PADI Training vs.. others

Bob Ling "Reef Fish" wrote:
> sytech@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > I can really see now that PADI wants to virtually assure that you pass
> > the course.
>
> It's not limited to PADI.

Correct. To a degree, all educational institutions do it, because
there's a basic conflict of interest between being tough and educating
and being lax and getting paying customers. Some organizations merely
balance this contradiction better than others. And in some cases, the
'hardass' instructors who proudly refused to change with the times get
forced out of the organization.


> I did not even START learning about diving until I have received my Master Diver
> cert from PADI...

Many (most?) divers learn after just 1 or 2 classes what's bullshit.
To get the PADI Master Diver card requires forking out for eight (8)
classes. YMMV if this PADI C-Card is the mark of a slow learner, or of
a "merit badge" poseur.


> ...I immediately got into a flamewar...

And a decade and a half later, still hasn't learned. Think he wants a
merit badge for it?



> GOOD diving practice is a gradual learning process. No amount
> of certification will be a substitute. Mike Gray has some wise
> word to say to you on that.

Mike is quite the gentleman. Perhaps Bob will be luckly enough to meet
him someday. Perhaps if the rest of the world is lucky, Bob will
start to act more like him. One can only hope.


> Lee Bell...

That reminds me Lee: please put me on the "watch list" for the
Aircraft Carrier trip. I might even be tempted to sort out how I can
mount doubles on my current BC.


> .. used the fallacious argument that he used to dive WITHOUT
> a BCD -- not realizing he was NEVER neutrally buoyant
> during an entire dive...

This is an example of where Bob's lack of a good applied science
background keeps on getting him in trouble.


> ... the fact that there is a 5-6 lb DIFFERENTIAL
> in the air inside a talk (between full and empty), so that
> it is physically IMPOSSIBLE to compensate for that
> amount of change through breathing alone.


Turning to a handy online reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residual_volume

....we very easily determine that Vital Capacity (VC) is ~3.5 liters,
which is 7.7lbs.

Since 7.7lbs exceeds 6lbs, this would mean that it is not impossible.

Going beyond Bob's silly rant...

IMO, the more pragmatic question is the degree of relative difficulty
for a diver to willfully shift his Tidal volume (TV) within his Vital
capacity (VC) for an extended period of time...ie, the duration of a
dive.

If we assuming enough sufficient diver wisdom to make it only 5lbs
needed by keeping a 500psi reserve, and to utilize proper weighting,
the total buoyancy shift would be from -2.5 to +2.5lbs or thereabouts,
or ~65% of available range. However, this is only during the worst
case conditions at the very beginning and end of the dive: the rest of
the dive will be "easier" because its closer to the centerpoint:

Simplistically modeling the dive as a first 25%, middle 50% and last
25%, for the middle 50% of the dive, the tank's pressure is going to be
1750 +/- 625, or roughly between 2400psi and 1100psi.

Across this range, the total mass shift is ~2.5 lbs, and with
appropriate diver weighing preparation, it is distributed as =/-
1.25lbs about the nominal centerpoint of the breathing cycle...the
default Tidal Volume (TV) location's centerpoint.

Tital volume is nominally around 0.5L, which is ~1.1 lbs. This means
that the total needed purposeful adjustment for ~50% of the dive
differs from the involuntarily available (ie, no concious intervention
required) by an IMO trivial ~2.5 ounces. For an experienced diver,
that order of magnitude becomes second nature, just as is also exhaling
slightly through the nose to keep water out of the mask.



> Newsgroups is a very dangerous place to learn about DIVING
> skills, especially....

....when Bob Ling is around. Fortunately, he *claims* to not read
rec.scuba:


> BTW, I don't read rec.scuba anymore, only rec.scuba.locations.

And thus, Posting Headers appropriately amended to rec.scuba only.


-hh

Lee Bell wrote:

> I don't adjust my buoyancy by altering my breathing patterns when using
> doubles. 8^)

Damn! Another in-water skill I gotta teach ya.

Thus spake hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com (Charlie Hammond) :

>In article <060320062135551447%sytech@yahoo.com>,
><sytech@yahoo.com> writes:
>..
>>I have to say that I was really put off by the PADI Training Manual. The
>>text was adequate but the questions at the end of the chapters could
>>have been answered by children. ...
>
>It was apparent to me when I took the PADI courses that the questions
>at the end of each chapter were taken [mostly?] word-for-word from the
>text in the chapter. Students are required to complete the questions
>and instructors are required to collect them. (Or at least this was
>the situation back then.)
>
>My belief is that this is intended as a means to help ensure that the
>students actually read the book. Sad to say, my experience is that not
>all students actually do read the book. {sigh}
>
>Most of the required knowledge can be absorbed from classroom lecture
>and videos. Without the requirement to "turn in" the completed questions,
>some instructors would probably not make any attempt to ensure that
>students had read the book.
>
>This is not a indicment of either PADI or any/all of its instructors.
>Much of the USA population is just damned lazy when it comes to
>education. {sigh, again}
>
>Just in case it is NOT obvious, I do believe that SCBUA students should
>thoroughly read and study the course manual!

Charlie, the specific question had to do with AOW. I agree entirely
that OW students MUST read and understand the manual. But for AOW,
most of the written stuff is fluff. I hate teaching much of the AOW
manual. There are things like search patterns and simple dive
planning for deep dives that are important, but a certain amount of
the manual is a repeat of the OW manual. What's more valuable, and
what I stress more, is the stuff we do on shore before each dive and
what we do in the water. AOW is about learning new skills, not on how
to become a diver. Learning new skills safely.
--
dillon

Could have been is in the past
Could be is in the future
There is only the now

hammond@not wrote:
>
>
> Do you have a reason to believe that a significant number of diving
> accidents are taking place and being hidden??? No disrespect, but
> it would take more than your own observations and/or suspicions to
> change the opinion I stated.

If you take a look through the DAN Annual Accident report books
(DAARB's, for short), you'll see that all of the incidents are of rec
divers - - no on-duty DMs, instructors, etc.

Don't know if its in the current DAARB's, but there was a statement in
one of them from a few years ago that they were purposefully excluding
all commercial diving accidents/fatalities from their published
reports.


-hh

"Charlie Hammond" <hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com> wrote in message
news:sxFPf.4293$vg.2940@news.cpqcorp.net...
> In article <YrDPf.35$C7.1@bignews2.bellsouth.net>,
> "Lee Bell" <pleebell2@bellsouth.net> writes:
>>"Charlie Hammond" wrote
> ..
>>> ... but we also know that there are relatively
>>> >>> recreational diving accidents.
>>
>>No, you don't. You know that there are relatively few diving accidents
>>reported and tracked. There's a huge difference.
>
> Lee, you can do better than that!

I did. Read my latter post where I went though all the kinds of diving
accidents that are not likely to be reported. Just because we don't have
many reported serious accidents or deaths does not mean that there are not
plenty of unreported diving accidents every day, accidents that would have
been avoided if a bit more time had been spent on the dangers of diving and
a bit less on how safe it is.

> However, as a practical matter I cannot imagine that a significant number
> of recreational SCUBA diving accidents are taking place without it being
> public knowledge.

I ask you the same question I asked Greg. How many times have people in
this group, or who were in this group, been bent?

> Do you have a reason to believe that a significant number of diving
> accidents are taking place and being hidden???

Possibly, but your question implies intent. The first dive my wife did with
me, back in 1991, she descended directly onto a fire coral covered pipe.
Because her reaction was immediate and somewhat severe, we aborted that dive
and all other dives planned for that day. It turned out OK, but it could
have been otherwise.

All we can tell, as frequent recreational divers, is how many people we see
on the boats that we recognize as incompetent. The number is way too high.

Lee

Greg Mossman wrote:


>
> Both are very entertaining underwater. Mike plays with scorpionfish. Bob
> bounces out of sight down the wall.
>
>
>
If yer challenging me to graduate from the former to the latter,
forget it!

And stonefish (actually) are often quite friendly fellows. There
is a right way and a wrong way to pet them, though.

In article <EDFPf.818$8w2.360@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, mike gray <omgray@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Charlie Hammond wrote:
>
>>
>> Perhaps we do know that -- but we also know that there are relatively few
>> recreational diving accidents. How do we reconcile the "facts" that here
>> are plenty of unqualified divers but so few accidents?
>>
>> My own conclusion is that no matter how unqualified we think many divers
>> may be, PADI et al. _ARE_ producing safe divers.
>>
> Either that, or scuba really doesn't take much formal training
>to be safe.

The to possiblities are not mutually exclusive.

--
Charlie Hammond -- Hewlett-Packard Company -- Ft Lauderdale FL USA
(hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com -- remove "@not" when replying)
All opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily my employer's.

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:49:40 GMT, mike gray <omgray@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:

>And stonefish (actually) are often quite friendly fellows. There
>is a right way and a wrong way to pet them, though.

Exactly. I personally favour the other person's hand technique.

JF

Charlie Hammond wrote:

> In article <YrDPf.35$C7.1@bignews2.bellsouth.net>,
> "Lee Bell" <pleebell2@bellsouth.net> writes:
>
>>"Charlie Hammond" wrote
>
> ..
>
>>> ... but we also know that there are relatively few
>>>recreational diving accidents.
>>
>>No, you don't. You know that there are relatively few diving accidents
>>reported and tracked. There's a huge difference.
>
>
> Lee, you can do better than that!
>
> O.K., "technically" you are correct.
>
> However, as a practical matter I cannot imagine that a significant number
> of recreational SCUBA diving accidents are taking place without it being
> public knowledge.


Define public. In Egypt, torists come and go on a weekly
basis. They know next to nothing of what happens outside
their viz.

Dive ops hide most anything from the authorities because
they are afraid of being penalized/license revocation/bribes
etc.


> Do you have a reason to believe that a significant number of diving
> accidents are taking place and being hidden???

Absolutely.


> No disrespect, but
> it would take more than your own observations and/or suspicions to
> change the opinion I stated.

Matthias

Thus spake hammond@not@peek.ssr.hp.com (Charlie Hammond) :

>In article <vmjr021iv7gjhuqg95ag9lg5qvjnum81i9@4ax.com>,
>Dillon Pyron <dmpyronINVALID@austin.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Charlie, the specific question had to do with AOW. I agree entirely
>>that OW students MUST read and understand the manual. But for AOW,
>>most of the written stuff is fluff. I hate teaching much of the AOW
>>manual. There are things like search patterns and simple dive
>>planning for deep dives that are important, but a certain amount of
>>the manual is a repeat of the OW manual. What's more valuable, and
>>what I stress more, is the stuff we do on shore before each dive and
>>what we do in the water. AOW is about learning new skills, not on how
>>to become a diver. Learning new skills safely.
>
>Dillon, I agree that my prior comment applies less to AOW and more to OW.
>I also agree that AOW is about developing existing skils and learning
>new ones.
>
>As I recall, the AOW manual I used had a general chapter or two, then
>a group of chapters for the specific dives being done in the AOW course.
>i.e. Deep dive; boat dive; night dive; etc.
>
>We had only one "classroom" session, in which we discussed the general
>material. We were told to read the chapter(s) pertient to the dives being
>done. We then discussed this information at the dive site, before diving.
>
>I think this was a good approach.

I agree.

>
>As to the end-of-chapter exercises/questions -- while the OW questions
>were certainly right-from-the-book, my memory is that the AOW questions
>we not always so "obvious". In fact, I recall that we never got a
>"definative" for some of the questions. If I went back and looked at
>them, I'd expect that to this day I don't know what point(s) they were
>trying to make.

I need to look at the book again. I'm just going by the instructor's
manual, I actually haven't read the book in a couple of years.

>
>Not only PADI manuals, but manuals from at least two other agencies I've
>experienced are often not well written. I think the problem is that they
>are written by individuals who know a lot about diving, but not a lot about
>the educational process. Good divers are not always good instructors;
>good divers and good instructors do not always write good manuals.

Sigh, this is very true. And the instructor's manuals are even more
so. I have to teach to the manual, but I don't have to like it. And
since there's very little about the pre dive briefing, that's where I
put a lot of the instruction. Might be teaching outside of the
confines, but it always works for me.
--
dillon

Could have been is in the past
Could be is in the future
There is only the now