Quote: (Originally Posted by
jradomski)
Also having required xover training allows a review of the diver's skills.. I have seen it more than once that a diver has gotten into bad habits and it gives another chance to correct things.. Not everone will get the same out of a class.. Some will feel xovers are unnecessary but you do need a set of standards to try and meet some minimum level of safety.. its also in my opinion to not be too flexible with regards to experience otherwise the good ole boys network has a chance to enter..
The rEvo training is just getting going, its only been a few months... In time there will be more options available, but you will never have instructors comming out of the woodwork.. Keeping the training selective helps keep control and quality high, and prevents those operating out of the trunk of their car and only teach a few students a year from damaging the market place for those that do it for a living and in general have greater experience....
Interesting post...
First, if you see a lot of people who has "gotten into bad habits", it would actually be more sensible (and economically rewarding for both instructors and training agencies) to demand refresher training every x years to keep your certificate than to demand cross over training between two similar units 1-2 times in a diver's lifetime! There goes the "safety" argument...
Second, me being an instructor who "operates out of the trunk of my car" I have difficulties to agree with (or maybe understand) the statement you made about instructor quality.
I'd rather go to an instructor who ONLY dives the unit I want training on instead of to an instructor who "offer training" on all rebreathers. Even units that he doesn't own! I think this is in contradiction to your own statements about quality, since I don't believe that someone who "offers training" on 10-15 (or even more!) units will ever get the intimate knowledge of each unit that I do on my "single" unit. There goes the quality argument...
Of course someone who has dived a lot of different rebreathers can comment on them but what are their comments based on, really? If it is as easy to become an instructor as to just dive a unit a couple of hours with an "IT friend" then the student's previous experience on a specific unit would actually qualify him to dive a similar unit straight away, since higher requirements always should be put on the instructor...
I feel this whole (cross over)training thing is very hard to explain in a logical and honest way. You said that you put a lot of time into writing training material. Well, I don't know anyone who has ever received any material from IANTD, OC or CCR... Then the IANTD courses ought to be cheaper than ANDI, right?