Ssi scuba instructor cross over- is it a joke???

[deanspahic]

The SSI SCUBA instructor to freediving instructor cross over is absolutely a ridiculous idea. I don't care what you say about an "instructor is and instructor"... That statement is absolutely ungrounded. I have been a ski instructor, where I learned teaching skills and taught at a high level, does that mean because I am also a spear fisher that is more than capable of diving that I can become an SSI freediving instructor in a week. Maybe in the pursuit of profits which is likely the reason for the first cross over, SSI should set a SKI instructor cross over aswell. CRAZY IDEA??? According to Mike and SSI its not!! The only similarity that SCUBA has to freediving is that it takes place in the water. That's it!!! SCUBA instructors for the most part know nothing about teaching freediving - spearfisher or not. The Zero to Hero approach popular in SCUBA diving just doesn't work in this case. The key result will be a degradation in training quality and a big lump of cash in SSI's pocket. Teaching Freediving requires first, experience freediving, then time and experience learning to teach freedivers. There is no substitute for this experience, which comes through completing a certifications scheme over time. "TIME= EXPERIENCE" for all those who don't know!!!!! In addition the sob story of the dive instructor that loves spearing but works as a SCUBA instructor. Give me a break !!! Anyone who was willing to put the time in to becoming a PROFESSIONAL FREEDIVING INSTRUCTOR could have put the time in like all of us and taken an AIDA instructor course after completing the certification scheme OVER A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME. (Not one week). I think you people need to give your head a check. The rest of the program can be more or less acceptable given that the whole SSI program is simply a reformulated version of the long standing AIDA program. Mike was here in Dahab, where he took his AIDA instructor course from freedive dahab a little over a year ago. This brings up another interesting point... how does one go from being a new instructor a little over a year ago to the main instructor trainer for SSI????? Amazingly fast progression. It takes quite a bit longer than that in most other organizations. Ask yourself some questions people before you all Jump on board with SSI.

 

[Unclejake]

What stops me deciding to be a Freedive Instructor right now, with no structured training or syllabus?

Nothing. I can just go into business and call myself an instructor.

Is the SSI scenario worse?

 

[Mullins]

I've heard there are charlatans who actually do that!

 

[Unclejake]

Good luck to them Mullins.

I find the re-curring theme of "You must not go into the water if you have not been professionally trained" depressing.

I am 43 years old. I skinned my knee once. It hurt but got better, so I did it again. Quite a few times. The sore knee came with the 'getting out there and doing stuff' territory. If I had an able bodied child then I hope that he/she would be coming home covered in mud, scratches and experience.

Fortunately salt water cures a great many things.

Peace.

EDIT: I have done a good Freediving course and it was wonderful. My diving improved immensely from rubbish to just below average. I just don't think a course is a mandatory pre-requisite for enjoying yourself in the ocean.............and, I have galloped off topic. Not bad for only the fourth post in the thread! Lol

 

[Mullins]

Unfortunate overhang from the SCUBA model I reckon, I've never been comfortable with the idea of certification in freediving.

Thing is, Dean is a very experienced instructor and safety diver who has been on the safety team at world championship events etc, so you can see where he's coming from wrt instructor standards. I can pretty much guarantee that if you did a course with any of the Dahab crew you'd be getting better quality tuition than you would from a crossover SSI instructor (or from me, for that matter). But then, it is supposed to be a relatively free market and this stuff should work itself out.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

I second that this would work itself out, this sport is unique in that you have easy access to train with any number of world champions at a reasonable cost, Kirk&Mandy, Trubridge, stepanek, mullins, Umberto, etc any new organization or no name instructor would have to work pretty hard to prove they'r worth in comparison

 

[esom]

what i understand out of deans post is an idea which is well spreaded: that there is a special point when you are ready to do something
...
and that this moment can be found by measuring- picking something, for example "experience" or "company recognition you belong to" and value it.

i mistrust this idea a lot.
in my opinion there is only one measure (not valid of course)if you are ready to be e.g. an instructor, which is if you feel you are ready.
...
when i say "be an instructor" i am already half the way into a logic i dislike, i should have said "become an instructor".

i know this is not really ssi vs aida related, but valuing the discussing of the conditions of a discussion high is one of my "good ideas"

Andy

 

[x_yeti]

Dean, by all means debate the concept of the SSI crossover course and be as critical as you want, but don't take personal swipes at people. Mike is a very good freediver, in fact much better than you (see how personal attacks aren't cool?), and he has been an instructor for many years albeit scuba. His SSI courses are well designed for their target market (i.e. beginners) and the organisational structure that SSI is providing will help freediving grow into a mainstream sport.

 

[deanspahic]

Mike may are may not be a better diver than me, that is not the point that I am debating. Further I dont know who you are and I highly doubt that you have any Idea as to my level of diving at this point. Maybe you would like to make a point in a professional manner rather than this childish aproach. As for the ssi program, the main program may be well designed and mike put a good amount of work into it, but the instructor crossover component of the program is still flawed and a very bad Idea.

 

[fcallagy]

Dean I think we all understood your concerns but major kudos for saying it like you see it and then your post above. Your post above says a huge amount about you and deserves some rep as it can be hard to apologise for things online easier to let them drift off. I don't think X was making a swipe at you just trying to show how easy it is to make a swipe at people online thats all. Rep on the way to you.

 

[x_yeti]

Dean, a debate is where you state facts that back up your opinions and then allow others to counter and vice versa. Posting a comment like yours which is full of assumptions, opinions and no facts and then declaring the topic closed when someone challenges you is hardly a credible debate. To quote you, you might need to "give your head a check." - Again, see how insulting that is?

You most definitely challenged Mike's ability as a freediver and an instructor/instructor trainer. Using your own flawed definition of a good instructor: "Teaching Freediving requires first, experience freediving, then time and experience learning to teach freedivers." you were either remarking on his ability as a freediver or his experience teaching. He works fulltime in freediving and has taught more students than most AIDA instructors. You have to remember that most AIDA instructors work in non-dive holiday areas which means they have one or two courses per month. Also, freediving teaching experience does not only begin once you have an AIDA instructor certificate. Natalia is teaching stacks of students right now and she doesn't have an instructor certificate. Would you like to comment on her ability as an instructor? So if you were remarking on his experience then you were completely wrong. This leaves his ability as a freediver as the only other thing which you could have been casting doubt on. And yes he is a very good freediver who I have to say has one of the cleanest and most efficient bi-fin styles I have ever seen.

You do know me and I am in Dahab right now, so you might bump into me. I met you last year while you and Katya were still working for FDD. I did some training with Katya (please send my regards). When I met you I thought you were a decent guy, but Mike is a good friend of mine and if you are going to make unfounded derogatory remarks about him then I will most definitely have to change my opinion of you.

John D

 

[deanspahic]

John I think that you need to read things a little more carefully before making comments on them. First the deff. that was used to describe freediving instructors was directed towards the individuals looking to take the SSI SCUBA to Freediving instructor cross overs... not mike. And I still strongly believe that this crossover is a bad idea. And you are right I was questioning mike's ability as an instructor trainer. I was here in dahab while he was doing his AIDA instructor program. As a mater of fact I was working with Free Dive Dahab at the time he was taking his course there. If that was the only training that he had received he by no rights should have nominated himself an instructor trainer. That was the point. I talked to Mike though and in reality he has done work, beyond the one AIDA instructor course, and his program deserves an amount of respect. How much respect it deseves??? only time will tell. I like Mike, he's a really good guy, but i don't care who it is or was, if something needs to be said I'm going to say it if I can. And for the record everything said on the initial post was a fact. There were just some additional ones missing! He was in the middle of it and that's why his name comes in.

As for Natalia, I don't think that any of you should make reference to this women in any form of comparison to yourselves. Not you nor mike. She is an amazing freediver with a long history of training and experience in this sport and very likely could out dive most anyone - you included included - on a bad day. She, like many other world class athletes has put together a solid training program that works very well and too deserves respect. Don't bring someone like her into some trivial shit like this.

As for your personal opinion of me, you don't know me, we met once. I thought you were quite a good guy yourself and when ever your name came up in the past there was nothing to say except John is a good guy. That being said if you decide to change your opinion of me I'm not going to loose any sleep at night. Given the chance I would make the same post in the same situation and I don't owe you any kind of consideration for it. I'm not going to make any more posts on this thread as I have explained myself well enough and the point has been made. If you have any more problems give me a call , Linda - send my regards -has my number or you can find me at lighthouse most day teaching. Enjoy your time in Dahab!

Dean

 

[x_yeti]

If you and Mike are in communication about this, then I'll leave it to him to debate this with you.

Regarding Natalia, I was using her as an example of someone who doesn't need to do an instructor course ie. I wasn't being negative about her, I was being very positive.

If I see you around we can have a beer and chat about this.

 

[mortenkv]

Hi all,
I found this SSI initiative interesting and would like to know more on how its done. I found it hard to find any official info on the education, whats included, how is the system and such - can any of you help with a link?
Morten

 

[trullalla]

dear, let me know what you want to know and i'll send you all the info you need

 

[monkeyhatfork]

lets not forget we have several world champs that started out scuba intructors and now run some of the best freediving programs

 

[Johann]

hi all,
im also interested in more info and was wondering if you do me the same favour and suply a link ?
im an SSI scuba instructor myself, just starting out in the free-diving world (or atleast the spearfishing).

 

[Black Dog]

Its not a joke and I dont see why anyone would think it is.
It makes logical sense to me.

SSI - Just like Aida - is meerly a standard. That is all that it is - a minimum requirement. SSI have developed their own freediving training standard and you never know the standard might be better than the AIDA standard. If not now, maybe they will improve it over the years to a point where it is better.

There are dozens of other people out there doing freedive training to their own standard (a minimum requirement). If SSI can develop their own and make money from it, good on them. It has happened in Scuba diving (Padi, SSI, etc etc etc) Why shouldnt it happen in Freediving?

Competition is good for everyone - it improves the standard.

 

[deanspahic]

I’m afraid I have to strongly disagree with you on this one. Yes training organizations are about standards, but unlike scuba diving which is a technically driven activity, freediving is not, to maintain standards at a reasonable level the instructor must be a certain level of diving. The SSI program as a whole may be ok. The instructor training standards for the regular instructors are ok, but this SSI scuba instructor cross over is indeed a joke, and the more I learn about it the bigger the joke seems to be. One simple example is this; the instructors on the normal program must dive 40 meters comfortably. On the crossover they must dive 20m. That in and of its self is a joke. I have students on a regular basis that never dived before hitting the 20m mark by the end of their first course. You think the instructor should be on the same level as the students? How can they offer anything to their students if they are not able to dive themselves. The second thing, most of the cross over people have very little freediving experience, the course is not designed to teach them to teach as they are already instructors. The courses is designed to teach them how to free diver. Yes I said teach them to freediver.????????? That is an insane approach. People need to be divers, and good divers before they can teach people, not 2 star graduates. You say this is about standards, well in this case it’s about very low standards, and the bar has been set to the floor. Do you think that you as a scuba instructor could teach an ACMG course on Ski touring in the back country of the Canadian Rockies. That course and organization is about standards too. Or maybe you want to teach rock climbing, it also about standards, come out and see me I’ll give you a beginner rock climbing courses and because you already are an instructor and know about standards you can come work for me as an instructor????? As I said in the beginning of this debate, and what people are not able to grasp is that Freediving and SCUBA diving have almost nothing in common. Really almost not a thing. The only similarity is that they take place in the water that’s it. Other than that SCUBA is as much akin to free diving as the above mentioned sports. I know this because I also worked in the SCUBA industry for my time. There is more to this sport that requires experience and scubi crossovers unless they are already freedivers is indeed a joke and one of the worst kind. Every freediving instructor that I talked to shares this sentiment. I told this to the people creating the program and I hope they drop this part of it because for all of us in the industry it looks really bad. The rest who knows, maybe one day Ill become and SSI instructor, but for the time being AIDA is the only Solid Organization with solid instructor training standards. Oh one more point all these other people working on their own standards have the experience to do so and most of them have been diving for years. They have EXPERIENCE. That’s what you need to teach something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope this explanation helps you understanding of why this cross over is a joke and why a lot of us (freediving instructors) think so.

One more thing, you are right competition is good, and it will make things better if organizations work in a correct way to maintain training quality. As I said ssi built a good program and if they drop this rediculous part of it, it could be a great program.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

I think this is a non issue, no one is going to take freediving courses from these scuba instructors, there are too many great freedivers and world champs teaching and thats where everyone will go, scubies love collecting certifications and this is another merit badge for them to pin on there shirt:t I think most of us take courses to train and learn from people that have the abilities to back-up what they are saying, I dont think the paper or cards you get at the end are ment to be taken this seriously-As I understand it they are ment more as something a freediver can present to pools or boats weary of freediving in hopes it will ease the paranoia of liability and that you know if someone has taken a course they have some safety training--- I grew up skateboarding and surfing can u imagine SSI level 2 surfer or A.I.D.A **** skateboarder, nobody would care-people want ability the rest is just fabricated