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To all,
The final points.
1. An instructor needs to evaluate the students basic skill levels
and correct deficiencies before attempting to teach new material.
As was demonstrated by this class, a student's basic skills are not
always what the're advertised to be.
2. Handicapping student's equipment, harassment techniques,
and 3 man buddy teams have no place on dive #1 ( if you must do
them at all ) because of point #1. If you have no first hand
experience with a particular diver in the water, why would you put
them in a more difficult or dangerous situation if you don't know
whether they are prepared to handle it.
3. Three man teams, while certainly doable in some / most diving
situation, are more difficult than two man teams until your team
gets good at it. This is a skill that needs to be learned with above
water instruction and underwater practice. Just as with a reel, you
don't tell your students,"here it is, jump in the water and give it a
shot". If you disagree with this then explain why in the recreational
diving world a disproportionately high number of 3 buddy teams fail
( one diver gets separated from the other two). Answer: they were
never trained as a team to do it properly, and they lack the
discipline to make it work. Learning the three man buddy team is
not something you should be doing while fighting your shrink
wrapped drysuit and doing gas shut down drills. Which brings me
to point #4.
4. I really have to question how smart it is to cram all this stuff into
a weekend dive course with 10 students and 1 instructor. With a
90% failure rate........ or should I say 90% still in training, this
doesn't speak well for a dir fundamentals course. You may be
surprised to find that I <bold>don't</bold> hold this against Andrew. The
last
course I took was a rebreather course from Errol Kalayci ( a gue
instructor ) in 1998. My out of pocket for the week, travel,
accommodations, meals, training, and diving was over $2,000. I
think the tuition alone was over $900. Three of us spent 5 intense
days learning and diving the Halcyon rebreather. This is the way to
learn Technical diving! It infuriates me that people are willing to
spend thousands / tens of thousands of dollars on dive gear and
diving and yet think they are accomplishing something by being in
a class of 10 spending $300 each, for a weekend and think they
are going to learn this stuff.
For the last few days I have been reading e-mails from the
participants of this class who failed. Almost all hold Andrew in high
regard and think he is a great instructor. Several told of how
Andrew made them realize they were an accident waiting to
happen. To them I respond,
<bold>WHY HAS NOT ONE OF YOU LOOSERS SAID," I'M GOING TO
GO SPEND A COUPLE OF THOUSAND DOLLARS, A WEEK
WITH ANDREW, AND LEARN TO DO IT RIGHT SO I DON'T
KILL MYSELF."
</bold>5. To those of you who have invited to come to a weekend dir
fundementals course for $275 with 9 other people, I say," forget it! If
I ever take this course I'll pack my bags grab a fist full of hundred
dollar bills, head to Florida for at least a week, pay for private
instruction or not more than 4 students to one instructor and DO IT
RIGHT." The best way to learn technical diving is to take the
course and then spend 4 or five days straight doing it. When it
comes to time with the instructor, I won't settle for 10%. I want all
of it, or at least 25% over several days. It's sad when a "stroke" like
me takes his diving instruction far more seriously than you "dir
wanna bees".
I'm out of here for a few days, so no more e-mails for a while. If you
want to argue the points, e-mail George. I'm pretty sure he will
agree with me on most of this.
<nofill>
Ted Green
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dive Charter Boat: O.C. Diver
Sunset Marina in Ocean City, Maryland
http://www.ocdiver.com
410.742.1992 800.637.2102
Fax 410.749.9410
"Diving the Atlantic coast from Cape May NJ to Cape Charles VA."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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