP with them; God forbid if the battery ran out!

It may be my observation, or a result of my ignorance, but doesn't it seem that PADI is lowering their standards, or do instructors have leeway to add to the curriculum? If what I explained about what I did with my instructor and what was taught regarding the tables was the norm in the 90s but has become something outdated, hasn't this contributed to the over commercialisation of diving certifications (yeah, I know it's a business!) and thus could potentially increase the number of diving related accidents? Isn't it really incumbent for instructors to teach more than what PADI or other agencies tell them to teach, or will just the bare essentials be enough?

I am not sure if I am phrasing things properly here, but I hope you understand what I am trying to say. I am not saying that PADI or any other agency is doing things wrong or putting less work into their curricula; however, I am just trying to ask whether instructors feel like the agencies are putting less emphasis on proper instruction or have they given instructors more opportunities to tweak the material?

Not a PADI instructor but a DM. From what I have seen since i have been helping out with classes is. OW and AOW have remained the same. Rescue has change alot. They have taken out several of the OW rescue scenarios, in my opinion the best ones.

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A few procedural things changed, but all the Gear remove / replace, weights remove / replace and mask remove/replace is all still in the curriculum.

Tables, eRDP, eRDPML and dive computers are all now options for OW and you can elect to do either, multiples or all of them.

The only bigger changes you might notice is the removal of "Buddy Breathing" for OW class and the "Wheel" in AOW. Also the "Night" dive has been removed from AOW (its an elective now) and the math problems for the deep dive have been removed and you are encouraged not to do deep as the first dive of AOW.

The also added "Skin Diving" as compulsory in OW.

The recreational (blue) table also removed 140' and now only goes to 130'

Off the top of my head, those were the biggest OW and AOW changes in recent history.

K

Interesting, through SSI I had to do buddy breathing in OW.

Buddy breathing is not in NAUI either (except in the Divemaster program) and I don't think it's due to diminishing standards. I'm pretty sure that most agree that Air Share Ascent and Emergency Swimming Ascent are the best options. It hasn't been THAT long ago where there were still J-valves and the "Octopus" more of an option.

As far as PADI becoming too easy, it seems like getting a PADI OW cert is "mostly" done in warm, clear water for cheap, in 3 days. This is what paying customers demand on their vacation. Things are glossed over and if you get it wrong on the test, you review it with your instructor and that's it. Anyway, I'm interested to hear from OW instructors that can be honest and have been doing this for a while.

I'm pretty sure that its not disallowed for an instructor to exceed the standards.

This is actually one of the most popular topics on ScubaBoard . . .

PADI permits an instructor to exceed the minimum described material in a class, but they may not make the extra material grounds for deciding whether the student has passed. I believe that NAUI DOES permit the instructor to add extra material, and test on it.

Diving, taught to minimums in today's classes, can be pretty sketchy. But the classes, if taught over enough time and by people who take care to produce divers, and not just skills executors, can be a pretty good foundation for good diving.

I got certified in 1993 through NAUI. All I can say, is that every agency has changed. I ask divers right now fresh out of OW certs if they did this, did that in class (pool or classroom), and they look at me like "a deer in headlights". All I can say is, I had one darn good instructor and curriculum in the past. Even when I took my AOW and Rescue with NAUI (which is many years later after I got my OW cert), my instructor let me do stuff that I was required to do in my OW class back then. I told my AOW and Rescue instructors about these, and they just said, "Really". Then again, they got certified just the last 10 years. Makes me wanna become an instructor and drill the students on the rigors of what I went through back then.

That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I have dive buddies from South Africa that did their training through CMAS like 15 years ago and they had to do stuff like get chest x-rays, do treadmill running while measuring breathing / O2 uptake or something..

If I recall their gear were thrown in the pool (mask, fins, weights and scuba gear) and they gad to dive down there and put it all on in the pool at the bottom..

it was hardcore back then

kdupreez wrote: it was hardcore back then

Yes Sir, it was. By no means am I saying that the new divers right now aren't good divers. I dive a lot with new divers, some are bad, and a lot are very good. For me, it was like a "right of passage" that I did all those required drills back then. And I can tell myself, "Yeah, I earned it".

It's kind of like similar to getting a HAM radio licence now. Back then, they really require you to know the morse code by heart. Now, hell, it's so easy to get the license. Old timers who have the HAM licenses way back when will laugh at how the new ones got their licenses in the present time.

Just sayin.

Ham Raidio? Really?
What, are you a dooms day prepper?

BASSMAN wrote:Ham Raidio? Really?
What, are you a dooms day prepper?

Yeah! I got a secret bunker somewhere in the foothills. Just kidding Keith. But ya never know. I have proven many people wrong.

For the record, I don't have a HAM radio license nor a HAM radio. I used to have a lot of friends in Cali who were into that. They tried to talk me into getting my license back in the late '80's, but like I said, the morse code was hard enough for my brain to digest. Heck, I don't know how I made the grade in H.S., cause back then, it was required in my elective electronics class. Now, for Curt (Oldsalt), morse code perhaps was just a walk in the park being a graduate from the Naval Academy.

I like ham. And Bacon. And tacos al pastor.

Tom Nic wrote:I like ham. And Bacon. And tacos al pastor.

I like "Balut".

I was OW certified NAUI in 2007, and in pool drills we took all the gear off in a circle in the diving pool at my university (12-15 ft deep), all climbed out, and had to dive down, put on our mask, take a few breaths off the reg, then swim over to the next set of gear until all of us were down there doing a little scuba cake walk. When we finally got back to our own gear, we put it all back on underwater, did buddy checks, then ascended. I did PADI AOW later that year in Mexico on a volunteer research trip, and I don't recall any of the stuff we did there being vastly more complicated than in my OW class. Maybe it was because my OW instructor was preparing us for checkout dives done in lakes down in the Ozarks were you are wearing heavy wetsuits and have limited visibility while Mexico was warm, great vis, and sandy bottom! They combined the AOW class with teaching the cavern diving course and teaching underwater fish transect techniques, and that is mostly what I remember being different.

diverden wrote:Buddy breathing is not in NAUI either (except in the Divemaster program)

I'm not 100% on OW AOW but I did my Master Diver in early 2010 through NAUI and I had to do the buddy breathing, the 50' swim w/o a reg or a mask to my buddy and then buddy breathe back to my mask. The 50' swim and buddy breathing wasn't too bad. But getting used to diving without a mask took up a lot of my time on "fun dives" before I went in to test out of that skill. We also had to do the buoyancy test where you take your mask off and put your nose on a knot and use your lungs to maintain buoyancy for 1 minute and then he made us learn to use our fins to swim backwards and the three types of kicks and those helicopter turn things. Maybe our instructor was just taking his (former marine) aggression out on a couple of paratroopers lol. But That class absolutely made me a much better and safer diver.

Hello i just got my OW cert through padi not to long ago. We had to do buddybreathing, removal of bcd and weights and put them back on under water. We also learned the dive table. Had to remove mask and put back on and clear it.

coulterboy wrote: Yes Sir, it was. By no means am I saying that the new divers right now aren't good divers. I dive a lot with new divers, some are bad, and a lot are very good. For me, it was like a "right of passage" that I did all those required drills back then. And I can tell myself, "Yeah, I earned it".

It's kind of like similar to getting a HAM radio licence now. Back then, they really require you to know the morse code by heart. Now, hell, it's so easy to get the license. Old timers who have the HAM licenses way back when will laugh at how the new ones got their licenses in the present time.

Just sayin.

I originally got certified NAUI in '76 and we had to do all the stuff talked about here, and more. I dived with people who took the same classes I did, from the same instructor, even at the same time (since we were all on the same ship, we tended to dive together); even then some were good, some were bad and most were OK. From what I see having taken up diving again after a <mumble, mumble> year break, that hasn't changed. And it has less to do with certification level than individual temperament. There are some Rescue Divers I wouldn't get into the water with and some rank beginning Open Water divers I would. So far I haven't met a DM or instructor I feel uncomfortable with, there were some in the "old days" who thought they were Mike Nelson.

I won't go into the HAM thing, been inactive on the air since my first wife died. Sold all my gear and renew my license when it comes due just because. Come to think of it, I should go check and make sure it's still good...

We had to do buddybreathing, removal of bcd and weights and put them back on under water. We also learned the dive table. Had to remove mask and put back on and clear it.

I believe that what you are referring to as "buddy breathing" is sharing air using a secondary regulator. True "buddy breathing" is sharing a single regulator between two people, and passing it back and forth. This is no longer taught, because it is simply not as safe a procedure as the current one, and the standard equipment setup today has two second stages, so that one can be donated to another diver.

Removal of the BCD and weights underwater is taught and practiced in confined water, but is not done during the open water dives. It IS done at the surface (which makes sense to me, since it is FAR more likely that a diver will have to do this to reboard a boat than to deal with an issue underwater).

Tables can still be taught, but a lot of instructors don't teach them, and opt for the computer version of the class. It's pretty rare for someone to dive without a computer these days -- they have become reliable and inexpensive.

My biggest problem with my PADI certification (through Rescue) was that they taught NDL plans, not gas plans.

I feel this is THE biggest issue in dive training today. After more than 200 dives, all over the world, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have run out of NDL. 99% of the dives I conduct are gas limited.

PADI doesn't teach gas planning PERIOD. No discussion of rock bottom, no discussion of even how to plan a dive to a gas limit.

We did endless table calculations and the tests were heavily concentrated on table problems. And I, like 99% of the recreational divers PADI is training, have NEVER USED THE TABLES AGAIN. I've never been sitting at depth and thought "oh, that's right, my NDL is about to expire - time to surface!" I have had to donate a regulator to a team member that underestimated SAC and needed gas to conduct a safety stop without going below 500psi. Twice. (Different buddies).

I think realistically the training agencies should teach safe computer diving, throw out the tables, and focus on gas planning and safe dive team procedures. People aren't drowning from the bends in this sport anymore. They're getting hurt because they run out of gas and make panicked ascents. Put table diving into a speciality course for those who are interested. PADI will make some more money, and they can spend the time saved on real-world safety improvement.

Oh - for those who say you should understand NDL theory to be a diver, I would argue that you're more likely to need to understand the mechanical operation of your regulators than NDL theory, and nobody teaches that: the TECHNOLOGY THAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE is not considered "important" to teach to beginners.

RSdancey wrote:Oh - for those who say you should understand NDL theory to be a diver, I would argue that you're more likely to need to understand the mechanical operation of your regulators than NDL theory, and nobody teaches that: the TECHNOLOGY THAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE is not considered "important" to teach to beginners.

So we should stop teaching mathematics and spelling in grade school and just let children rely on calculators and spellcheck?

This is one of those discussions that gets pretty heated now and then.

a. "PADI" doesn't teach any one -- individual instructors who are certified by PADI teach -- and yes, there IS a difference. In fact, a PADI instructor CAN teach "gas management" even at the Open Water level. Also, there are some basic concepts even in the PADI OW class that can be called "gas management." How much is left up to the individual instructor.

b. It is my humble opinion that "teaching tables" is a very different concept from "teaching about decompression" or teaching about DCS.

coulterboy wrote:

Tom Nic wrote:I like ham. And Bacon. And tacos al pastor.

I like "Balut".

Ick!

LCF wrote: This is actually one of the most popular topics on ScubaBoard . . .

Multiple threads in multiple forums, created primarily by one guy who never seems to tire from complaining about how PADI sucks and how his OW class where he makes you do things that would challenge a Navy Seal is so much better. They always turn into a competition to see who's the baddest-ass instructor. No matter what your views on OW training, the repetition wears you down after a while.

My comments on this topic are more generic, since the observations aren't unique to PADI ...

- Tables are a reasonable aid for teaching the relationship between depth, bottom time, and surface interval ... i.e. ongassing and offgassing. Beyond that, they've gone the way of the J-valve ... for pretty much the same reason ... better ways of doing the job have made them obsolete.

- Buddy breathing ... why? Back in the days before everyone was diving with two second stages, I could see it being a needed skill. Nowadays, I don't see the need ... particularly not at the entry-level. Spend that time focusing on skills the diver will actually need to develop ... like buoyancy control.

- BCD removal/replacement ... still part of NAUI's program, and I'm assuming that's pretty much true at the OW level for all agencies.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

rgugler wrote:I was OW certified NAUI in 2007, and in pool drills we took all the gear off in a circle in the diving pool at my university (12-15 ft deep), all climbed out, and had to dive down, put on our mask, take a few breaths off the reg, then swim over to the next set of gear until all of us were down there doing a little scuba cake walk. When we finally got back to our own gear, we put it all back on underwater, did buddy checks, then ascended. I did PADI AOW later that year in Mexico on a volunteer research trip, and I don't recall any of the stuff we did there being vastly more complicated than in my OW class. Maybe it was because my OW instructor was preparing us for checkout dives done in lakes down in the Ozarks were you are wearing heavy wetsuits and have limited visibility while Mexico was warm, great vis, and sandy bottom! They combined the AOW class with teaching the cavern diving course and teaching underwater fish transect techniques, and that is mostly what I remember being different.

University programs tend to be more thorough. Then again, they can afford to be ... the pool is provided by the school, the instructors are paid for by the school, and the course is something like 8 weeks. To provide that kind of class through a dive shop would cost multiple times what people would be willing to pay for it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)