Scuba Courtesy: What’s Wrong with Scuba Instructors?

Just a little warning before you read further, this post isn’t for the faint of heart. This post can be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. You may find the following contents offensive.

Recently, I was teaching a class at my local quarry. Our quarry has a bunch of platforms installed so students, supposedly, won’t get into the muck during their training dives. One rule of the quarry is that training platforms are on a first come, first served basis with no reserving them. Basically if another class or group of divers is on a platform, then others need to find a new platform, wait until the platform is free, or possibly share the platform such that you are not interfering with each other. For the second time this year, some ~~douche bag~~ diving instructor decided it was smart to drop his class of open water students on top of my class. He had about eight or more students compared to my three. This isn’t some random occurrence. This regularly happens to me at least two or more times each year. [Read more...]

Saving the Scuba Industry: The Happy Customer

By Duane Johnson | Scuba Business

Happy Customers Grow Industries

I’d like to share with you something. About 90% of all of my new students come to me saying the same thing. The story goes like this. They took their open water class at local dive store XYZ. After their class, they didn’t feel like they could conduct scuba dives without the supervision of an instructor. When they talked to the kid behind the counter, he told them they needed to take the Advanced Open Water course to fill in the gaps. After taking the AOW course, the student still doesn’t feel any safer. They are on the verge of quitting diving. Then they find me. One thing I do well is to give customers what they want. If I cannot give it to them, I will work with them to help find an instructor or store that will. [Read more...]

Evolving Recreational Scuba Diving Courses: Mentoring and Coaching

By Duane Johnson | Training

Duane Johnson - Tech Instructor

As diving professionals, we discuss with our students the importance of continuing their diving education. Learning new skills to enhance their diving is a great way to keep people diving and enjoying our underwater world. However, continuing education must go further than just learning a few new skills. As diving professionals, we are supposed to have superior diving skills, we are supposed to be trained on how to present diving material in order to maximize student learning. We should be using the opportunity continuing education courses give us to help mentor and coach divers, not just give them a license to take another class. [Read more...]