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Choosing a Scuba Diving Instructor
12/26/2008 - By Dr. Bill Creasy - SDUA President and Training Director
Dr. Bill Creasy
The instructor who teaches your Open Water Diver Program has a profound affect on your development as a diver. Becoming a competent, confident, comfortable and safe diver depends to a large extent upon the person who teaches your initial course.
When you choose a diving instructor, ask the following questions:
- What is the instructor's personal teaching history?
- How often does the instructor dive and where?
- What is the instructor's commitment to his or her own continuing education?
What is the instructor's personal teaching history?
When a person decides to become a scuba diving instructor, he or she progresses through a series of courses that require both continuing education and experience. All SDUA training is conducted through Scuba Schools International (SSI), and the SSI instructor curriculum follows this progression:
- Associate Instructor This is a person who has completed the Open Water Instructor course, but who has not yet been evaluated by an Instructor Certifier. An Associate Instructor can teach in the classroom and pool, but must be under the supervision of an Instructor in the open water. This is an entry-level instructor.
- Instructor This is a person who has completed the Instructor course and who has been evaluated by an Instructor Certifier. He or she can teach the basic Open Water course and certify students as entry-level Open Water divers.
- Advanced Open Water Instructor This is a person who, in addition to teaching the Open Water course, can also teach a minimum of four specialty courses, such as navigation, Nitrox diving, night diving, and wreck diving.
- Dive Control Specialist Instructor (or DiveCon Instructor) This is a person who has been an Advanced Open Water Instructor and who has certified a minimum of 50 Open Water divers. He or she can train others to become Dive Control Specialists (DiveCons), or Dive Masters, as they are called by other agencies.
- Instructor Trainer This is a person who has certified a minimum of 100 students at a variety of levels from Open Water divers through Dive Control Specialists. He or she can train others to be scuba diving instructors.
- Instructor Certifier This is a person who has achieved the highest instructor level. He or she has certified a minimum of 200 students at a variety of levels and has successfully trained a minimum of six instructors who have passed their independent evaluations. He or she can both train and evaluate instructor candidates. Very few people reach this level, and it indicates a profound commitment to the sport.
When you interview an instructor, and you should, be sure to ask for evidence of his or her current level of instructor certification, evidence of liability insurance, and current CPR/First Aid training.
In addition, inquire about an instructor's teaching method. Every instructor adheres to industry standards regarding the skills he or she teaches, as well as the sequence in which they are taught. And every instructor includes academic, pool and open water sessions in the basic Open Water course. Beyond that, however, each instructor develops his or her own teaching style. Some instructors are quite rigid and formal in their approach, while others are far more flexible and laid back. You should choose an instructor who best accommodates your learning style and whose personality compliments your own.
In advanced classes, choosing your instructor is even more critical, since you will be learning more complex skills under greater levels of stress and in more demanding environments.
In an advanced class it is important that the instructor can present complex skills logically and thoroughly in a way that you can perform them with competency and consistency.
You can get an indication of an instructor's ability and style by simply talking with him or her; you can observe a class being taught; and you can speak with the instructor's former students. Any credible instructor will be happy to spend time with you answering your questions and allowing you to observe a class. Any credible instructor will also be happy to provide the names of former students that you can speak with. You shouldn’t deal with an instructor who will not do these things.
In finding a quality, professional instructor you need to know something about the reality of scuba diving as a business.
The diving industry is very competitive, with dive shops and dive resorts continually seeking to increase their market share and their profitability. A dive shop or resort has six profit centers: 1) diving education, 2) equipment sales, 3) equipment rental, 4) equipment repair and maintenance, 5) gas fills, and 6) dive travel. Because the diving industry is so competitive, dive shops and resorts compete ferociously for new students, for it is new students who will buy gear and maintain it, fill their tanks and travel. Consequently, many dive shops view diving education, particularly their Open Water course, as a loss leader, significantly under pricing their courses to get people through the door and to make money on the other more profitable aspects of their business. In Southern California it is not uncommon to see dive shops offer the entry-level Open Water course for less than $100; in San Diego one dive business even offers 2 for $99 during the peak season.
It takes a minimum of three full weekends (48 hours) to train even marginally an Open Water diver. Since an instructor working for a dive shop typically earns $40-$50 per student and the maximum number of students an instructor can have in a Open Water course is eight, the most he or she can earn for teaching a course is $400, or $8.33 per hour, slightly above minimum wage and that assumes that he or she makes $50 per student and has a full class.
You see the problem? Minimum wages attract only marginally qualified instructors, instructors who seriously undervalue their time or instructors who have other full-time occupations and who teach diving as a hobby. Quality, professional diving instructors, whether full time or part time, simply will not and should not work for such rates.
Consequently, you should expect to pay considerably more for your training if you wish to find a quality, professional instructor. In diving, as in most other areas of life, you will get what you pay for.
At SDUA we take a maximum of eight students in a basic Open Water class; in advanced classes we take a maximum of six students, and often only four. In all of our classes we videotape your skills in the pool, and we critique the tapes with you after each teaching session. All of our students receive close personal attention and the highest possible quality of instruction. Naturally, that costs more.
How often does the instructor dive and where?
Most people become dive instructors because they love to dive and they have a commitment to the sport. But after they become instructors many people spend the majority of their time teaching and their own diving falls by the wayside. An instructor may claim to have 1,000+ dives, but the vast majority of those dives may be training dives conducted during Open Water classes. Such dives are typically in very benign conditions in twenty feet of water for less than thirty minutes. We used to joke about one instructor that every time he stepped in a puddle he logged a dive!
To develop as a diver you need to acquire considerable experience in a variety of increasingly demanding aquatic environments. That is not to say that a very experienced diver is necessarily a good instructor: there are plenty of superb divers who are not very good teachers. Diving and teaching are two separate skills. We would argue, however, that a good instructor is always an experienced diver.
By diving regularly in a variety of challenging environments, an instructor becomes increasingly comfortable in the water, hones his or her skills, and becomes better able to deal with problems and stress. And it is only through experience that he or she develops sound judgment in the water, a critical skill for a quality instructor.
At minimum, an instructor should log 50-100 dives each year apart from training dives in open water or advanced classes and these dives should be in a variety of challenging aquatic environments.
Most of our instructors dive weekly at La Jolla Shores in San Diego cold-water beach dives and most also dive at least one day on the weekends. During bad weather, we often haul our dive gear to the pool and practice basic skills, videotaping each other to improve our performance.
Several times a year our instructors take a major dive trip with current and past students. Over the last few years we have dived the big walls and strong currents of the Gulf of Aquaba, the wrecks of the Gulf of Suez, the remote islands of the Egyptian Red Sea, the volcanic caverns and formations of the Aegean Sea, the underwater canyons of Fiji, the sunken Japanese fourth naval fleet of Truk Lagoon, the fragile environment of the Galapagos Islands, and the stunning, ice-blue waters of Antarctica. With every dive we have grown, not only as divers but also as instructors. In addition, our dive travel energizes and informs our teaching, bringing alive the sheer joy of underwater adventure for our students.
When you search for an instructor, ask about the type of diving he or she does, apart from teaching. If it's minimal, look for someone else.
What is the instructor's commitment to his or her own continuing education?
As in any other field, continuing education is the mark of a professional. Doctors, lawyers and teachers all broaden their knowledge and deepen their expertise by regularly taking advanced courses in their field. So, too, with diving instructors. A quality, professional diving instructor will continually take courses to update his or her skills and to advance into new areas of diving and underwater exploration. Along with experience, continuing education should be a regular feature in an instructor's life.
Every quality, professional diving instructor will want to progress through the ranks established by his or her agency. At Scuba Schools International that means climbing the ladder from associate instructor through instructor certifier. Doing so requires a very large investment of time and money, but it is a barometer of one's commitment to teaching. An instructor who is satisfied with teaching the same basic Open Water course year after year, never adding to his or her repertoire and never moving into the advanced ranks may be a competent, minimum-wage dive shop employee, but he or she is probably not the kind of instructor you are looking for.
This is not to say that entry-level instructors or those who have not moved beyond recreational diving are not good instructors: many are. Everyone progresses at his or her own pace, and continuing education is time consuming and expensive. Many entry-level instructors are superb, highly-motivated and gifted teachers who are at the beginning of their diving careers. We would not hesitate to recommend many of them. We would be cautious, though, of the instructor who has stayed at the same level for years and who has not progressed in his or her own diving education.
Conclusion
You are about to begin a great adventure, learning to scuba dive. It should be one of the great experiences of your life. If properly trained, diving is a safe, exciting and enjoyable adventure that takes you to some of the most beautiful and exotic destinations on the planet. You will make some extraordinary friends along the way, see astounding sights and create memories that will last a lifetime. Your diving instructor plays a large role in opening and expanding the underwater world to you. Choose your instructor carefully, weighing all of the factors discussed above. In the end, a wise decision will set you on the path to success!
