The Best Way to Learn to Dive

Most of us who have had the opportunity to work at dive resorts share a common experience. It’s no secret that one of a resort dive instructor’s primary responsibilities is to conduct what are commonly known as “Intro” or “Resort” courses.

This is where resort instructors take interested non-divers, explain the importance of breathing continuously and equalizing early and often, show them how to recover and clear a regulator and deal with a partially flooded mask, then take them on a shallow reef dive.

Odds are, many or most of the students you teach to dive have already participated in one of these experiences. However, for every such person you see, there are dozens you don’t. Most people who take part in resort courses try it once or twice, then go on to other activities. A few are so taken with diving, however, that they eventually become certified.

Some resort course students don’t even wait to get home. They sign up to go diving the next day — and the next. It’s when you have a resort course graduate come with you for that third or fourth day that you start to notice something:

Even though there is a lot resort course grads still don’t understand, those with several days’ experience nevertheless tend to look more comfortable, more relaxed —- and more competent — than many of the certified divers who are accompanying you. What’s truly amazing, however, is that these resort course grads frequently look more capable than the referral students who are completing their first open-water training dives with you.

It’s at this point where yet another one of those essential truths hits you. That is: The best way to learn to dive is not to just sit on the bottom and do skills. The best way to learn to dive is to go diving.

Certified Non-Divers

In 1991, I had the opportunity to watch a newly certified Open Water Instructor in Lake Travis, near Austin, Texas. Despite his newness, this was a pretty decent guy. He followed standards, exercised more than adequate control and supervision, and never put his students at risk (‘sounds a lot like the instructor I saw recently, doesn’t he?). And, as was the case in what I saw recently, his lack of experience robbed his students of a critical opportunity.

The weekend I saw him, the instructor had nine beginning students, plus two assistants. Not knowing any better, he simply took all nine students down at once.

Needless to say, by the time he got all nine students to the platform, then did a half-dozen skills with each of them individually, the students had just enough air remaining to swim the 60 feet to the stairs and get out.

This pattern repeated itself for all four training dives. As a consequence, although the students had the opportunity to practice all of the skills mandated by standards, they never had the opportunity to go diving. What the instructor ended up creating was nine certified non-divers. (And I pity the dive boat captain who had any of these individuals show up on his door step, claiming they knew how to dive.)

The Golden Opportunity

The single greatest opportunity open-water training affords us is the ability to actually take students diving in open water. By all rights, this should be the focal point of open-water training — not something that gets tacked on the end, if time allows.

Unfortunately, most agencies’ training standards place primary emphasis on the skills students must demonstrate in open water, and not on how much actual diving they get in.

Nevertheless, just because your training agency fails to recognize the importance of real, open-water diving experience, it doesn’t mean you can’t. If, for example, you are a dive store owner or manager, you can set a store standard for the minimum amount of time staff instructors must spend simply taking students diving.

Creating the Necessary Time

At this point, you may be asking, “With so many students — and so many required skills — where am I going to find the time to just go diving?” Here are two suggestions that can help:

• Take Smaller Groups Just because standards limit the number of dives that students can make in one day doesn’t mean you can’t make twice as many. Divide your larger classes into two or more smaller groups. If you take four students down at a time, instead of eight, you’ll move through the required skills twice as fast. This will help create just that much more time to get out and dive for fun.
• Use Your Assistants More Effectively When you take too many students down at one time, your assistants will be busy trying to keep an eye on those people you can’t. By splitting your class into smaller groups, however, you’ll be able to do skills with one group, then turn them over to an assistant for a guided tour while you go back and start with another group.

By the way, “taking students for a tour” should involve a helluva lot more than just leading them around like they have rings in their noses. It should involve exploration, adventure, discovery and imagination — all hallmarks of a higher standard of instruction and care. We’ll talk more about this shortly.

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