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not that I am looking to become one any time soon. but how long would it take some one to go from divemaster up to cave/tech instructor. and for those of you who are.. could you make a living off of it as say a retirement job. I am think post military service. I love teaching at the navy base and figure teaching tech/cave diving is the closest I can come do that when I get out
DON"T DO IT!!! take it from a guy that QUIT teaching in 1982, it ain't worth it. A wise old friend told me "divers dive, instructors instruct" and he was correct. You can only tell people how to clear their mask so many times before you go nuts and start hacking away with your z knife.Quote:
Originally Posted by adam0321
Learn to throw 3 card Monty, sell used cars, become a part time pimp, learn to be a street mime, sell your blood....anything but this!
ok so one vote for no i take it
A good friend of mine once told me "It's tough to make a living off somebody's hobby".Quote:
Originally Posted by adam0321
Personally, I do not see myself ever becoming an instructor (not that anyone would want me to instruct them on anything)...
I became an instructor to finance my diving habit and all it finances is being an instructor. With all the fees and insurance and gear maintenance I barely break even.
But I know people who make a living on teaching.
That's kind of what I thought
But I only do it part time and don't really have a steady student throughput. If you had a steady student flow and supplemental income (read: military retirement check) you could make a living at it. But you would prob go insane from all the students and monotony of teaching the same classes over and over. Some one on here posted a while ago that you have to have a good ratio of training dives to personal dives to keep your sanity.
if i remember correctly for the nss-cds and nacd you must be at a minimum an open h20 instructor with at least 25 certs. your going to intern for each level, cavern, intro, apprentice, and full with something like 3 instructors to learn teaching techniques ect. you also have to attend some sort of check out after they deem you worthy to be considered a cave instructor for that level. AND THEN you must be approved by the board of that organization. obviously you must be a full cave diver. you will also need to have completed 100 cave dives after the full cave level and be able to show logs. as for tec instruction that depends greatly on the agency you would like to teach for, but they all have similar minimums like having so many logged dives beyond recreational limits, interning with classes, taking an instructor level class and exam and so on. a friend of mine rocked through his tec instructor with normoxic and hypoxic trimix in a month. he has certs through both DSAT and TDI at those levels.
and I am sure you would have to teach for years to break even on the cost of all those certs
Carl needs to chime in here. If he doesn't, I'll spout his buzz phrase after a bit.
I consider them to be separate things. Teaching is all good but I leave the cave and tech stuff for my fun. I will eventually become a cave instructor but I will be very picky about my teaching schedule when I do.
If you get with a shop you can do quite a bit of teaching and do OK. I don't think you can make a living at it without additional income but with a retirement package you can probably do all right.
every once in a while I think how the equation might shift to my side and then I look at all the BS necessary to become an instructor, and it just never quite levels off....
I'm a diver... I do quite a bit of diving... but I've never been a professional, and it appears it's never really going to pay for itself - so I'll let the folks who do it - do it....
If you want to dive with people who dive - as friends - come along... the more the merrier - like all good cave divers - we like bbq....
I'm hoping like heck this is a typo.Quote:
Originally Posted by netmage
the kraken is 3/4th empty.... - indeed sir...Quote:
Originally Posted by Slüdge
CDS and NACD require 40 recreational certifications to be eligible for their programs. Other agenices have other requirements. CDS and NACD require 3 internships per level with 3 different instructors then an IEC for each level with the training director and other instructor that was not one of your interns. IANTD requires 2 internships with an IE. TDI requires an internship, as well. You must have some time between ratings and have taught a certain number of students and classes between each level. It took me 3 years after I had already met all the qualifications to get all my cave and tech instructor ratings. And I put a lot of time into it.
Will it pay the bills. I wouldn'y be sitting here in a critical care unit typing this right now if it did. It does offset my diving expenses. But you do need to maintain a good balance between training dives and personal dives. When it's warm I do way more personal dives than training dives. When it's cold it's about even (takes a lot of motivation to go dive when you live right by the caves).
I know of one agency that will make someone an instructor without any of the prereqs or internships or IECs. I used to be an instructor with that agency but dropped it when I saw that.
I'm not a cave instructor, but I am an open water instructor. I went the divemaster route way back when to defray the cost of the gear I was purchasing while getting into cave diving, plus free air fills. As a divemaster at the dive shop, I was able to get a pretty decent discount on gear.
I went instructor ten years ago to make some extra money.....um, well.....I'm lucky if I break even. (landlocked) So now, I temper my teaching to keep my perks; and consider my perks as part of my "pay" to break even or come out a bit ahead.
Hear that !! I have woked with operations that expressed stong interest in my obtaining an instructor certification. I got as far as doiong a few different DM programs w/ different agencies, and I got to notice a couple things. I met a lot of good divers that dove a lot. I also met good dive instructors that instructed a lot, but really had a hard time doing a lot of fun diving. For me, that's enough said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Me
Working with dive operations that carried lines of tech gear and had great fill stations was a **huge** benny. THis is not to say I used the operation just to get stuff, I DM'ed for years and had a lot of fun doing it, but eventually the calls to do my own dives simply grew too loud.
There certainly are no technical instructors I know of in the Puget Sound area who don't have day jobs. There just isn't enough demand for that type of training, and there are too many instructors.
A few of the GUE guys are making a living, but they have a pretty considerable catchment area and a very tight pipeline feeding them students.