Posts by mark:
Life after the PADI IDC – continue your education
January 2nd, 2010Ok guys. Congratulations on becoming PADI Instructors. Give yourself a standing ovation. You have done exceptionally well to get to this level. Now you can give people a life changing experience as you introduce them and guide them through the world of scuba diving. Get out there and start teaching as much as you can. But what other options are also available to you now? Is this the end of the road? Does you experience stop after the IE? No way!
Don’t let this be the end of your diving education. There are still more things that you can learn and also more things that you can offer people as a diving educator. For instance have you ever thought about being able to teach the things that interest you? Do you have a particular passion for wreck diving or perhaps underwater photography? Would you like to be able to teach other divers these things so they can join you in your interests? Maybe you just want to be able to teach something that you have real enthusiasm for or something particular to your local environment. It also means that there is less repetition for you. Let’s face it teaching the same courses day-in-day-out might become a little tedious so the ability to be able to go and teach something else once in a while can provide a nice break plus adding different teaching experiences for you. Either way you might want to think about becoming a PADI Specialty Instructor.
Look at all the options that are available to you. There are over 25 PADI Specialties and that is not including the Distinctive specialties written by instructors that apply to interests of theirs. There is so much more that you can offer your students and your potential dive centre employers.
This is also not something to be sniffed at. If you can teach more then you can offer a potential employer more value as they can obviously utilize you more. The more things you can add to your ‘Instructors Quiver’ then the more valuable you can be to a dive operation. It can also help you to move up the PADI Instructor ladder to Master Scuba Diver Trainer and beyond.
These ratings past the Open Water Scuba Instructor rating denote instructors with a lot of experience and thus give you a large amount of credibility. Once you move onto ratings such as IDC Staff Instructor as well you are starting to help in the PADI Instructor Development process assisting Course Directors in shaping the future diving instructors. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of this process in changing people from divers into guys who can teach diving? Be a part of that life changing experience for someone else. Continue your diving education and this is certainly possible plus it again makes you even more useful within the dive industry. My own experience as a Staff Instructor took me to a whole new perception in the way I looked at teaching diving and the way that I could work with people. This was pretty much the best transition I made in diving and only encouraged me to go further up the ladder to Course Director.
This might all; be quite a lot to take in just following your gradation from the IDC/ IE which obviously was such a great achievement in itself. But why not build on what you have learned and thus make yourself a more rounded dive professional. Going through the Continuing Education process will also allow you to carry on working with experienced instructors and seeing their methods of teaching which will allow you to build your own style by working with and observing many others. Even now I still learn from watching other diving instructors at work as no one has completely the same way of teaching and working with people.
This is not to say just focus on your con-ed but still get on with teaching the ‘bread and butter’ PADI courses. Just recognize what con-ed can offer you and what you can use it for. Teach those things that really interest you and your enthusiasm for your subject can rub off on your students. There are also little things like teaching certain Specialties can enhance you knowledge to make teaching other courses better such as the PADI Divemaster course.
The point that I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t just think that now you have passed your IE that that is the end of your education. There is so much more that you can learn and so much more that you can offer in the dive industry both to the benefit of your students, and yourself. The PADI system offers so much more for you as an instructor and you should take the opportunity to use it to its full potential and realize your full potential.
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Scuba Diving in a Wheelchair – Breaking the Barriers Underwater
October 24th, 2009
Out of the wheelchair and into the blue. I can go backwards, forwards, up, down, and side to side. It’s just like being an astronaut in space. What freedom. Try scuba diving.
Scuba diving in recent years has become the focus as a good sport for disabled people to have a go at. In the United States it has been taken on as a project for wounded United States Forces veterans as rehab through the Soldiers Undertaking Disabled Scuba scheme. This is a recreational activity being banded as a genuine source of rehabilitation for those considered ‘disabled’. What would be the bonuses of this?
Despite its ‘extreme James Bond’ image, scuba diving does provide a number of bonuses for those who want to give it a try. To get under the water and into a weightless environment can offer un-paralleled freedoms for all. This is before we even consider what beauty and excitement can be encountered under the surface.
In contrast to many sports for wheelchairs such as wheelchair basketball, cycling or rugby there is no need for customized chairs or equipment when a disabled person goes scuba diving. There is no wheelchair in the water and aside from things like wetsuit adjustments (which non-disabled people need as well); there are no massive equipment changes for the individual.
In the same way in many cases there is no penalization for having a disability. Some disabled people have risen all the way through the professional ranks of instructor and above.
After a fall from a third floor balcony 4 years ago I was paralysed below the waist and unable to walk again. However I was lucky enough to have been involved in scuba diving before my accident. Since my return to diving instruction just 1 and ½ months following my discharge from Stoke Mandeville Spinal Injuries unit in the UK, I have continued, working my way up the PADI ladder to the highest rating that can be held by a PADI professional: Course Director which means that I don’t just teach diving but also teach others to become instructors. It was also interesting to learn that I was the first person to reach this level with PADI, seeing how natural scuba seems to me.
The great thing about scuba diving is that it offers someone like myself a chance to throw off those constraints that I have on land in to an environment where I am the same as everyone else in the water. The only difference is that I swim with my arms rather than my legs. I want to be able to share that feeling with other people in my situation, who maybe feel that they could not do something, which is still considered an extreme sport. They can and in many cases are better than non-disabled divers. Even if the person have a more limiting condition, provided that they pass the medical they can be taken diving and see and do things that 95% of people will never see.
Another great advantage is where scuba diving can take you. Since my accident and carrying on scuba instruction I have worked in Thailand and Egypt. I have also dived in Australia, Kenya, Malaysia, the USA, Spain and Croatia. Pretty much anywhere there is water you can dive so why not have a go?
So who can dive?
In the past few years, I have taken on diving courses, paraplegics, quadraplegics, amputees, people with muscular dystrophy and there is the possibility of diving for many other people including Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, and hearing and visually impaired to name a few. In the same way as non-disabled people if you pass the medical saying that you are fit enough to dive then you can be introduced to the underwater world.
The IAHD (International Association for Handicapped Divers) provides a training program, which is recognized by the major training organisations such as PADI, NAUI and SSI. In addition it has programs which train diving instructors to work with disabled people to try and counter previous skepticism encountered by pioneers in disabled diving such as Fraser Bathgate.
Are there any medical benefits from diving?
There are the obvious mental benefits provided by a sport, which breaks down the barriers so much and introduces a whole new world.
I myself cannot emphasise how much it helped with my rehab. Having gone from 100 mph to nothing in an instant and to be told I could still dive and make few changes was a great help. I’m just glad I knew about diving and now want to help as many people who haven’t thought about it, as possible discover it.
Some scuba instructors have remarked that some people they have worked with have actually had less pain underwater than on the surface. Certainly with guys I have taken into the water the change that you can see in people from the moment they take their first breath is staggering. The determination of some of the divers has been incredible too. In efforts to further the possibiities Fraser Bathgate the worlds first ever paraplegic diving instructor and Director of Training for the IAHD is constantly working with governments and medical services on new initiatives for the disabled in scuba diving and rehabilitation.
Physiotherapists of the UK National Spinal Injuries Centre have remarked that there could be genuine use for scuba diving in spinal rehabilitation programs. There is an assessment that where initially people were skeptical that it was too good to be true at first, now it is becoming more accepted as government organisations and medical groups work with the IAHD and other scuba organisations towards implementing more scuba diving for the disabled.
Where can you learn to Dive?
The best place to start is by looking on the web to find your nearest dive school and instructor. The IAHD’s website provides information on where you can find you local IAHD instructor or IAHD Dive centre. PADI provide a similar service on their website. There are also initiatives like try dives run at dive centres worldwide. It is certainly something that everyone can do on holiday and adds an extra dimension to a holiday in contrast to just lying on a beach and opens up a massive array of destinations such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Australia to name just a few.
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