Posted by MHK on July 17, 2001 at 13:07:34:
In Reply to: Self-Reliant Calif. Divers posted by Jim Hoffmann on July 17, 2001 at 12:45:48:
Jim here's my problem with a part of what you wrote:
My class is a bargain and it produces a self-reliant Calif. diver.
A buoy or a float is a good piece of instructional equipment. It gives the student a place to
swim to, it gives them a place to hung on to on the surface, and the descent line gives the
student a way to stabilize the descent to equalize their ears( on the first few dives the
student have very little buoyancy control, they need something). On later dives the
students are able to descend without the line.
I agree that a line can be a useful teaching tool, however, it shouldn't be used as the primary method of teaching the skill.. When I went over to Casino Point a few weeks ago I was totally disappointed at what I saw and it seems to me the teaching method has been reduced to, snorkel over to the mooring, grab your totally overweighted body down the line and then kneel down do two skills and then come back up the line..
To me, that isn't teaching someone how to dive, it's teaching them how to breathe underwater. I'm not suggesting that you are one of the instructors that fall into that catagory but the practice is rampant and what used to be the exception, rather than the rule, is now the rule and not the exception. Quality instructors and quality training used to be the standard, but now it's quick, easy and lackadasical.. In my view, you can't send a potential student home with a cd-rom, do a few lectures and then snorkel them down the line, put them on their knees and expect that they'll ever have a clue how to become proficient diver's.
If you start them out improperly they'll never learn the fundamentals of trim, bouyancy et. al..
Just my observations...
Later