I think I understand the two perspectives better after reading this.Originally Posted by FW
The first perspective stems from the knowledge of how cave training used to be conducted. Those with the idea in mind that to be a true "cave" diver at any level you need to demonstrate the intellectual, emotional and physical skills to be good enough to complete full cave training and unless you've completed this level you are still a student.
The second perspective is that since the levels Cavern, Intro To Cave, Apprentice Cave Diver and Cave Diver exist, a diver can be certified to any or all of these levels depending upon the goal of the diver and each level is a bonafide certification on its own and not necessarily a "student" diver.
For example, you can have a person who really doesn't like the idea of being off the gold line. Perhaps that diver has a fear of becoming lost on the line when white lines T or require jumps and gaps? This diver may not trust his or her sense of direction and ability to read the line markers in a siltout or may not feel comfortable trying to find their way back if a line were accidentally cut or a spool stolen. Because full cave demands circuits, this diver doesn't want to enter a full cave class because that would be off the main line and outside his or her comfort zone. A diver could spend years diving every day, running reels from open water to the gold line, learning a lot about the cave's geology and hydrology, displaying perfect trim, buoyancy and propulsion. In time, this diver would accumulate so much knowledge about diving and overhead diving that his or her consul could become invaluable. This diver might possess such awesome skills that he or she could backward kick better than anyone else in the community and be teaching cave instructor trainers how to refine this technique. Knowledge and experience about circuits, traverses, and other full cave diving activities would be lacking, but it's possible that such a diver could be better than anyone else in the world at diving the first 1000 feet of a cave system, knowing where to be in flow and maybe refining a swim to the Lips to the degree of an Olympic swimmer understanding every nuance of lane, temperature and ripple in a pool. This diver could potentially gain more overall knowledge of flora, fauna, geotherms, swimming skills, practice of valve drills and S-drills than every cave instructor trainer combined. For such a diver being considered a "student" or having "not yet completed training" would seem ridiculous. The only thing such a diver might lack is the comfort and confidence (due to the boogeyman of their imagination of what full cave diving is like) to do circuits and therefore won't gain a full cave card.
Then, imagine how this diver feels when he or she sees a cave instructor who can't frog kick, or a cave instructor trainer with consistent 20° down trim angle when that diver is always at 0° horizontal? Or, sees full cave divers who swim with their hands? Or, sees everyone else being sloppy with their reels entering The Ear? Or, divers not running a guideline or violating the 5 Rules of Accident Analysis?
Someone could take GUE-F all the way through GUE Tech 3 in open water, find out cave diving isn't for him beyond GUE Cave 1 and spend his whole career at the Cave 1 level. To better his experience and persepectives, he could decide to take NAUI Cave 1, NSS-CDS Intro, NACD Intro, TDI Intro, IANTD Intro, PDIC Cave 1, PSAI Intro, and be 100 times the cave diver as some full cave instructors in that first few hundred feet, know more about the cave to whatever distance 1/6's takes him, be the best buddy and an all-around great guy. Some divers see the merit and value of this.
Others would say, he's still just Intro. He's not a "real" cave diver. He's only partially trained. Comparing cave levels to mixed gas levels, are you only partially trained when diving nitrox, advanced nitrox, trimix 1, trimix 2? Do you have to be advanced trimix before you can speak with authority and experience about deep diving? If you live somewhere that 150 feet is your max possible depth are you not fully trained to dive there without trimix 2? Likewise, if your cave world (in your mind) ends at 1/6's on the mainline and you don't wish to see anything else are you just a partially trained cave diver or a great cave diver at that level?
Everyone will have his own opinions, but I think Perrone is thinking about being the type of intro to cave diver I've described if he never goes beyond that level and would value the diver I've described quite highly over many full cave divers carrying cards today.
The cave community would fear where a "partially trained" diver could go so the full cave card gives everyone peace of mind that that diver met the standards. Meanwhile some partially trained divers fear that the standards for many full cave divers aren't quite good enough.
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