Teaching an Open Water Class

Sea plane landing in the bay near El Galleon.

Made 2 eggs and coffee this morning. I really wish I had oatmeal because eggs don’t really fill me up too well. While eating in the morning, I did a quick review of teaching a PADI Open Water course because today I was scheduled to teach my first one. There are several PADI standards like maximum depth, time, and sequencing that I needed to be sure I knew because PADI is really strict about these things. While reviewing for the course, I became a little nervous about teaching it. Perhaps the coffee was making me a little jittery.

At El Galleon, Alli introduced me to Nick—a fit 19 year old lifeguard from Iowa who is in his first year in college; my first Open Water Scuba Diver student. Nick is a very nice, laid back guy that doesn’t seem to be bothered by anything both above and underwater. From what Alli and I could tell, he was a perfect first student.

My plan for the day was to teach the course with the guidance of Alli and assistance from Grace. Alli wanted me to go through two Confined Water pool sessions and then in the afternoon an Open Water dive. Overall, a pool session teaches a student how to do certain dive skills and then the student proves he can do it in the ocean in the open water dive. I had no idea how long it would take me to do a pool session, but was a little concerned because my biggest problem during the IDC/IE was taking too long to explain things.

Alli started off the course by briefing what I was going to do in the pool with Nick. I had her do it to get an idea of how an instructor does it. During the IDC, we practiced how to teach but in a toned down, semi real-world setting. There’s something to be said for real-life experiences. I have to admit, I felt a little disorganized when teaching. The whole setup was different from what I was used to during the IDC. I had to get my bearings straight and adjust.

During the IDC I just taught one skill at a time whereas now I had to teach about 15 skills in one pool session. Do I brief them all at the same time or as I go? From what I learned from Alli, there’s no right or wrong way. You can do it either way. It just depends on your style. During the IDC, it seemed like there was only one way. After teaching a few skills to Nick, I started getting used to what I was doing. I started getting a rhythm and a style of my own teaching. It was getting easier.

Nick was so good at all the skills I had him do it threw me off a little. During the IDC, they prepare you for all sorts of problems that will most likely occur during teaching and how to handle them. Nick had one or two minor mistakes he did out of everything. I began to wondering if I was doing something wrong because he was so good it didn’t feel right. We went through close to 30 skills by lunch time; Confined Water sessions 1 and 2.

Dog off boat.

After lunch I had Nick do a swim test and then we geared up to go on Nick’s Open Water dive 1 at Sabang Point. I led the dive and was responsible for Nick while Grace assisted and Alli supervised. According to PADI standards, I couldn’t take Nick below 12 meters depth which I kept a close eye on. It was hard to lead the dive, try to find interesting sea life, and watch over Nick at the same time. I felt like I wasn’t finding enough interesting things for Nick to see. At the same time, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t in control of what we saw and what interests me might be totally different from what interests Nick. I ended up finding a moray eel but wasn’t sure if Nick saw it.

Overall, a good first day of teaching.


- jason