Cave Diver Training Length

[RN]

Also I don't see why apprentice divers can do 2 jumps but not 3, or dive stages.

Most agencies only allow one navigational decision at the Apprentice level not 2.

Specifically, what skills are different between Apprentice and Full Cave? Having taken each course, I don't have an answer, and I don't even think it's clear in the training manuals. The only thing I've heard is the level of mastery expected by the instructor.

The main skills expected at the Apprentice level are situational awareness and learning the cave. At the Intro level, divers have been penetrating to 1/6 of double cylinders and improving skills learned in cavern and intro courses. Now we're taking them twice as far into the cave and allowing a navigational decision for the first time. It's no longer gold line, it's now white line that's much thinner and more difficult to see. It's also taking divers out of the water source tunnel. There's a big difference. It's also very clearly spelled out in the training manuals. The issue I have seen is most instructors teach the 4 day cave course and start out day one with a planned circuit or multiple jump dive. Per standards that shouldn't actually be done until day 3 of the 4 day course.



To answer the original question, it took me over a year to go from cavern to cave and I spaced it out over 3 trips - cavern, intro with AN/DP (5 days), and 4 day cave. I also did about 3 dozen cavern dives before taking intro and then another couple dozen or so intro dives before cave. Once at the cave level I still took it slow. I have never been a believer in pushing it all the way to 1/3s and I started off slow with jumping off the main line.

[BobK]

... and I disagree just as strongly. There are four courses with new skills and info at each level. I believe each course should be taken, and then skills polished, before the next level is tackled.

I also think cavern should be taken in a single unless the diver has considerable experience in doubles. There's a lot of new stuff to be learned, and it's no time to be learning a new configuration on top of that. Jacket BC, AIR2, however you've been diving in open water, should be your setup for the cavern course.

Kim and I took cavern in singles (her a 100 HP, me a 120 Hp, a 7 ft hose and an air 2. Probably a "real" cave diver would have shot us. I think I contributed to my instructor quitting the instruction field

[Dsix36]

Myself and a friend went from "zero to hero" in a 1 week course. We were both on rebreathers and had no prior OC cave training. It was a grueling and task loaded week with more drills than I care to remember. There were a lot of mistakes made and lessons learned. We both came away very humbled in the knowledge that we needed a lot more practice and time to master the new skills.

[LiteHedded]

2 years
maybe a bit less. I don't remember

[Tegg]

Interesting numbers... More please.

[aainslie]

Err... other than reviewing a bunch of self-congratulatory unsubstantiated statements by people who took forever to learn some pretty simple skills (apparently Floridians learn slowly....), most of whom have posted these exact opinions in other threads, what does anyone think they're learning in this thread?

I did a quick search on the words "zero hero" and found about 3 pages of THREADS, many themselves running many pages, of similar statements.

Seems Floridians not only learn slowly, they also forget quickly... or require massive reinforcement...

Ah... and I took longer than 14 days. I actually believe that doing so reduced the learning, but what would I know... I only teach for a living...

God, imagine if armies did this.

basic hand combat 1

3 months in the field, min 10 enemy killed

basic hand combat 2

3 more months in the field, min 50 enemy killed

basic weapons 1 (no more than 5 bullets, 1 magazine)

3 more months, min 100 enemy killed

basic weapns 2... oh damn, there don't appear to be any "recruits" left to take that class so forget it.

[Tegg]

Err... other than reviewing a bunch of self-congratulatory unsubstantiated statements by people who took forever to learn some pretty simple skills (apparently Floridians learn slowly....), most of whom have posted these exact opinions in other threads, what does anyone think they're learning in this thread?

I did a quick search on the words "zero hero" and found about 3 pages of THREADS, many themselves running many pages, of similar drivel.

Seems Floridians not only learn slowly, they also forget quickly... or require massive reinforcement...

Ah... and I took longer than 14 days. I actually believe that doing so reduced the learning, but what would I know... I only teach for a living...

God, imagine if armies did this.

basic hand combat 1

3 months in the field, min 10 enemy killed

basic hand combat 2

3 more months in the field, min 50 enemy killed

basic weapons 1 (no more than 5 bullets, 1 magazine)

3 more months, min 100 enemy killed

basic weapns 2... oh damn, there don't appear to be any "recruits" left to take that class so forget it.

So to sum up what you're trying to say...

You tend to believe that the students who take a "condensed" cave diver class actually have the opportunity to learn more?

Can you expand on that?

[aainslie]

Nope. I sugest that you reread your survey. Nowhere do you state that the classes are "condensed". Most cave syllabi (certainly CDS, IANTD, NACD) are split into 4 x 2 day classes, for a total of 8 days of instruction. As I understood your first post, you were just asking how people split those 8 days up.

I am suggesting that continuous training may actually be better than training broken up. I am not suggesting LESS training. I am just suggesting that taking the training contiguously is not necessarily such a bad thing.

With graduate level classes, I've tried teaching classes where there's a break in the middle. Invariably I spend my first week or so back in the classroom reteaching the stuff they'd forgotten. I will no longer do it - it's just inefficient use of the time.

BTW, I am also a huge fan of REFRESHER classes. if anyone finishes their full cave, doesn't dive for 4 months, and thinks that when they return to the water the're in good shape, they're nuts. They should pay an instructor to run over skills with them for a few dives.

How many people ever do that?

[RN]

Andrew, while I agree that taking a break during academic courses can be detrimental to progress (just look at our grade school system, after a 3 month summer break, the first month or 2 is spent getting students up to speed), it's different when it comes to training someone how to do something physical. Didactic learning takes place a few hours a day, no more than 5 days in a week, and often reduced to 1-3 hour periods. This works well. In fact, I'll go further and say that shortened periods work better. I taught community college for over 10 years. I taught classes that met once a week for 3 hours, classes that met twice a week for 1.5 hours each session, and classes that met 3 times a week for an hour each. I didn't see much of a difference between the 1 and 1.5 hour sessions, but the students in the 3 hour sessions rarely did as well as the students in the 1-1.5 sessions. Attention span, even with a break every hour just doesn't stay at its peak for that long. Now take a cave course that last 8-10 hours a day for 8 days straight. Add dive planning assignments to each night after class and gear maintenance and preparation for the next day (hanging suits out, recharging batteries, etc) and this greatly reduces the attention span and learning of students during the latter half of the course. You are comparing apples and oranges trying to compare graduate level courses to cave training.

[DA Aquamaster]

Nope. I sugest that you reread your survey. Nowhere do you state that the classes are "condensed". Most cave syllabi (certainly CDS, IANTD, NACD) are split into 4 x 2 day classes, for a total of 8 days of instruction. As I understood your first post, you were just asking how people split those 8 days up.

I am suggesting that continuous training may actually be better than training broken up. I am not suggesting LESS training. I am just suggesting that taking the training contiguously is not necessarily such a bad thing.

With graduate level classes, I've tried teaching classes where there's a break in the middle. Invariably I spend my first week or so back in the classroom reteaching the stuff they'd forgotten. I will no longer do it - it's just inefficient use of the time.

It depends on what you are teaching.

I agree with yopu in terms of my experience teaching college level academic subjects.

I have a different opinion in terms of flight instruction, I agree that a student starts spending excerssive time re-learning the prior lessons if they are not flying at least 2 or 3 times per week and every day is preferrable. The academics are significantly different than the eye motor loop skills taught in the actual aircraft. That is true at the basic flight level and becomes even more the case as you advance to things like instrument flight where you start layering the academics on top of the eye motor skills and put it all together with large amounts of task loading and a demand for much improved SA where the student also has to start thinking progressively farther ahead of the aircraft. The student then has to apply all those skills in progressively higher performance aircraft where the horizon for planning, situational awareness and and anticipation has to be pushed even farther out.

It sounds like an argument for continuous learning until you start considering the total calendar and flight time involved and look at a training syllabus. Whether it is military, Part 91 or Part 141, it starts to become obvious that they are designed to provide 1-1 instruction initially and as new skills are taught but with progressively more solo flight and/or practice and proficiency flights to allow the student to consolidate the lessons learned in actual real world practice ensuring a sufficient level of mastery before moving on to more advanced techniques.

I'll leave it up to the reader to decide which example has more relavence to cave diving.