Teaching Neutrally buoyant and trimmed

I wrote a 3-part series published by SDI on how I teach my open water students neutrally buoyant and trimmed from the start to finish on the course. The difference in confidence and skill that my students acquire compared to the way I first taught when I became an instructor are dramatic to say the

Diving Keystone Jetty

Here is some information I read from Eric Askilsrud on when to dive Keystone Jetty, my favorite shore dive in the Seattle area:“If you want to make the drive up there more worth it with multiple dives with less current, go on days when the flood is ~1.5 knots or less at Admiralty. Splash an

Simple exercises for students not completely comfortable with having their faces in the water

One of the common challenges that instructors face is helping open water students overcome any discomfort they feel by having their faces in the water without a mask. I received this set of exercises from Peter Rothschild, a PADI instructor who co-authored in 2011 the article “Early Transition to Neutral Buoyancy in Instruction.” That article

Answers to questions for prospective students

Q1: How long have you been an instructor? A1: I passed my instructor examination in December of 2015 Q2: Do you teach full or part-time? A2: Part time. One day I’ll open a dive center in Greece and this will be my full time profession Q3. For what agency do you teach? For what agencies

Pete Murray’s Weighting methods

Many of you will recognize the name, formerly known as NetDoc on ScubaBoard, known as The Chairman today. One of Pete’s strengths in teaching buoyancy and trim. While slightly different than my own, I wanted to share (I received his permission) for the following methods for divers to get their weight determined. The content below

Taking a mask off underwater

This post is a cut and paste from this thread on scubaboard https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/when-the-thought-of-taking-your-mask-off-underwater-just-freaks-you-out.587119/ by the user rsingler. I thought it was interesting to share. There are a few universal “small hurdles” during the first pool classes when getting Open Water certified. There’s that first time you inhale from your regulator when submerged…the first time you have to

A conversation with John Adsit about curriculum design and instruction

The following is an excerpt of a conversation I had with John Adsit, co-author of this article: http://utahscubadiver.com/wp-content/uploads/USJ2Q11.pdf, on ScubaBoard (his username is boulderjohn). I think it is valuable information that every instructor, not just scuba, should keep in mind. His words: Here are some principles of curriculum design and instruction: Standards and Scope: First identify what

How I weight students in open water courses

These days, I only teach open water with students in dry suits (it is just torture learning in a wetsuit in Puget Sound – my opinion). For wetsuit divers, there are 3 buoyancy numbers I need: the weight to get the student to sink in a pool in just a swim suit, the buoyancy of

The mask test doesn’t work

One of the first equipment issues new divers face is getting a properly fitting mask. The mask test which many of us dive pros were taught was to have the student place a mask on their face without the strap and if they breath in through their nose and the mask stays in place, it

Why overweighting is such a problem, especially for open water students

The reason why overweighting is such a problem with open water students is that in order to remain at a constant depth, you have to add additional gas into your BCD. So there is this extra amount of gas in your BCD that you shouldn’t have, and here is why: changes in depth cause a