Training in Mexico

[bamafan]

The incident in Mexico the other day has got me to thinking about some of the ways training is done in Mexico. I don't know for a fact as I have never taken or witnessed a cave class in Mexico but I have heard from some people who have. I realize that the US is a litigious society so our training is very sanitized. I inow some agencies get bent out of shape for stirring up silt in a sidemount class with full cave divers / instructors in the class but some of the training I have heard about in Mexico is definitely not what I would term safe.

I have heard that the instructors do things such as rip the reg out of your mouth during an air share drill and if you go to your bungee reg you fail. I have heard that they remove the arrows and markers during a blindfolded exit and you are supposed to remember how to get out by knowing which way to go from memory. I have heard they do things such as regulator swapping in sidemount where you are supposed to breathe off the valve while swapping regs. I even heard a story of an instructor throwing rocks on the student while doing a blind exit to simulate rocks falling in. Has anyone else heard these kind of stories?

[JohnAd]

I have never heard any of these stories.

I was with a group a while ago that included several people getting training. When we got together every evening to have a few drinks and talk about our days, I thought everything I heard was pretty conventional and very thorough.

A friend of mine did his first cave classes in Marianna, FL, and then finished in Mexico, and I did not hear anything unusual from him. I have a tech diving student who got cave certified in Mexico--again, nothing unusual that I noticed.

[jj1987]

The incident in Mexico the other day has got me to thinking about some of the ways training is done in Mexico. I don't know for a fact as I have never taken or witnessed a cave class in Mexico but I have heard from some people who have. I realize that the US is a litigious society so our training is very sanitized. I inow some agencies get bent out of shape for stirring up silt in a sidemount class with full cave divers / instructors in the class but some of the training I have heard about in Mexico is definitely not what I would term safe.

I have heard that the instructors do things such as rip the reg out of your mouth during an air share drill and if you go to your bungee reg you fail. I have heard that they remove the arrows and markers during a blindfolded exit and you are supposed to remember how to get out by knowing which way to go from memory. I have heard they do things such as regulator swapping in sidemount where you are supposed to breathe off the valve while swapping regs. I even heard a story of an instructor throwing rocks on the student while doing a blind exit to simulate rocks falling in. Has anyone else heard these kind of stories?

I've talked to several students of Daniel Riorden and JP Bresser while getting fills during Mexico trips and I've never heard such things. I haven't been around a diverse enough group to comment on Mexico as a whole however.

[nakatomi]

I have never heard any of these stories.

I have certainly heard about this type of training and excessive confidence building exercises.
As a matter of fact it is so prevalent with some instructors in Europe that I inquired with the CDS and NACD before I started cave training in 2011.
The NACD training director didn't even bother to get back to me, the CDS training director basically said that valve manipulations in the overhead are prohibited but other confidence building drills are at the discretion of the instructor.

My advice is to always talk to the instructor about this prior to training and get his stance in writing.
To me safety is always top priority but it is obvious that for some instructors it certainly is not.
Here is what has been reported to me in type of drills in cave class:

Shutting down the students valves (in the cave)

Removing the students mask from behind

Tearing the long hose from the student while he is breathing it in an OOA lights out scenario

Shutting down students valves in blind mask drills

Fin removal, deliberate entanglement by the instructor

Purging the students reg while he is breathing it with a blacked out mask

Shutting down both valves of students at the same time

Placing obstacles like big rocks on top of a student to simulate getting stuck

Manipulation of system line arrows and students cookies to confuse the student on exit

Most of this is no secret and some is documented on YouTube.

I can see these drills going wrong and do not approve of any of this.
GUE needs to get a big recommendation for not allowing any of this!!

My reports are from Europe and Mexico. I've not heard of anyone pulling stuff like this in Florida yet.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[phillip1]

FYI if you can't rember your way out by memory you really should not be doing the dive you are doing, do the complex dives step by step first untill you know by memory 100% which way is out.
Taking out markers during a blind exit drill is an essential and most basic skill.
An arrow or cookie or any marker is NOT to show you which way is out or were you are coming from it is to REINFORCE what you should already know 100%.

Training in Mexico is by and large far superior than anything I have seen or done anywhere else in the world.
IMO in Mexico they teach more the art if cave diving as opposed to just cave diving.
Had I gone to Mexico right after my full cave training I think I would have gotten killed.
When I pursued further trading in Mexico I realized how much better and stricter training was and what I had learned was downright terrible in comparison.
Getting reg ripped out of the mouth etc.. is standard in The DR were I did my cave course.

[bamafan]

Oliver it sounds like we have heard similar stories. I have seen some videos on YouTube that I thought were of the type you referenced. I have heard rumors that the recent incident was actually a class and I have also heard it wasn't. It just got me to thinking if this was an incident of something going wrong in training. I can see how manipulating markers could cause an incident if the instructor wasn't really on their game.

[bamafan]

Phillip that is definitely a different way of teaching cave diving than what is done in the US. The agencies here would string up the instructors for stuff like this.

[jj1987]

Phillip that is definitely a different way of teaching cave diving than what is done in the US. The agencies here would string up the instructors for stuff like this.

You think TDI would suspend an instructor?

[bamafan]

You think TDI would suspend an instructor?

None of them would if you are in the good ol boy club. GUE is the only one that I would put money on them doing something about it no matter who the instructor was.

[bamafan]

You think TDI would suspend an instructor?

We might find out if IANTD will. I am told that is who he was teaching through.

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