IDC stands for Instructor Development Course, but I think they should seriously consider renaming it into IDB, "B" for "bootcamp". I have not studied that hard since my first year in the University 20 years ago (wow, 20 years…)! For 2 weeks straight we had classes from 9AM till 6PM, plus homework. And there's a lot of physical activity, of course, which I'm not really used to. I couldn't even read a book before bed, the second my head touched the pillow, I was completely gone.
I was reluctant to go straight to the instructorship so soon after completing the Dive Master course, but Liang and Javier insisted that it was the right thing to do, "while everything is fresh in your mind". The first couple of days were emotionally (and physically) awful. I kept making a ton of mistakes, which made me doubt the path I'd chosen even more. As days went by though I realized that I was getting more and more sure of my abilities, my confidence was building up as I gained more and more knowledge, and by the end of the course I was actually eager to start teaching as soon as possible. This is really amazing: in two weeks I went from the abyss of self-doubt to the peak of self-confidence. I wish all the courses were designed this way. Yes, it's very intense and demanding physically and intellectually (as well as financially), but it's so worth it! (I'm going to make a good sales person for PADIJ).
The water classes in this course are structured around skills from different levels of diving education. You are assigned a few skills every day to present before the class. The presentation consists of a briefing, an underwater part, and a debriefing after the dive. During the underwater part you have to demonstrate the skill first in a certain way – slow, exaggerated, making it look easy – and then invite "students" (your fellow instructor candidates play the part) to perform the same skill. The "students" are asked to make different mistakes and you are supposed to catch them. Mistakes are of two kinds: the ones that are essential to the skill but not necessarily detrimental to the safety, and the ones that can potentially kill your student. If you don't catch the latter you fail the assignment. I failed several times. To be fair though, everybody failed at least a couple of times as well. PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) is very particular about the way you perform everything, classroom or underwater. There are certain things that you must mention in your briefing and debriefing, otherwise points are taken off your total score. For example, in the briefing you have to make sure to clearly state the objective and the value of the skill, the steps to perform it and the signals that will be used while performing it. In the debriefing the most important part is positive reinforcement. Even if the students sucked every step of the way, you must find something that they did well and mention it to pump up their confidence. The second you pop your head out of the water after the dive, you have to shout enthusiastically, "Wow, you guys did so well! I'm so impressed with the way you breathed (or moved your fins, or looked sharp, or whatever)!" I mastered that partJ. All my fellow instructor candidates were looking forward to my positive reinforcement speeches, as I would always come up with something ridiculous to point out with the greatest zest. I have always been good at positive reinforcement. Perhaps because this is the only style that works on me. (If you want to see an IDC skill demonstration in action, click here. And this one is the funniest rescue exercise performance ever!)
The classroom sessions are very similar. Nowadays everybody learns diving theory for each level from printed manuals or eLearning, there are no real lectures anymore. The only time you provide explanations is when students make mistakes on quizzes and/or exams. Then, you have to go over the questions that they get wrong, explaining in detail how things work. Again, the PADI way is very particular. For each classroom presentation you have to follow a certain protocol. There are 3 parts to this: introduction – when you tell your students what you are going to tell them in a second; body – when you actually tell your students what's up; and summary – when you tell them what you have just told them. In each part you have to talk about specific things and make sure you promote local diving and PADI continuing education and try to sell some piece of equipment (PADI also stands for "Put Another Dollar In"). Again, if you forget anything, you get points taken off your total score. For example, here's the way you would present an explanation of the following question from the Dive Master course, "How does the physiological effect of breathing a given percentage of gas at depth compare to breathing the same percentage of the gas at the surface?"
INTRODUCTION
Contact / Value: Have you by any chance climbed Mount Kilimanjaro? Even if you haven't, you probably know that it is a serious, several day endeavor. You have to stop at some plateaus as you climb up to adjust for the higher altitude. Why is that, you think? Actually, because the higher you get the lower the atmospheric pressure becomes, and this results in lower levels of oxygen in the air you breathe in. It is important to understand the effect of the atmospheric pressure on gas components because this allows you to take appropriate safety measures. (Tell the story of Dana and her husband climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for their honeymoon: she had to leave him on one of the platforms because he was altitude sick).
Reinforce value with a diving application: The same concept applies to diving, but in this case the pressure increases as we go down, so the level of each gas comprising air becomes higher and higher as you go deeper. It is very important to understand this relationship, again, for the safety reasons, because both nitrogen narcosis and oxygen toxicity are results of higher gas level in the mixture you breathe in while diving.
Conduct: Please open your Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving to page 4-31.
BODY
Objective: Our objective is to answer this question – How does the physiological effect of breathing a given percentage of gas at depth compare to breathing the same percentage of the gas at the surface?
Key Points: Let's look at this lesson guide (Instructor Manual 2009 – Page 99).
- The body responds to a gas you breathe based on its partial pressure and NOT the percentage of the gas in the mix. As the pressure increases, the physiological effect increases.
- As the pressure increases with depth, you breathe more and more molecules of each gas in the mixture in your tank.
- For example, if you breathe air at 40m/130f, the PO2 is (0.21 x 5ata = 1.05ata), which is approximately the same as breathing 100% oxygen at the surface with PO2 = .1 x 1ata = 1 ata.
- The increased PN2 causes nitrogen narcosis.
- The increased PO2 causes oxygen toxicity (a concern with diving on nitrox).
- Contaminated air in your tank that may barely cause any problems at the surface may lead to a fatality while breathed in underwater at some serious depth.
Example(s) of actual circumstances: The other day we had this incident at Aldora when the diver went straight to 213 feet from Devil's Throat. Without a doubt, he was seeking the physiological effect of increased partial pressure of nitrogen – nitrogen narcosis.
Application to local environment: Devil's Throat
Relation to other components of this course: Remember, we talked about nitrogen narcosis a couple of days ago while discussing the physiology of diving?
Related dive equipment to promote: SHOW IT BOTH TIMES (here and in the summary) So depth is a very important consideration for partial pressure calculations. Please make sure you frequently check your computers and if you dive on nitrox, make sure you set your computers to the correct O2 maximum partial pressure (1.4-1.6).
Example(s) from PADI Continuing Education courses: If you are interested in learning more about the subject, there are very valuable PADI courses that you can check out - Nitrox and Advanced Nitrox.
Do you have any questions?
SUMMARY
Reinforce value with application: To summarize, it is important to understand the physiological effect of partial pressure at depth for safety reasons.
Restate objective(s): So how does the physiological effect of breathing a given percentage of gas at depth compare to breathing the same percentage of the gas at the surface?
Review key points:
- As the pressure increases with depth, you breathe more and more molecules of each gas in the mixture in your tank.
- For example, if you breathe air at 40m/130f, the PO2 is (0.21 x 5ata = 1.05ata), which is approximately the same as breathing 100% oxygen at the surface with PO2 = .1 x 1ata = 1 ata.
Promote PADI Continuing Education: Don't forget, you can take Nitrox course at any time. It doesn't even require diving nowadays. Or if you are interested in Advanced Nitrox, please talk to me and I'll arrange it for you with our tech diver instructor.
Promote equipment ownership or dive travel (SHOW IT) : If you are like Catherine and already have Advanced Nitrox certification, I have nothing else to do but try to sell you a computerJ, and perhaps an air analyzer.
The Instructor Exam takes place in Playa del Carmen, right across from Cozumel by ferry. It takes two days and is conducted by an independent PADI examiner (not your coach as they do in all other PADI courses). The first day you do all the theory exams (6 topics – General Standards, Physics, Physiology, Environment, Equipment, Dive Tables), a classroom presentation and all the confined water presentations; and the next day you go to one of the cenotes to perform your open water presentation. We were very nervous about the exams because we were told that our examiner was the toughest ever. Catherine and I (we were the only two candidates from Cozumel) studied like crazy and checked and double-checked each other on everything. Catherine is a New Yorker. 35, born and raised in Brooklyn, she is an interesting character: extrovert, talkative, always on the run, always expressing the need to be busy with new things and new activities (I can tell from my own experience that this too shall passJ). She just quit her job (she managed a small legal firm in Manhattan) a couple of months ago to move here and try on a new life. She found a boyfriend and a job as a dive master with one of the boats here and has been enjoying the new set-up ever since. It's interesting to watch somebody go through the same life plot. She is now at the peak of exaltation about everything new in her life, drunk with her own courage to deviate from the "norm". I, too, was there a year ago. With time the initial agitated excitement in me gave way to the internal peace and quiet. I wonder if it's common to get to this state. I will be watching Catherine through this, I think it's an interesting experiment.
The examiner didn't appear as strict as promised though. He was fair, but not really hung up on every minuscule standard. I think it's good: obviously, during the exam people can make little mistakes just because they are super nervous. Surprisingly, I was not stressed at all. I was right before the exam, but as soon as I entered the water, all of a sudden I was absolutely calm and collected and made no mistakes whatsoever. I was really pleased with my performance. I certainly deserved this certificate:
No comments:
Post a Comment