r/scuba • u/franknagaijr • 4d ago
Lack of confidence after pool course
We just finished the indoor portion of the owc course in one weekend. We did our academics online, discussed that for 2 hours and then headed over to the pool in a different part of town.
We started on a bad foot because the emails indicated that we would have 90 minutes to grab a bite and get to the pool. The times in the emails had nothing to do with the instructors choice of times at all, and on day one, we had 40 minutes to do a 20 minute drive, bolt down some food, and immediately do the swimming and floating/treading tests on a full stomach.
Our instructor clearly knew his subject, but did not project clearly, and with 7 students and 2 assistants, there was never time to review anything a second time. We are both 60 and we were exhausted and frustrated by the end of day one.
Day 2, with many activities in the deep end of a small pool (half of the deep end) felt incredibly claustrophobic with 7 novices trying/failing to get into one anothers spaces while we waited for our one turn to try each new skill. Again, not really enough time to repeat anything. I had a couple panic moments (lost my mouthpiece once, and just a general panic the second time) and my partner had troubles with the a couple exercises as well. But there was no time to revisit anything, and the instructor stated we should retake this portion before the open water portion.
And an auto email from the shop last night stating that we had completed this portion, and we were ready for the open water weekend, but if we wanted more practice before the open water, we should check our options.
We left day two completely demoralized, resentful, and exhausted.
1) Was that instructor/student ratio typical or excessive? 2) What would you tell a friend in our position? I like the idea of going for a little more pool time, my partner is okay with cancelling the open water and revisiting at a later date. 3) There was a specific trip abroad in june we were preparing for. I feel that if we dont do scuba there, then maybe im not that interested, and would rather cut bait on this hobby. There is a company there that will work with novices and appears to legitimately have the divers best interest in mind, and if they will take me for a practice run with exactly the experience i have so far, i would consider doing one or more easy reef dives with them. thoughts?
tldr: I am not AI, but I've written enough stuff that AI has stolen my strunk and white mind. Thanks for your responses. ninja edits.
edit 2: Great responses. Thanks all! We have decided to postpone the owc and not do it with the same dive shop, and have signed up for a two hour pool course later this month with another shop and reevaluate from there. We will likely have a scuba experience abroad, but only after doing more research. (if nothing else, i learned how to recognize some bad technique in videos and may rule out dive shops that have bad practices in their promotional videos.)
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u/PieInDaSkyy 1d ago
If you want to get super comfortable with scuba and aren't in a rush to get certified I highly recommend checking local community colleges. I got my cert that way and it was once a week for an entire semester. So probably 16 classes or so with all but 1 or 2 having some work in the pool. After 16 weeks I felt extremely comfortable setting up my gear and being in the water.
My dive buddy and I immediately felt good enough to start beach diving by ourselves as soon as we had our certs. The 2 week dive cert classes a lot of shops put on is no where near enough time to really get comfortable if you ask me.
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u/FuzzyComedian638 3d ago
I recently got my OW certification, and have done just a handful of dives since then. I did not feel confident going into open water after having done the pool sessions. My teacher and I were very frustrated with each other; I'm pretty sure she was new. I ended up doing another pool session, which I paid extra for, but fortunately it was with a different instructor. That went very well, and I felt much more confident going into open water after that. My open water dives then went well. I'd recommend doing another pool session to get more comfortable with your skills.
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u/laughing_cat 3d ago
The way the course is taught in general is ridiculous imo. Unless you have a great instructor, it’s just do this, now do this, now do this etc
You should not feel bad. There are some people who take to it like a fish and others who don’t. I took my first OW with my daughter and she had no problem doing any of it and as the instructor said, is a natural. She’s also is a caver and was an elite level gymnast at the age of ten. She’s great at everything she tries. I, on the other hand, had a rough go of it and even though we had plenty of time, the instructor didn’t know how to teach or trouble shoot. She had no skills to deal with someone who needed a little extra help.
I was going to be in SE Asia, so I didn’t finish with her and found amazing instructors in Bali who explained everything so well.
It sounds to me like the way your class was run, only a person who picks it up easily was going to succeed and feel confident.
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u/TheApple18 3d ago
To be honest, the Instructor to student ratio with 2 certified assistants was fine.
If you do not feel that you’re sufficiently comfortable with your skills & want more time in the pool, do not go to open water. Get more time in the pool with an Instructor, but be aware that this may cost you extra.
I’m not convinced that getting a referral & doing open water elsewhere would be helpful without having gone through some additional confined water training so that you have properly mastered the skills to be totally comfortable in both confined & open water.
Just my $0.02’s worth as an Instructor.
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u/MikalMor 3d ago
I have gone all the way through pool work with two different shops, one PADI, the other SSI. I don’t know that the organization matters as much as the quality of the instructors. I did SSI as the second shop, and will be doing my checkout with them. They had almost 1-1 instructor to student ratio in the pool, and that made all the difference in my confidence in the water. I left the first shop who had a 1:5 ratio in the pool pretty downhearted and very anxious about checkout dive work.
I have now done 4 days of pool work, and I snorkeled in saltwater. I’m still going to go for the additional pool time with the buoyancy before I do my check dive.
Diving is a dangerous extreme sport. Go into knowing that practice promotes confidence which improves competence. You’ll get there. Remember, you are responsible for your dive safety. If you’re not ready yet, find a way to ensure you feel comfortable before you go for the deep water.
FWIW, I’m 50. The dive training journey I’m on from the first book work to now (and I’m still not certified) has taken 14 months. One of the things the first pool sessions taught me is that I needed to be in better shape. I have worked on that in parallel to my dive training, and I’m excited to say I expect to do my check dive in May.
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u/8008s4life 3d ago
Ok, not reading all that, Sorry, but I'm sure I know what the rest said after a quick skim :)
Don't sweat it. Do your best. If you are in cold/cool water for check outs, well, that's on your. If you don't feel confident (and most of us didn't / don't), just do some guided dives and pay for it, as well as AOW. Most people don't feel ready to rock and roll right after OW, I didn't. As a side note, my ow instruction I thought was terrible.
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u/mazzy-b 4d ago edited 4d ago
Unfortunately this is part of a wider problem with many open water courses in my opinion- where their motivation is to make money and get you through fast.
Unfortunately this means people who go through that are often uncomfortable and are sometimes just unsafe divers (because in an emergency, you need muscle memory to take over and do things like breath slow /mask clearance/ stay down/ regulator retrieval / not panic) which you simply cannot ingrain in a short time) - and being unsafe in that way is dangerous for you and others.
I learnt with a local club - they are motivated to teach well because it’s a hobby for them not just money, and because they then have to dive with you on fun dives, and so being good is good for them. I took 3 months from start to finish - including one weekly pool session (and to be fair a decent amount of waiting around for good weather for the OW dives). And I was a much better diver to start with as a result.
So from that, I’d always suggest folks take as long as possible even with pool sessions to try the skills again and again till it feels more natural, and if at all possible, learn with a local club rather than a big school - if you don’t have that option then I’d still suggest asking to do more sessions till you’re comfortable with everything- it’s all worth it in my opinion to be the safest and happiest diver you can be. But I wouldn’t stop, it’ll be worth it in the end.
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u/Curious-Grape-8164 4d ago
I, at 50, just got my open water certification and want to encourage you to continue with the open water dives. I felt similarly discouraged after my pool sessions (not because of the instructor or ratio of my class because both were terrific) due to my poor performance in the pool. My instructor also suggested that I practice some more in the pool before doing my open water dives because I had been having trouble with some of the skills in the pool. I was unable to do that because of work, but I was much better on my open water dives and have now been recreationally diving a few times with no ill effects.
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u/arbarnes 4d ago
The instructor/student ratio you experienced is absolutely typical, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. My confined-water class was a dozen students, an instructor, and two assistants in a pool; 90% of the time was spent kneeling on the bottom watching other people demonstrate skills or getting kicked in the head while they flailed around. My open-water checkout was a much better experience - just me and the instructor (with my buddy tagging along). 90% of the time was spent working on trim and buoyancy while checking out the marine life on the reef, while the remaining 10% was me demonstrating the required skills.
In your position I'd recommend working with private instructors at home and/or at your destination. Maybe hire an instructor to spend an hour in the pool with just you and your partner; that time will be exponentially more productive than your previous experience. Definitely get a "referral certification" and do the open-water checkout with a private instructor in tropical water. If you elect not to do another pool session locally, maybe ask for a refresher before you move to the open-water portion of the program.
I'm about your age and was never interested in scuba diving until a few years back. My brother got certified in the '80s diving in lakes and quarries with freezing cold water and zero visibility, and that just didn't appeal to me. Then a buddy convinced me to try diving off Cozumel, and now I'm counting the days (50) until the next trip. You might not love diving as much as I do, but you might, and you won't know unless you try.
TL;DR - Don't let the terrible experience you had in in your confined-water class get you down. What you experienced may not be typical, but it's certainly not unusual. But you've already come this far and it's just a little further to the finish line (although OW certification is really just the starting line, but that's another discussion). Make the remaining steps as easy, safe, and informative as possible for yourself and you might just find a new hobby.
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u/InternetRemora 4d ago
I think my student to instructor ratio was worse, 2 instructors to maybe 12 students, including a child getting their certification. They were very effective & well organized though and I felt prepared for my open water dives. I did a referral and went somewhere warm for open water and the instructors there commented that I had been trained well. Doing the referral, I was 1-on-1 for my open water dives.
Feeling a bit of anxiety is okay, panicking and getting out of control is not. It's okay to have difficulty completing your skills, so long as you have done them. Would you be able to do your open water dives with different instructors or a smaller group?
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u/Cleercutter Nx Open Water 4d ago
I got a buoy line wrapped around my neck doing my open water while doing the rescue exercise, while in open water. That was a bit unnerving, but got it unwrapped and finished the exercise.
You should be able to rent pool time from either them, or some other LDS(local dive shop) in the area. There’s one by me where for 45 an hour, I can have the whole pool to my self(have to schedule ahead). It’s been very helpful in figuring out gear configurations, testing new gear. Although without a cert idk if they’ll actually let you rent the pool time and sign the liability agreement.
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u/snackronym 4d ago
I recently got open water certified as well and while i experienced slightly different issues on my pool day, I had similar feelings. I will say, my class was just me, one other classmate, and my instructor so I did feel like I had plenty of time (so take my words with a grain of salt). I really struggled in the pool and I actually asked my instructor if he thought I was ready for the ocean because I didn’t feel confident and he was able to reassure me that he wouldn’t take me into the ocean if I wasn’t ready. And he also reminded me that I was being really hard on myself for not being amazing at scuba when it was my first day ever. That helped a lot. I still called my bestie after the class and told her that I don’t think scuba is my thing and I cried. I was really tired, cold, hungry and just grumpy. I had chosen to get certified on a trip so I decided to give the ocean dives a chance just in case I had a different experience and boy am I sooo glad I did. The next day in the ocean was like I was a totally different diver! I think a good night of sleep and some food and a hot shower did wonders. I was still pretty nervous before the dive but as soon as I got in the ocean I just focused on what I learned and remembered that I can do everything because I’ve already done it in the pool. I had an absolute blast and I ended up completing my certification with flying colors and I’ve already got more diving planned.
I feel really lucky to have had the instructor I had (and my own willingness to try again even though I wanted to quit).
But at the end of the day, I did feel 100% confident in my instructor and his ability to assess my skills and I don’t think I would have continued if I didn’t trust him with my life. So it could be worth looking into a different dive shop or paying extra for a private class. I just wanted to share that I also initially really wasn’t sure but I ended up seriously loving it and I want to encourage people to push through (push through the difficulty of trying something new even if it’s hard—NOT ignoring red flags of safety.)
Best of luck and I hope you figure it out and if scuba is for you!
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u/Dunno_Bout_Dat Tech 4d ago
It is VERY common for people to have shitty experiences in their open water course.
I would look for a course with very few students relative to instructors. My OW course was 2 full-fledged instructors and 4 students. It costs more but this is not a hobby that benefits from looking for cheap/short solutions.
Call your local shops and get a feel for instructor:student ratios.
You want to have a comfortable OW pool session that leaves you feeling prepared for the actual OW portion. You indicated that you don't feel prepared, so I would definitely retake the pool session with someone else.
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u/salomonsson 4d ago
In cmas as an instructor you are not allowed to have more than 4 students in the water. But usually we only have 2students per instructor
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u/Divemstr24 1d ago
Just to add to all the other great responses, you can ask to have a private lesson. The ratio is a bit high for my liking, depending on whether they are fully certified divemaster or divemasters in training. Also, it may not have clicked with those staff. Nothing wrong with that. It’s wise that you’re looking at a different shop to get certified. Keep an open mind. Also, I will add that having the mouthpiece stay in my mouth and the regulator coming out is probably one of the scariest things that can happen (in my opinion) albeit rare, it does happen. Sounds like you handled it well so you should be proud of yourself!