CCR Myth #21

Randy Thornton

Randy Thornton

Administrator
Staff member
Myth #21 – I don’t have time to mentor!


For those instructors in the audience, please make a commitment right now to not only teach courses, but to actively mentor your students afterwards. One of the key components missing in today’s technical dive training is mentoring. If you look at the history of technical diving, it all started out with a newbie being taken under the wing of an older, more experienced diver. This allowed for a slow progression where new technical wanabees slowly and progressively built up experience, while being shadowed by more experienced divers. There were no courses, no materials, only other divers who had been there before, done that and were willing to share their time and experience.

Fast forward to 2015 and we have instant CCR Trimix divers, Wreck Divers, Cave divers. The only true prerequisite seems to be a VISA card with a large spending limit. As we have discussed, perfect practice and repetition is the secret to progression in this sport. I would also add to this list, training, practice, repetition, evaluation and gradual progressive baby steps forward. Small baby steps with a qualified mentor who actually cares about their students and friends and is willing to invest the time and energy. If your instructor does not fit that category, find another! There seems to be hundreds of them out there! :agree:
 

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This is the most important thing that can be done to keep divers diving.
A course is great, but this will hone the skills to perfection.

Michael
 
very true but rare as hens teeth in this day and age of insta diver and paid instruction for courses. I do know people who mentor but it's only really instructors and experienced divers who want to bring on the next generation of divers for nothing but the love of the sport or who are mentoring their mates for free. (as an aside mentoring was the traditional european way of learning to dive through a club before the commercial agencies PADI/IANTD/TDI/etc sniffed a potential market and did their utmost to try to disrupt that model)

Are you suggesting paid instructors provide mentoring as part of the deal when you take a course with them as a follow up? Maybe I'm a cynic but I don't see many instructors who earn their living from selling courses providing mentoring for free or are you thinking this could be some sort of service to offer for an ongoing fee to supplement the income stream? Either way I can't quite see how that fits in with learning from a limited number of globe trotting tech instructors who do courses here and courses there for all sorts of people who they will never see again.

you have hit the nail on the head of where the pay to learn dive culture falls down. this may sound like a pop at paid instructors and agencies but it's not. I agree totally with your sentiment. Paid instructors have their place and provide a useful service but they do not provide the full spectrum of training which has to include an element of mentoring and continuous learning that never stops. otherwise they are just providing people with very basic knowledge and then sending them off to make a lot of the same mistakes that have already proved so costly in the past.

PS these posts are getting interesting Randy, not sure about being 'myths' as such but they are lifting a few rocks to see what's underneath.
 
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My very first instructor did this very well ( he was Padi, in Belgium) he really took his time, he also went beyond the skills the ask for the cert and invited all his students every time he went diving afterwards. The 'good students ' could even join when he had new students.
Afterwards I had a tech instructor who did the same , he putted a lot of effort in his classes and really enjoyed it and stays in contact with you after the class ( thanks Sven de Vos !)
For my rEvo training I went with Marc Thierens, pretty much the same story, he like's you to come diving with him after the classes also.
Most of my diving now I do with someone who used to be a instructor but doesn't anymore by lack of time ( or you do it properly or you don't ) but he enjoy's helping me and I learn very much from him. He already dived a rEvo when it where only the prototype's I guess :)
Btw: thanks for that Guy !!! ( Daniels)


Sent by my rEvo scrubber using a shearwater Nerd
 
Randy,

My take is that an instructor is insane if they don't take the time to do this since it's a "best practice" to build and grow a business... To this day I still dive with my original CCR instructor who certified me over 13 years ago. Through him I met many divers that I still dive with today.

Mike... I would suggest that an instructor that "continues to invest" in their students gets is back 10 fold in referrals and other business...

Dive Safe!

M
 
It might not be because the instructor is not willing to mentor. When I have students who live halfway across the world it is difficult to mentor after as diving together is difficult. The best mentoring I have been able to offer is when students live close by and join me for dives I am doing for fun. Many past students have joined in our exploration projects which makes mentoring fun and easy. I would love to continue to dive with all my past students but it is not always possible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Mentoring was the thing I thought my open water shop did very well. They post weekly dives that anyone can join. There is always an instructor in the group and it makes the new folks feel safe and gain experience.

My CCR instructor will let me tag along on a class so long as I am willing to be the victim for rescue scenarios. In have referred several friends to him in part because I can dive with them during their training which will make them more comfortable.
 
It's not restricted to diving. The whole idea of lack of mentor has been blamed in society for everything from the rise of gangs to wars by small minded presidents and politicians. Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist whose book inspired George Lucas to write Star Wars, was one of the big proponents of the theory that the change from tribal to urban society removed mentoring by elders which in turn caused so many ills to arise.

Why blame instructors? How many people do any of us mentor? When I started technical diving, mentoring was the way it happened. Sure you trained with an instructor, but it was your peers you learned to dive from. The gurus like doing their big stunt dives. I've trained with a couple of instructors that really saw themselves as too good to be out doing ordinary weekend diving with peasants. If there wasn't a magazine article in it or a paying student they didn't get in the water.

I'm at the experience level now akin to those that were mentoring me when I started. I'm not mentoring anyone. Like many, I'm so time poor that my diving is for me and the people I dive with tend to be people at a similar level. Ironically, my diving skills were at their best when I was working with a PADI centre. The upfront costs to become an instructor these days exclude the ordinary punter and I'm not throwing away a ton of money so I can teach nitrox courses for a couple of years at a loss before I can do what interests me. Especially when there are others there only because they blew the chairman of the board (metaphorically but who knows?). The agencies push the idea that the only source of information is them which effectively negates the idea of mentoring in the eyes of the new punter. You can point the finger but the agencies killed the idea of mentoring. No point moaning about it now.

There's a thread running on another forum right now about a pre-Mod1 student wanting to clean up his unit and change the orings before the start of the course. Unsurprisingly there is some sheeple harping on at him about how he needs to wait for his instructor to tell him what to do. That's where mentoring went, right down the bog because the gurus sold it to everyone that they were the only source of information. God forbid an ordinary diver should try to teach someone something. I'd bet cash money that the majority of the people in the thread giving advice had assembled their Inspos about a million times more than the average instructor had.

I don't think mentoring is an instructor's job. If anything, it's the people that are out doing ordinary dives regularly and know their stuff inside out. Knowing what works to satisfy QA and what works to get a dive done are two different things. Wasn't there a "myth" not so long ago about not diving differently to how you teach :rolleyes: Mentoring died for a lot of reasons, lazy instructors is just a fraction of it and we all have a responsibility if we're going to moan about it.
 
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Interestingly I have found that the divers that I have trained and continue to mentor are the ones that have continued diving. Those who went on to do their own thing after class and have had no interest in diving with an instructor have not stuck with diving. I'm always willing to dive with anyone and help them improve even if they are never my student.

As far as mentors for me particularly in the types of diving I do not currently teach, CCR and cave, I have found 3 great mentors. I enjoy diving with them and they are not afraid to tell me when I do something stupid or if they just have a better way. None of them are instructors but they have a huge amount of experience. And no Garth is not one of them, he is a former student that has continued to dive with me, although he doesn't listen very well. ;-)
 
lizardland said:
It's not restricted to diving. The whole idea of lack of mentor has been blamed in society for everything from the rise of gangs to wars by small minded presidents and politicians. Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist whose book inspired George Lucas to write Star Wars, was one of the big proponents of the theory that the change from tribal to urban society removed mentoring by elders which in turn caused so many ills to arise.

Why blame instructors? How many people do any of us mentor? When I started technical diving, mentoring was the way it happened. Sure you trained with an instructor, but it was your peers you learned to dive from. The gurus like doing their big stunt dives. I've trained with a couple of instructors that really saw themselves as too good to be out doing ordinary weekend diving with peasants. If there wasn't a magazine article in it or a paying student they didn't get in the water.

I'm at the experience level now akin to those that were mentoring me when I started. I'm not mentoring anyone. Like many, I'm so time poor that my diving is for me and the people I dive with tend to be people at a similar level. Ironically, my diving skills were at their best when I was working with a PADI centre. The upfront costs to become an instructor these days exclude the ordinary punter and I'm not throwing away a ton of money so I can teach nitrox courses for a couple of years at a loss before I can do what interests me. Especially when there are others there only because they blew the chairman of the board (metaphorically but who knows?). The agencies push the idea that the only source of information is them which effectively negates the idea of mentoring in the eyes of the new punter. You can point the finger but the agencies killed the idea of mentoring. No point moaning about it now.

There's a thread running on another forum right now about a pre-Mod1 student wanting to clean up his unit and change the orings before the start of the course. Unsurprisingly there is some sheeple harping on at him about how he needs to wait for his instructor to tell him what to do. That's where mentoring went, right down the bog because the gurus sold it to everyone that they were the only source of information. God forbid an ordinary diver should try to teach someone something. I'd bet cash money that the majority of the people in the thread giving advice had assembled their Inspos about a million times more than the average instructor had.

I don't think mentoring is an instructor's job. If anything, it's the people that are out doing ordinary dives regularly and know their stuff inside out. Knowing what works to satisfy QA and what works to get a dive done are two different things. Wasn't there a "myth" not so long ago about not diving differently to how you teach :rolleyes: Mentoring died for a lot of reasons, lazy instructors is just a fraction of it and we all have a responsibility if we're going to moan about it.
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I am not allowed to give the Lizard more green or I would.

I too was mentored in what is now known as technical diving. The courses I have taken were good and helpful but once the basics were clear the real learning and proficiencies were gleaned by doing and the better example of a more experienced diver really cut through the fog.

As for ccr, my initial traing was just fine, but the penny only real dropped on many of the skill sets after having experience. I know I can dive with my initial instructor any time but he is not close by. I would have done well to have made the track to do so.

Peter
 
lizardland said:
There's a thread running on another forum right now about a pre-Mod1 student wanting to clean up his unit and change the orings before the start of the course. Unsurprisingly there is some sheeple harping on at him about how he needs to wait for his instructor to tell him what to do. That's where mentoring went, right down the bog because the gurus sold it to everyone that they were the only source of information. God forbid an ordinary diver should try to teach someone something. I'd bet cash money that the majority of the people in the thread giving advice had assembled their Inspos about a million times more than the average instructor had.
Click to expand...

Hold on here.

There's more to mentoring than dispensing expert advice. Mentoring very much implies a commitment on the part of the mentor.
A commitment, for instance, to tell hard truths like "you're not ready for this". Or maybe in this case "don't try that just yet".
A commitment, also, to be there to help out when things go south.

Will any of those fine experts, expounding how everything is a piece of piss and not only should he go right ahead but also do this and that, turn up at that pre-Mod1 diver's door with the right tools and a box of spares, at their own expense of course, when he's left with a box of bits, or _gasp_ breaks something?

No?

Well then, maybe, the correct, "mentor", thing to say is "go over that with your mod 1 instructor". He can always come back with further questions later.

Cheers,

Matthieu
 
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emmbee said:
Will any of those fine experts, expounding how everything is a piece of piss and not only should he go right ahead but also do this and that, turn up at that pre-Mod1 diver's door with the right tools and a box of spares, at their own expense of course, when he's left with a box of bits, or _gasp_ breaks something?

No?
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Why not? I've had people give me parts, tools and advice at their own expense due to a question asked on a forum. I've even had one manufacturer on here send me parts at his own expense when I had something fail.

Knowing some of the people in that thread, yes they probably would do what you said if he didn't live in a different country.
 
lizardland said:
Why not? I've had people give me parts, tools and advice at their own expense due to a question asked on a forum. I've even had one manufacturer on here send me parts at his own expense when I had something fail.

Knowing some of the people in that thread, yes they probably would do what you said if he didn't live in a different country.
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My "No?" was a rhetorical question. I know the answer is no, for the very reason you state.

That was the point. In those circumstances, it's not unreasonable, and it's not being a sheeple to recommend waiting for the course.

I agree with the rest of your post, but this wasn't a great example.

Cheers,

Matthieu
 
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emmbee said:
Hold on here.

There's more to mentoring than dispensing expert advice. Mentoring very much implies a commitment on the part of the mentor.
A commitment, for instance, to tell hard truths like "you're not ready for this". Or maybe in this case "don't try that just yet".
A commitment, also, to be there to help out when things go south.

Will any of those fine experts, expounding how everything is a piece of piss and not only should he go right ahead but also do this and that, turn up at that pre-Mod1 diver's door with the right tools and a box of spares, at their own expense of course, when he's left with a box of bits, or _gasp_ breaks something?

No?

Well then, maybe, the correct, "mentor", thing to say is "go over that with your mod 1 instructor". He can always come back with further questions later.

Cheers,

Matthieu
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The diver your on about is changing a few feeking O -Rings,
 
That is an interesting one. I can see both sides. On the one hand I have had students mess something up because they tried it before the course. On the other hand I have had plenty of students show up with used units that needed an overhaul and new o rings that would have saved a lot of time during the course to focus on other stuff. I guess it depends on whether it would be educational or not to have the instructor present while changing the o rings.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
emmbee said:
My "No?" was a rhetorical question. I know the answer is no, for the very reason you state.

That was the point. In those circumstances, it's not unreasonable, and it's not being a sheeple to recommend waiting for the course.

I agree with the rest of your post, but this wasn't a great example.

Cheers,

Matthieu
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It's a perfectly good example.

An instructor is complaining about the demise of mentoring. It shows how this is happening. Instructors and agencies all punt how great they are and how they are the only source of valid information in the world and you mustn't wipe your arse without doing a course and that the previous students they trained know fook all so you shouldn't listen. Newer divers buy that crap, write off the real world knowledge of real world users and whine about "ask an instructor" whenever anyone solicits advice.

The gurus did their best to wipe out informal mentoring so they could line their pockets and protect their arses in court. Now instructors are moaning that others won't pass the knowledge on for free.

So you build the pyramid scheme then complain it's been too successful. The reach-around-merry-go-round just turned another circle.
 
I have to say I like the way Kiss units come with the O rings in a bag,
it makes the user strip the unit and fit the O rings.
In the process the user gets an idea of how the unit works and how
to check that all the seals are good.
I don't know of any Kiss diver that has died as a result of all this rinky
dinky self building, if I'm wrong I'd like to know ?
 
Gordon used to include 2 extras in the bag, that really ****ed with your head. When i contacted him about the two 'leftovers', he replied "thats how i know you did the job right".

Of course, he might've just made a mistake and suckered a daft brit with a bit of quick thinking, but either way he played the cards well :) Sneaky bastard, i liked him.
 
mentoring.

Funny how its almost binary. On the one hand we have the wild west of self teaching, self preservation and personal responsibility. On the other hand we have liability/claim, insurance, tickets for absolutely everything.

In reality many of us mentor our mates (or are mentored by them), but as the 'industry' becomes more commercial that gets harder to do.
 
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