what do the standards say?

[BabyDuck]

there's a thread on sb about standards violations being investigated that has me thinking and a bit indignant. so here's the set-up. i'd like your thoughts whether or not you're an instructor.

i did an/dp as an intro diver, so before app/full. i didn't want to be doing trust-me deco in full class. my instructor for all these classes was mike o'leary. (be respectful of him in responses, i've gotten into bar fights to defend his honor.)

one dive was to be to gold line in lower orange. we ended up turning on time just out of the corkscrew. one was to 150 towards hendley's, so not far past the bedding plane.

of course, these were not nacd classes as nacd doesn't offer an/dp.

so, is doing an/dp before full in caves a cave agency standards violation? how many of us did the classes in this order? how would cave agencies prefer this to be done? i wanted to do it in caves, since that's where i dive.

[Aotus]

I would guess you'd need to specify the agency(-ies) of cave and ANDP certification.

[BabyDuck]

an/dp was tdi.

[mag3]

there's a thread on sb about standards violations being investigated that has me thinking and a bit indignant. so here's the set-up. i'd like your thoughts whether or not you're an instructor.

i did an/dp as an intro diver, so before app/full. i didn't want to be doing trust-me deco in full class. my instructor for all these classes was mike o'leary. (be respectful of him in responses, i've gotten into bar fights to defend his honor.)

one dive was to be to gold line in lower orange. we ended up turning on time just out of the corkscrew. one was to 150 towards hendley's, so not far past the bedding plane.

of course, these were not nacd classes as nacd doesn't offer an/dp.

so, is doing an/dp before full in caves a cave agency standards violation? how many of us did the classes in this order? how would cave agencies prefer this to be done? i wanted to do it in caves, since that's where i dive.

I did AN/DP before starting the whole cave series. We went to (believe it or not) "40 fathom Grotto" to do AN/DP (i.e. before they got all "pricey," etc.). We got down to 141 ffw, but did not go into any of the pure overhead parts. That was purely to do all the drills and to test my ability to keep "control" at those depths, and at the appropriate stops. Also, of course, to see how I handled being at those depths, in re: getting Narced.

The course was a TDI course. I'm not sure if they have a standard as to where it can be taught. Since it also isn't a "cave" course (i.e. NACD/CDS), I don't believe their standards were violated either. I think it more up to the instructor and student. I'd hope that the instructor would discuss this with the student beforehand (as mine did with me) and they agree on the plan. It would seem difficult to teach AN/DP in "cave country" (as opposed to being on the gulf shore or east coast) without using some of those caves, unless there's a deep sink with a clear path to the surface (maybe Buford???)... I know that OW instructors use "Blue Grotto" and "Devil's Den" for PADI classes (especially AOW and Deep Diving). My OW instructor used BG for AOW, and basic Nitrox.

[Bobby]

I no longer teach however I highly doubt the standards have changed in this regard. Since Mike is an over head instructor (cave) he can teach AN & DP in an over head. You were certified as Intro Cave so all is good, no violations.

[Jack Hammer]

I haven't been into lower OG, so I can't really comment on the appropriateness of that location. Regardless of whether or not it is a standards violation I would ask the question, was it a good idea to teach the class there?

[tbone1004]

as one of the initial skeptics, I think LoG was probably "fuzzy" in terms of being clear or not, P3 is frowned upon for training, though I know Mike knows that cave as well as anyone and was not working with a whole lot to get deep so I'd say it's on the clear side of fuzzy. I don't know if any standards would have been violated, but I think in todays world this would likely be at least frowned upon. That said, this was quite a while ago as Mike hasn't been teaching in at least 5 years, and times have changed, so what may have been a non-issue then is an issue today. While the standards haven't changed a whole lot else has so how they are enforced is different. I don't see him violating any NACD standards, whether they were with TDI I don't know because I think you would still have to be limited to their full cave depth limits for "one step above".

The fuzzy part for me is TDI specs 130ft maximum depth for full cave, but 150ft max depth for DP. That was the standards issue I had in question as the jump to Hendleys would have been approved by being with an instructor for "one step" above where you currently were

[BabyDuck]

of course *i* think it was appropriate. if this violates standards, then i think standards need to be changed.

[nakatomi]

as Mike hasn't been teaching in at least 5 years, and times have changed

I have to admit that I have a hard time with a lot of your posts.
This one is no different, let me just pick out what is most obvious.
It is not true, Mike O'Leary has not been out of teaching for the past 5 years.
And "times" have not really changed either.

[jj1987]

there's a thread on sb about standards violations being investigated that has me thinking and a bit indignant. so here's the set-up. i'd like your thoughts whether or not you're an instructor.

i did an/dp as an intro diver, so before app/full. i didn't want to be doing trust-me deco in full class. my instructor for all these classes was mike o'leary. (be respectful of him in responses, i've gotten into bar fights to defend his honor.)

one dive was to be to gold line in lower orange. we ended up turning on time just out of the corkscrew. one was to 150 towards hendley's, so not far past the bedding plane.

of course, these were not nacd classes as nacd doesn't offer an/dp.

so, is doing an/dp before full in caves a cave agency standards violation? how many of us did the classes in this order? how would cave agencies prefer this to be done? i wanted to do it in caves, since that's where i dive.

Are you saying that you were 150ft deep in a cave without trimix as an intro diver? If so, I'd want to believe this breaks some sort of training standard but it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't given how vague most agency standards are written.

If you were on Trimix, I think it's a bit vague, as many people combine courses. I did ADV Nx, Deco, and Trimix as one course, but it was after full cave.

I don't really worry too much about "trust me deco" since deco after full cave without trimix typically is less than 20-30min (so backgas breaks can arguably be ignored, and back gas basically always has enough left over to cover a loss of an o2 bottle). The decompression theory portion of a deco class to me is like taking a political science class in college. Lots of research and opinions out there, the instructor's job is to introduce you to a variety of ideas and your job is to figure out who you vote for. With Rubicon and books such as Deco for Divers, I would hope that anyone who's doing extended decompression can honestly say they learned more about deco AFTER the class than during it, and the class just helped them get a stable ground to start their research while working up to bigger dives.