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023 The Art of Teaching Mask Clearing

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In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast you will learn innovative strategies that make teaching mask clearing easier and more effective for your students.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

In today’s episode you will learn innovative strategies that make teaching mask clearing easier and more effective for your students.

  • Avoid selling masks with purge valves
  • Tell the reasons to clear water out of a mask but put more emphasis on the positive reasons
  • Acclimation exercise
  • Dry exhalation drill
  • Two instructor visuals at the surface
  • Breaking the seal
  • The “Look Down” priority
  • One handed mask clearing
  • Side mask clearing
  • Strategies for flawless demonstration quality
  • Upcoming dive show: Go Diving Show

Episode Sponsor

Mastering Dive Tables & Decompression Theory Course

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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022 SDI TDI ERDI PFI Check-In

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In this episode we hear from Brian Carney President of International Training for all things happening with the SDI TDI ERDI and PFI brands.

Welcome To The Show!

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

I’m your host TEC Clark. In today’s episode we get to hear from another one of our dive training agencies, SDI TDI. Actually they’re more than that. It’s multiple brands under International Training including SDI, TDI, ERDI and now PFI. We will hear from Brian Carney, president and CEO as he tells the latest happenings in those brands. Before we get to my interview with Brian, as promised last week I launched my new online tutorial called Mastering Dive Tables and Decompression Theory. Yay! I’m so excited about that. It’s only a year and a half in the making. Oh my gosh. But I say tutorial, although it’s more like a course. Actually there are three separate courses to this. but let me explain. Since you’re a pro, you know the challenges of teaching dive tables. And many of you might’ve even stopped teaching dive tables to your lower level students like open water or advanced.

But when they get to divemaster and higher, they need to know it. So what we’re seeing is a whole wave of divemaster candidates who have never used a dive table because they’ve grown up on computers and their open water course was the computer version and so forth. But now they are in a divemaster program and they have to learn tables for the first time and they got to learn it along with decompression theory, the weighty subject with M values and halftimes and all the wonderful things, right? And so especially if you’re in the PADI system, not only after learn that, but you also have to learn the E R D P M L that’s the electronic recreational dive planner multilevel. So I’ve created an online course that is designed to be more like personal tutoring. You do a great job teaching, right?

The books and materials do a good job. But what about those students that are struggling? What about those ones that are nervous about their exams or whatnot? Well, this course is thorough and it patiently goes every possible scenario of how to work dive tables. Now I mentioned that there were three courses. Well those are three packages actually. Package one is the actual tables. Now I’m talking the PADI version by the way. the first one released is the PADI edition of the mastering dive tables and decompression theory. There are others that are in the queue with other agencies, but this one, the first one out of the gate is, is with PADI, so that the package one version is all about the actual use of the RDP. There are 38 examples of how to work the RDP backwards, forwards finding SITs, RNTs. Every possible combination is in there along with every possible rule that can be done within the dive tables.

That’s all calculated in there. So rules, procedures, everything that is in the package one, which is the diver package. Package two is the pro package and the pro package includes everything that package one the diver package has, which is all of the dive table stuff. But it also includes the diving decompression theory section. So the entire courses on, on, all about decompression theory, the history of decompression theory, gas laws, the gases we breathe. it gets into the experiment that we’ve all seen or talked about with soda bottles. I do multiple variations of that, which is pretty cool. and it gets into halftimes and M values and all of that. So kind of the weighty things are part of this and also comes with the pro package, a study guide, and this study guide goes through the course in order of all the testable terms that are talked about in the course that you’re probably going to see on an exam.

So that is the pro package. And then finally, the pro deluxe package is everything in the diver package and everything in the pro package, but it also includes an additional whole seminar on how to use the E R D P M L that’s the electronic recreational dive planner multilevel. So every function that that does is gone over. And by the way I’m using the app version, which is the new modern version that you do on app on your phone or device and not the calculator version, although I talk about it. So it goes over every function that is in the ERDPML and how to use it. And also there are 50 practice test questions in the pro deluxe version as well. So that is what we’re talking about here. Now if you think this sounds good for your students, especially the ones who struggle with decompression theory in dive tables, well it even gets better as a dive professional.

You can become an affiliate. That means when you send or recommend this course with your special affiliate link, you’ll receive 30% commission from each sale purchased through your link. This works for all three course packages. Now you might want all your open water students to have the diver package and you might want your divemaster candidates to have the pro or pro deluxe package. Doesn’t matter. When students purchase these courses from you, you get 30% commission. Pretty good considering the dive package sell diver package sells for $25. The pro package sells for $50 and the pro deluxe package sells for $75. So check out the promo video about all this so that you can see what it’s all about by going to scubaguruacademy.com and clicking on any of the mastering dive tables and decompression theory courses. I think you’re really gonna like it.

So, all right, pros, let’s get to my interview with Brian Carney for the SDI, TDI, E R D I and PFI check-in.

Interview with Brian Carney

TEC CLARK:                  All right Brian, so welcome to the show. Yeah, and it’s great to have you here. Tell us what you got going on with SDI TDI.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  We got a lot going on. I get, my staff keeps on asking me, you know, you’re going to, you’ve got to SDI TDI. ERDI we bring on a first response and now PFI they said, how many more logos you’re going to add to the brand in the next couple of months. I said, ah, give me some time. We’re still working our way along here. It’s been a little bit chaotic to say the least.

TEC CLARK:                  Exactly. That’s awesome. We’ll tell us about the brands. What’s going on, what’s new, what’s, what’s developing?

BRIAN CARNEY:                  All right, so, let’s see. SDI adding international, our recreational arm, if you want to say of our organization, is probably our largest growing. It’s our largest portion of international training, largest entity of it. And it’s growing in leaps and bounds, in large part because of our eLearning platform. Our elearning platform that we developed back in 2001 was the first time we launched the learning, but he’s grown and taken us to places where we never expected to be. So our SDI brand as a result of that, leverage with the way that we’ve always taken the no nonsense approach to our customer service. Couple of things instilled in us as an organization was, from the very beginning that diver’s going to pick up the phone, divers can respond to emails and we’re going to do a both those things in 24 hours. Same thing with credit card processing and certifications. Those would become next kind of culture of our company, of what we want to do and how we want to do things. So we continue to push that and maintain that.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  And for the last 25 years we’ve been doing it, international training has been going or TDI has been around for 25 years from the day one. It’s been the same type of philosophy. Right? So, the SDI side of things, we did a revamp of our instructor trainer material is their it materials so that we can get a whole lot more consistency throughout the world. We’re doing updates here at the show and we do updates around the world, for people throughout 2020. Oh my gosh. Can’t believe it’s already. And bringing people up to speed on that are in 2020 and we’re going to take an update all number of the videos and stuff that our basic program and then advanced from there. Okay. SDI. So TDI, TDI has been continuing actually this year for TDI. We did more certifications under TDI than we had ever done than any year previous.

TEC CLARK:                  No kidding. Congratulations.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  The brand’s continued to grow even after 25 years.

TEC CLARK:                  What do you attribute that to?

BRIAN CARNEY:                  I think there’s more people in the marketplace right now. If the open water numbers go up, the TDI numbers go up. So I tied some of that to the economy. Okay. And, but one of the things that we’re seeing is we’re seeing more open circuit certifications compared to closed circuit certification. Yeah. I’ll be a, I’ve got a presentation and some data that we’ll be releasing in the next day or so that’ll show the total number of certifications for TDI, open circuit versus closed circuit. And then in addition to that, what rebreathers were, we’re doing the largest amount of, certification for and what courses are our primary courses that we teach? So the two most popular courses, it’s still 25 years later. It’s still advanced nitrox and deco proceedures the highest amount of people taking those around to kind of have the entry into the program.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  It’s still extremely popular product and program. So on the public safety side with ERDI we continue public safety takes a while to get established in the marketplace and we’ve been in the market for a strongly in the market for about 10 years. And the reason it takes a little bit longer, is that you have to build the relationships with the municipalities. That’ll bring it up. So you’re talking to a guy on the fire department who needs to talk to his chief who needs to talk to that person and so on and so on. We’ve been doing that for 10 years now. as a result of that, we have a number of departments that have all come on board and I’m happy to say that that program is also growing and expanding at the levels that we had hoped it to. The standardization of standards on a global level is something that public safety no organization had ever done, has ever done before.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  And to date, no other organization has done that. There have been pockets of organizations that done and they’d done a fantastic job, but nobody’s taking these standards global. So through our network of our, of our regional offices around the world and through our relationship in the States, that’s allowed us to grow that particular brand, in a number of ways.

TEC CLARK:                  Right. So that’s great. Excellent. And then how does that tie into first response?

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Well, first response, we built a program years ago called cprox, which is CPR, oxygen, first aid. and that program went for a couple of years and we kinda, it was written to be an add on facility or add on course for divemasters and  assistant instructors. So here’s diving centered program and it was getting old. So we need to do a revamp on the product. So when we want to look to rebound for product, we went, you know, staying within the diving industry is one thing.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  But if we could get outside the diving industry with the first aid product, it would help our members have additional place to gain revenue and additional program. They’re already teaching CPR courses, so why can’t they teach CPR courses to a local school? Or a boy scout troop. or you know, anything of, you know, Coca Cola or something like that, you know, a division of Coca Cola, right? So we built this first responder program from the ground up from just a brand, to facilitate that market share. And so far in its first year, we’ve doubled the amount of qualifications that are running, in large part because there’s nobody out there. There are, there are entities that do it, but there’s so much demand and not enough, not enough supply. Not enough of our people providing the programs. We were surprised, we went into our local community, went to the chamber of commerce and within that short period of time with our communication chest at our local chamber of commerce, we were able to pick up the school system and local school system.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  and then we ended up going on to two nursing associations.  You’re talking to hundreds of people. And I, as a result of that, we had to find more stores and make more instructors in the area. Cause when we get an agreement or a contract like that, we bring in our dive professionals that will teach the courses. So local store in the area said I need to hire three more instructors to help handle this demand.

TEC CLARK:                  Yeah, exactly. Wow, that’s really cool. I think it’s, you know, it’s, it’s interesting we’ve done our share and I think other dive pros have done their share of saying, Hey, we can teach our course to other people outside of diving. but there’s always that little kind of head nod that goes, but it says diving in the name or something like that. Do you think that having that kind of neutral name, that neutral brand of first response does help get it outside of the dive center into the community?

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Absolutely. We did keyword searching. We looked on before even pick the name of the company. We did a lot of background on that. So we would not have that. You’re a diving centric company interests. One of the reasons why we have the parent organization is international training,  So if they need to know the parent organization, it’s not a scuba diving company. because you’re talking to different segments of the people, at different times. The branding and the marketing is probably one of the things that we find that dive professionals get as much confused about with our other organizations. But if you’re training a family how to go look a pretty fish, you’ve got one brand. If you’re walking into a police department and you need to talk to a municipality, they don’t want the organization that trains pretty fish. They want the organization that’s all those pros.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  So they talk to you on that level and you have to, that’s probably about the most difficult thing I have to do at my job is change the way I’m approaching and thinking about. We knew this when we started with technical diving, started with technical diving and we were really good at technical diving. But then we started talking to organizations about,  pretty fish diving, which is our background, but a, different group of people Which we came from. So it was easy. But we recognize that difference between those that we said two brands and it especially came apparent when we got to the public safety side.

TEC CLARK:                  Interesting. So that’s really cool. Well, speaking of brands, what we, here we are, we’re at the DEMA show 2019 in Orlando. your booth looks great and you’ve got your staff all decked out in the newest brand. PFI tell us about that.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Well, this has been a passion of mine for years freediving, Free diving is in all through high school and college, you know, I taught diving and stuff to make a living. Yeah. But I freedove for fun. That was my escape and it was my place to go get peace and quiet and really where my roots came from. It’s a matter of fact, my son is 10 learns is learning how to freedive before he’s learning how to dive on scuba just for the quiet. And that’s nice. and being with one nature and stuff,

TEC CLARK:                  you and I couldn’t be more alike in that, you know, I say the exact same thing. scuba is my job. Freediving is my hobby. You know, I love it and my kids are the same thing. They could, I’ve delayed them into scuba just so they could be good free divers first and get that foundation that and we’re in the same boat there. That’s awesome. Great. I’m sorry I cut you off.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Yeah, no problem. They I don’t have, I love hearing the stories about it cause I get really [inaudible] it was a passion for mine to try to bring this and our members, our members had asked us, Hey, where’s your free diving program? Where’s your freediving program? And I’m like, you know, I got all this experience, I can write it, I can write courses and build all this stuff. But I couldn’t find the time that I didn’t know if we wanted to do our own thing or partner with a group. And along the way, I’ve known about PFI for many years. The founder of that, Kirk Krack and TDI.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  We’ve been involved with one another on one fashion or another for a long time. And the raw portion for that is when the free divers went deep. They needed the divers down there and we trained train the divers to be there and be the safety divers side. Right? So there are big program DeJa Blue TDI has been the backup support for years. So, through a mutual acquaintance, associated with, a movie project that Kirk is still working, he’s working on currently right now. the diving safety officer for that particular group is a good friend of mine. And he said, Hey, you know, come on out, meet Kirk and I got together and Kirk told me the issues he was having run in these organization. I told them I needed a freediving in program and our philosophies aligned, from a no nonsense approach, no min, you know, it’s a minimum standard, but it’s a high minimum standards which came right in line with TDI.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Right. and let’s say, you know, this couldn’t really work. And through conversations back and forth, he built an amazing product. It just in the, in the PFI instructors around the world that I’ve had the opportunity to meet with whatever, they’re unbelievable professionals. So I was like, this is the only way to do this. I don’t, I don’t want to compete with that. I can’t compete with that. So, Hey, can we find a way to make this work? And, Kirk saw an opportunity to meet our company and see our philosophies and see how we work on a day to day basis. And he goes, this would really work. I, I, he, he was probably shell shocked how quickly things started to happen, and how, much, how much capabilities we had internally to do these things. I told him again, I said, hold on for the ride.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  it’s going to be fun. Your organization is going to be something bigger than what we, then whatever, come.

TEC CLARK:                  Awesome. So that is so cool. That is so cool. All right, so with this new relationship with PFI, NAUI has a relationship with PFI. How does this impact that, if at all?

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Well, I can tell you that’s a little known thing that’s in the industry. The training agencies actually work together. It’s secret. It’s a little bit weird. And I know that he might be shocking and we might have to create some support groups to realize that I talked to NAUI and NAUI talks to us, considering TDIs past history with NAUI, you know, but you know, we’ve always had the philosophy that to work with everybody. And when the this thing came together, we communicated with NAUI and I’m currently talking with the top people at NAUI about how do we make this work cause we’re willing, we want to see it work.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Okay. At the end of the day, if NAUI’s making great PFI instructors, it’s good for everybody and we’re trying to support and bring more people in. So if NAUI grows, we’re going to grow. And then we talk about, Hey, the pie’s got to get bigger for us all. The only way that happens is if the top of all the training organizations, you sit there and get around a table and say, what are we going to do together? Rather than fight with one another. So at our very core, at an organization and from it, and NAUI’s got the similar approach to it is we forget about all the noise. How do we make this work? So we’re in that process of working through it right now. We have a temporary kind of agreement in place that truth be told. It’s because of a relationships between myself and a couple of people over there.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  but I, you know, I’m a former NAUI guy myself. So yeah, I got a special place in my heart for what goes on over there.

TEC CLARK:                  It’s awesome. That’s awesome. You bring up such a good point. And I wish that our industry wasn’t as closed off or in silos in some, some contexts like that. it is healthy. It is healthy to get together and be together. We, we need the bond as an industry. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, that’s great. Awesome. That’s good to hear.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  I have a lot of a lot of friends in the industry. I mean truth be told there’s probably 50% of us that could leave this or 75% of this industry could leave this, go on to other industries and make a lot more money. cause there’s a lot of talented people in the industry and we have to be talented cause we don’t have we have to make that dollar stretch a little bit further.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  So building that relationship in, working with those people, especially at the training agency level, is such an important part of how we go. I believe someday in the future we’ll stop spending our money as individual organizations in marketing and the training organizations will do it collectively if we want to have an impact to the mainstream and bring people into diving. I think that’s one of the things that really needs to have happened is we’re all spending our advertising money outside of the industry. There’s lots of us doing ads and things, outside the industry. But could you imagine if we pooled our money together? What the impact we could have. And I hear of stories of of, Oh, I’m drawing a blank on the name sea hunt. How sea hunt created this whole industry. I came in at the tail end of it, right, right at the tail end of it.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  I grew up on flipper and Jacques Cousteau. Jacques Cousteau or undersea World. So that was my, Oh, but I didn’t know anything about brands or ancencies. All I want to do is go into water, look at fish stuff. So I think that as the industry matures, we’ll be able to have those conversations a little bit more. And I’m happy to say I, some days I joked with somebody day in the first day of the show, I think I said I spent more time this morning talking to other training agencies than I did our own customers.

TEC CLARK:                  So that’s good stuff. All right. Well Brian, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for the SDI TDI Checkin and all the other brands, PFI, ERDI, all of them. This has been awesome. And I think that, you know, you guys are doing some fantastic stuff, so all the best to you and all the best here at the show.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Fantastic. Thank you Tec. Definitely appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys and thank you for what you’re doing and bringing the message to the professionals.

TEC CLARK:                  You’re welcome. Thanks so much. Have a great show.

BRIAN CARNEY:                  Thank you.

Wow, they’ve got a lot going on, don’t they? And as far as training agencies go, they have grown in a relatively short amount of time. That’s great success. Good job. Thanks for that interview Brian. Check out all that SDI TDI, E R D I and PFI has to offer by going to their website at tdisdi.com I’ll also have the links to that in our show notes Page at scubaguru.com and once again, if you’re interested in becoming an affiliate for my ScubaGuruAcademy courses, the new one, mastering dive tables and decompression theory, simply contact me through scubaguru.com and I’ll get you set up to make commissions while helping out your students with these outstanding tutorials.

Episode Sponsor

Mastering Dive Tables & Decompression Theory Course

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes Page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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021 The Great Snorkel Debate: To Wear Or Not To Wear?

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In this episode of The Dive Locker podcast we discuss the issues surrounding wearing a snorkel while scuba diving.

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management, and dive business. I am your host TEC Clark.

To wear or not to wear. That is the question. Welcome to the great snorkel debate. Well, as you know, this debate has been Epic and legendary and it takes place all over on our dive boats, in bars, online. Just look at scubaboard and look at the amount of people that talk about whether to wear snorkels or not. Um, it is pretty, pretty crazy. In fact, it’s just as passionate as what political party you belong to. People are really kind of fanatical about this, but in this episode, I don’t want to do a clichéd pros and cons side of this and why, you know, we’d like to wear them and why we don’t like to wear them. Okay. We get that right. What I want to do is I want to get into more of an insidious side of this debate where this actually unravels with dive professionals.

But before we launch into it, I am so excited to share with you that I’m days away from launching my new online tutorial called mastering dive tables and decompression theory. I designed this course for numerous divers, but especially aspiring dive pros who are challenged by dive tables and or decompression theory. Now this is especially beneficial for those becoming divemasters or instructors because not only do they have to pass their exams on dive table usage, you also need to be able to teach it and use it, and whether it’s dive tables or decompression theory. So this mastering dive tables and decompression theory online course will help anyone at any level master the areas of decompression theory and how to use dive tables. There’s practice questions, there’s a study guide, um, it’s in both metric and Imperial measurements. That’s really cool. And there’s an entire module on how to use the PADI eRDPml that’s the electronic recreational dive planner multilevel.It’s pretty cool for multilevel dive calculations.

And another great feature is that you as a dive pro can be an affiliate for this course. So when you have a student that just isn’t getting dive tables or deco theory, you can send them your affiliate link and when they sign up for the course, you receive a commission. That’s pretty cool. So look for this to go live in the next few days. I will have it all over Social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the scubaguru.com website, all over. So please look for it. It’s coming out real soon. All right, so here we go with today’s episode, the great snorkel debate.

All right, we get it. People don’t like to wear snorkels, right? We hear it all the time and the explanations are numerous. They get caught, they pull when there’s a strong current, they are clumsy and bulky. They get in the way, they’re uncomfortable, they pull your hair, the list goes on and on, right? But people don’t like to wear them for many of those reasons. And what we’re not talking about here is the technical side, right? That debate doesn’t even enter into the technical arena. When we’re going into overhead environments, cave and wreck penetration, cavern, obviously we do not want that piece of equipment when we’re doing that type of activity. So it goes without saying. That’s not even in the standards. So just goes without saying. We’re not talking about that. So just remove the whole snorkel issue from technical diving. I’m talking more about the recreational diving and especially in recreational instruction, recreational leadership, uh, the requirement of it for a student, the requirement of a pro, right?

Where does this all start? Why do the agencies require a snorkel to be a piece of leadership equipment and student equipment? What’s out there in the marketplace? Why are there skill standards for wearing a snorkel? You see, these are the questions that must be teased out to really get into this debate. This is the heart and soul of it. Not whether the thing is clumsy or bulky or whatever. It’s all of these other things. So let’s take a look here first. We need to start. Why? Why in the first place do we have a snorkel? Okay, great. We got the whole snorkeling thing. There’s a whole activity called snorkeling and skin diving. Yeah, we float the surface and look at fish. Great. Tons of people are doing it, but what we’re talking about here is on scuba. Okay? So that’s where we get into this.

It’s all about the airway control at the surface. Now we all know what airway control involves. It means having a controlled airway in the aquatic environment such that a mask is on to protect the nasal passages and a regulator or snorkel is in the mouth to protect the respiratory tracks and the mouth especially. So what we’ve got here is that airway control exists in the use of a snorkel in lieu of a regulator. So once we get that regulator out of our mouth, we have something else in to protect now. So when we take a look at this, um, many of you are probably going well, that’s kind of ridiculous. Okay, well I get where you’re coming from. Now look, I grew up here in South Florida. I’ve been in the water all my life. And in fact, the triathlon training down here, we swim in the ocean and all we’re wearing as a Goggle to do ocean training.

Okay, so when you talk about airway control and you talk about seas and you talk about waves and surf zones and everything like that, look, I’m pretty, pretty comfortable with that, so I could be on that soapbox that says I don’t need it. I absolutely don’t need it. I got my own airway control and I’m really good at it and blah, blah, blah. Well great. That’s because I grew up at an around an ocean all my life. But what about that person from Indiana that learned how to swim in a YMCA as an adult and is now all excited about scuba diving because they’re going on a honeymoon and they go and they’re in a quarry and that’s it. And my gosh, what’s that person going to do when we get out to the open water? You see if I take a face full of salt water and I swallow that down, you know what?

That’s just part of life. That’s just part of living down here. I’ll get over it. It’s fine. It becomes part of my diet, right? But to somebody else, that can be one of the most unsettling things that leads to coughing, choking leads to gagging leads to a vomit, nausea. I mean, there’s so much, right? So that’s just one thing. So, and I think you all heard my story too, that I actually worked a case as a forensic dive accident investigator where an individual did not have airway control at the surface after a dive. They were perfectly healthy, perfectly fine, perfectly great dive, but they didn’t have their mask on nor their reg in their mouth. They held onto the tagline, the current was strong, the waves kept hitting him in the face and on and on and on. And the person died right there, right there at the surface.

So to say that airway control is an issue, it certainly is. It’s indisputable. So let’s look at the why of this. So we all know that some of the practical applications of this is that if you’re doing a long swim, a surface swim from the boat to a dive site or from the beach to a dive site, you don’t want to waste tank air and you want to be able to have that snorkel instead of the regulator in breathing your, your tank air when you’re at the surface, right? But then there’s also the point that is, well what if you come out of the dive and you’re out of air and you’ve reached the surface. You cannot wear your regulator in your mouth when you’ve got no air. So you’ve got to substitute it for something else. There’s another practical time to have that snorkel in.

So when we think about it in all of these aspects, there are practical applications for it and there are people that it works for, but we don’t get that luxury to just pick and choose who wears snorkels and who doesn’t. It’s actually a required piece of equipment. So when we’re talking about students going through an open water diver course, let’s say it is a required piece of gear. When we’re talking about the leadership equipment of dive masters, pros, instructors, et cetera, snorkels are required. Now we often get this piece that says when a student takes a course, they’re now going to buy the required equipment that they need. And a lot of times it’s just the soft goods, it’s the mask, fins, snorkel, maybe wetsuits, maybe lead, maybe some accessories here and there, right? Every shop is different on that. But here’s what we’re seeing.

What we see is that the classic student comes in to buy that stuff and then they have the assortment of different choices to choose from. And what we’re seeing is that the industry is pumping out snorkels that have features to them. And these features sound really, really great in theory, such as a purge valve. Now a lot of us like purge valves, they work and they’re simple and gravity does its job and there’s barely any air that needs to be pushed through. There’s some cool features to that. I get it. Okay. But then once we start looking at some of the other designs such as a top of a snorkel that is designed such that when a wave goes over it and either seals up or by its design, water cascades over the side and does not go down the airway. Interesting. Well now to have that kind of design, what has to be added to it more plastic.

And also when we’re talking about that purge, well, what kind of purge is it and what is that spec? Well, how is it engineered into the snorkel? Well, a lot of times that can be a big bulky and as well housing that purge in there. So what sounds good on theory, you know, Oh this is a super dry snorkel or whatever. Well now it also comes with a big bore and more plastic to support all of those functions. And what are we looking at now? Now we’re looking at a heavy snorkel, a big, a bulky snorkel, and now let’s think of this. When we’re actually wearing a snorkel for scuba diving, what’s the amount of time we’re actually on that snorkel at the surface? Right? How much of that time? Hardly any by comparison to the dive, the majority of the time the snorkel is submerged underwater.

That means it’s full of water. Do we really need all of these features? Because here’s what I’m seeing. These students are making a decision early on. They’re going with what they think is best and sounds really good. Sometimes the shop is even pushing the ones with more features because there’s a little bit more margin in them.  And what happens now the student is in the class and they are struggling with this snorkel and maybe during the class they saw an instructor who isn’t wearing a snorkel, but they’ve got it folded up a fold up one and they all of a sudden question, well why aren’t you wearing a snorkel? And the instructor says, Oh, I hate it. Or a dive master in the class, oh yeah I hate snorkels so I just, I just have this other one. Well wait a minute so I can dive without it?

And I got this one, but there’s another kind that I could buy that I just carry with me and all? Do you see how that leads to confusion? And so what takes place there in that moment is you’ve just placed a seed of doubt in the student’s mind. Who do I trust now is their question, the person that sold this to me in the dive center or my instructor or the person leading me on a dive or whatever. Do you see how that actually becomes an issue? And that starts to diminish the professionalism of either one of those camps. So that is something that is seen and it seen quite often. And then the person has to make the decision of, well my instructor doesn’t wear one so I don’t want to wear one. Interesting. So then they’re forced to do it for the class.

And then what happens after the class? Who knows? Sometimes they take them off right away. Sometimes they get the folding kind, whatever. But it wasn’t what they were trained on was it? So that then leads to the standards training. So when we’re looking at this, why is teaching snorkel clearing a part of this? Well obviously we’ve got skin diving standards built into many of the scuba agencies, open water diver and there is the requirement to clear a snorkel. Okay, great. But then what about the scuba side of it? Well there’s the snorkel regulator exchange. Now if you think about this skill, what are we doing? We’re coming to the surface and we are doing an exchange of the regulator for the snorkel and we’re going to go back and forth when we do this with our students, right? A couple of breaths each here, a couple of breaths, beach and we just go back and forth, back and forth until we found mastery is taking place with that and so the skills to be that the person doesn’t bop their head out of the water and change these things over.

It’s to be done in the water. Now we have to ask why this is a training standard. That’s the big thing folks, is that why are we requiring the people to wear this and why are we trying this as a skill standard? It’s because of the countless cases and times when airway control has been a problem. When somebody wasn’t able to have a snorkel at the surface, when somebody was in a challenged situation where they may have run out of air coming to the surface and now they immediately have to go over. We’ve seen it in rough seas and rough situations. Now look, here’s, here’s why this is you’re talking that people in agencies and, and when I say agencies, I don’t mean a collective of people in one agency that have developed the standard. We can go point to the standard in the R S T C the recreational scuba training council.

So that minimum agency standard is there to which all other agencies are to follow that minimum. And sure enough, the snorkel regulator exchange is in the RSTC standard, it means it needs to be taught. And because of that though, the people that are doing that is a table load of dive industry professionals, hundreds of years of experience in that room all coming up with, yes, this is why we need to teach this skill. So I can not wear a snorkel. And I can come into rough seas and you know, do something with the boat and give signals to them and be just fine until the boat gets to me. But what happens to that person from Indiana? What happens from that person – I’m picking on Indiana? I shouldn’t do that. Sorry, everybody from Indiana. I don’t mean to do that, but you know what I’m saying? Somewhere that people are not experienced in the water.

Let’s say they blow off that wreck dive, they miss their ascent line back to the surface and now they are drifting in the ocean. They’re already terrified. So now there they are turning towards the boat to get the boats attention. Well, what’s if the boat is one direction and they’re drifting the other direction? That means that the current and waves are hitting them in the face as they’re facing the boat. So you see why not having the snorkel in that kind of a situation or a regulator in their mouth and that kind of situation becomes an issue as they’re giving signals to the boat? So these are the reasons why this is a standard. And these are the reasons why we put this into place in the standard. Now when we’re talking back on that equipment on the market, right, and all these big bulky bells and whistles and people don’t like ’em and the majority of the time the snorkel is underwater.

Well, what happens when we “need” it? Well, this is what is the issue with the folding snorkel myth, and I’m going to call it a myth. My friends, I’m going to get tons of flack for this. I’m so sorry in advance, but I’m not sorry at the same time. There are dive professionals that say, I get to get around the agency standard by “wearing on me” a folding snorkel. And so because I have it possessed, I am meeting the standard. Okay, I get what you’re saying, but let’s think about this. Does that apply to how you’re going to teach that in the class? No. And so there’s other instructors that say, well, I wear a snorkel for my classes, but when I do other things, I wear my folding snorkel. All right. So now are you sending a message to the people that are watching you as an instructor when you’re not wearing a snorkel and they can’t see that you’ve got a folding one?

That’s interesting, right? So it makes someone from the Midwest go, Hey, I want to be like that guy or gal. Um, they’re not wearing a snorkel. Maybe. Maybe I need to work. Maybe there’s something they know that I don’t know. Or maybe they’ve just mastered you. See, so this becomes an issue once again, where people are kind of looking at you as a model. If you’ve got the folding snorkel. The majority of people that I’ve talked about this with say when I need it, when it’s needed, I’ve got it. All right, so let’s do a big whole hard timeout right now. When do you need it? So for me, I can’t come up with a time that I’m truly going to “need” it. Okay, let’s, let’s think about that for, you know, what we talked about, about my level of comfort and everything like that.

I just can’t come up with a scenario that I’m going to NEED it. But there are people that say that it’s there when needed. Okay. So let’s think about this. When needed is going to be at a time when, and many people say this when the, I’ll put it in my own words. When the fecal matter hits the oscillating device, right? So if you think about that, what are we going to now do? You’re going to take out this, this snorkel, which is not easy access by the way. It’s got to come out. It’s got to come out of its clamshell case or whatnot be unfolded and now it’s gotta be attached to the mask. Now do we need to take the mask off to put the folding snorkel on?  In some cases, yes. And some brands and models, yes. Now what does that do to your, to your airway control?

Uh, not a really good thing. The second thing is those that have admitted to fumbling so badly with trying to put it on, on the outside without taking off their mask, admit to tucking it under the mask strap. Now the, the folding snorkel is already softer than a regular snorkel. Now you’re pinching down on the bore of the snorkel. So when you need it, quote unquote, and you’re at the surface and you’re chugging, now you have a restricted airway. So you think you’re doing something good. But now because you tucked it under that it the mask strap, now all of a sudden you can’t breathe well. And the other thing is there are numerous reports where people have done some serious hard swims into current and because of the pressure of the current and the inhalation force that they’re doing in the snorkel, the snorkels are actually collapsing on themselves.

Again, making not for a great airway. It restricts it. Then you get hypoventilation, not enough gas exchange. Now you’ve got CO2 buildup and now you’re going to be on the throws of panic. You or your student. You see what I’m saying? I’m not picking on people, but here’s the deal. We’ve got to take attention to this. Is it really the solution? And my, I maintain that it’s not because when I’ve seen this, it hasn’t gone well. The many, many, many people that teach this are teaching it with the snorkels on the instructor snorkels on the student and then they do the skill. But when they switch over to a folding snorkel, they don’t practice the snorkel regulator exchange efficiently and effectively to mastery with a folding snorkel, it gets completely overlooked. So what’s going to happen? The person won’t use it when they need it in a true time of airway control.

So is there an answer to this? Well, Hey look, frankly I use a J type snorkel, a freediving snorkel. It’s not bulky. It’s not as cumbersome as other snorkels. Right. And I know how to use the thing. I can clear it in both displacement and blast. Remember we used to teach displacement? You can’t teach displacement with purge snorkels anymore. So you know, people are kind of getting away from those skillsets. I like the simple J style snorkel and it works fine for me. Now, does my snorkel shift in a strong current? Yes. Does it get caught on lines? Occasionally, yes. Does my hair get caught in the snorkel keeper? Occasionally, yes, but those are not strong enough reasons why I would abandon it and talk bad about it to my students. Instead, teach them how to get a snorkel that they can be used to and work with and it would be just an occasional small annoyance, right?

Teach and think about what we’re selling to our students. Look at this from a different perspective. Look at this from an industry perspective. Look at this from a student perspective and look at this from a pro perspective. That’s all I wanted to share today. Think differently about this debate that rages on about whether to wear snorkels or not. I would love to hear from you about this. Let me hear from you by simply go into scuba guru.com find this show notes page for this episode. Click on the microphone and leave me a message. I want to hear from you. Maybe there’s something I haven’t covered here. Maybe there’s something I’m way off on. I’d love to hear your opinion, but again, this isn’t about one way is the best or anything like that. I just want you to exercise your thought process as a dive professional on what we’re showing, what we’re modeling, and what we’re saying to our students, to our divers, to the people that we are mentoring about snorkels.

So that’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google play, or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

Thanks For Listening!

Well that’s it for today everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live, and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com. There you can also click on the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care my friends.

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020 SSI Check-In

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In this episode of The Dive Locker podcast we hear from SSI’s National Training Manager Mark Scott about all things SSI.

Welcome to the Dive Locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

I’m your host Tec Clark. Welcome everyone. In today’s episode, we are going to have another training agency check-in. Today we’ll hear from Mark Scott National Training Manager for SSI. Last week we had the NAUI check in and we had the PADI check in in December. Today it’s SSI’s turn. Again, this is special no matter what agency you’re with. You know, how many of you have heard SSI doesn’t have independent instructors? That you must be affiliated with an SSI dive store? Well, you get to hear what that’s actually all about directly from the national training manager. That’s good stuff.

Also, you may remember hearing from Willie Cline back in episode six, Willie produces the Cline’s Diving Industry Survey. Well, he’s gathering the data for the fourth quarter of 2019 to close out his results for the year. This survey asks about trends, increases, decreases in certifications, sales, etc., and it only takes three to four minutes to complete. I’ll put the link to Cline’s 4th Quarter Diving Industry survey in our show notes page. Please go to it and participate in it.

And finally I want to express my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Wayne Hasson of Aggressor Adventures. In fact, if you were an industry colleague of Wayne’s, you were a friend. Wayne was a former US Marine, then became the first captain of the Cayman Aggressor. He went on to become president of Aggressor Fleet and Aggressor Adventures and dedicated 35 years to that brand. But Wayne also had a heart for giving. He served on the board of directors for both the Sea of Change Foundation and the Oceans for Youth Foundation, both not for profits that bring education about the underwater world to thousands of people. To see how impactful Wayne was to our diving community, just check out his Facebook page where hundreds of comments have been posted.

One thing that stands out to me is from our friend and diving legend Dan Orr. He posted a thing called Remembering: My ashes have left this bow. Remember that I am with you now. I am the waves upon the sea. You’re smiles and tears are full of me. I am the Island winds that blow. I am the evening stars that glow. I am the rainbows in the sky. The morning light, the clouds up high. A part of you I will always be. My name is Wayne. Remember me. Anne our hearts and prayers are with you. Wayne will be missed.

All right, pros, here we go. Let’s hear from Mark Scott for the SSI Check in.

Mark Scott Interview

TEC CLARK:           All right Mark, welcome to the SSI check in. How’s it going?

MARK SCOTT:      It’s going well Tec. I’m a big fan. I’ve got to say, I love the Dive Locker. I love how it’s grown so quickly and thanks for having me.

TEC CLARK:           Thank you. Thank you.  you know, we’re here at DEMA show 2019 in Orlando, Florida. And your booth is bustling. Your seminars are bustling, I have attended a couple of myself and love the content that’s coming out here. It looks like you guys have a lot of energy here. The show is very energetic. I mean, there’s a lot of really positivity going on in the show. But let’s speak specifically about SSI. What are you guys doing and showcasing here at the show?

MARK SCOTT:      For those of us that don’t do too much about SSI, we were founded in 1970 so next year is our 50th birthday. We’ve been around for 49 years. We were purchased in 2014 by the water sports division of Head. A lot of people know they have tennis rackets, tennis balls, snow skis, things like that.  But the water sports division actually purchased SSI and they also own Mares as an equipment manufacturer and also as Revo. And so one of the things that we enjoy by being purchased by such a large entity is that as soon as we were bought and they merged our offices with the Head in the Mares and the Revo facilities worldwide, we became the largest training agency by footprint.  Which is pretty impressive for humble beginnings. And we also became very quickly in the investment in digital, we’ve got over 44 languages that our materials are translated into. We’ve got over 60 programs.  We’re no longer just recreational scuba diving. We’re also extended range or what we call our technical programming.  We’ve also got swim, lifeguard, freediving.  Mermaid, which has been very exciting. I think China did about 13,000 mermaid certifications the first month. It’s very big in a month in China. So that’s a lot of blue, pink and turquoise hair running around there.

MARK SCOTT:      But you know, mainly we’ve been excited to have our dive professionals come to reenergize them. We’ve done some instructor trainer, instructor certifier training to boost the integrity and consistency of our programming and our evaluations.

TEC CLARK:           The first day of the show or pre-show the pre-show Tuesday, and it looked like you had a huge crowd.

MARK SCOTT:      Yes.  At 90 spots in 87 in attendance three people could make it because of flight delays.  but we offer three times a year we bring our instructor trainers and certifiers together just to keep everybody on the same page to keep consistency among the evaluations and instructor training so that way we can ensure worldwide if you get an SSI instructor that you know exactly what you’re getting, how they’ve been trained. And with the internships that we incorporate that with the dive shops and the training centers locally, you’re getting a very well rounded experience, not only as an instructor candidate, but also for future job placement assistance. You’re going to be a well-versed dive instructor.

TEC CLARK:           Outstanding. That’s great. Yeah. Let’s talk about those digital products. I’ve seen them, you know they’re, they’re fantastic. I mean, they really are fantastic. Beautiful. And then the ease of entry. I think that that is remarkable. Talk about that.

MARK SCOTT:      So if you can go to the divessi.com website.  Whether you have an Android device or an iPhone device, you can download the app absolutely free. Once you download that app, all we ask for is it you use an email address and we’ll email you a password to that email address and you can log in and experience four different programs absolutely free so you can see what the content looks like.  You can see our news events in videos, which are exceptional. We have several, 360 degree videos. So you can do like the, the RMS Rhone the wreck is now collapsed, but you can do a swim through of that.

MARK SCOTT:      It’s been a lot of fun when you’re out to eat and the waiter or the waitress says, “Oh, scuba diving. I’ve always wanted to try it.” You just show them these videos while you’re out in public and just tell them to download the app and then affiliates them to a store. And next thing you know, people are trying and scuba diving.

TEC CLARK:           Wow. That is a wild acquisition. I’ve not thought of that.

MARK SCOTT:      Exactly. And that’s how we encourage people to use it. Right? So one of the things that we’ve done is a disservice to SSI as ourselves. You know, a lot of people say, well SSI is not globally known or recognized and it is a misfortunate thing. But the positive of that, and the thing that was most excited about, is that we encouraged our training centers to promote themselves, to promote their dive professionals and to promote their local offerings.

MARK SCOTT:      They have their own set of experiences, unique opportunities, and we want them to really use that, to distinguish themselves in the industry. So what’s nice about that is is we’re actually a larger footprint than what a lot of people have understood in the past. And now that we’ve grown so much over the last five years with our conversion to digital, and it’s a truly digital offering, you can be in airplane mode as long as you’ve downloaded that material to your smartphone or your tablet. You can do the quizzes, the readings, view the videos and everything. Even in an offline environment, which makes that ideal for let’s say a liveaboard. And our liveaboard device is called the SSI Hub. So don’t download that when you’re looking for the app. If you come across the Hub is specifically designed for our liveaboard partners who are getting out of wifi range, allows them to put all of the materials on one device.

MARK SCOTT:      You sync to that device and you can take all of your specialty courses while you’re aboard the liveaboard. And then when you get back into internet range, they simply assign you the kits on your own device and you can download the material after having completed everything on the liveaboard. It’s very cool. And we’ve seen great margins for our training centers. Even our liveaboard partners notice a huge jump because they have the materials there. Yeah, that’s the other thing. There’s no inventory. So we don’t charge you until you assign the kit. Each kit comes with about 44 languages already translated in it. So no matter what your customers are speaking, they can find the materials. And the really cool part is page 16 in every course is exactly the same. So if you’re having a conversation in English about something on page 16, the student can see it in their native language or their preferred language while you’re having the conversation and showing them the information on page 16.

TEC CLARK:           That’s pretty cool. Is that critical information?

MARK SCOTT:      Very critical information. You know, the proper ascent rate. Why equalization is important. When it’s great to dive with a buddy. I always dive with a dive plan. Right?

 TEC CLARK:          That’s neat. One thing that sets SSI apart from- there’s many things of course that sets  SSI apart – but  talk about independent instruction.

MARK SCOTT:      Independent instructors. I  was a pro with another agency for a lot of years and even though I had the ability to be an independent instructor, I was always connected to a dive center. I always, I had to get my air filled somewhere. I had to buy my own equipment from somewhere and I had to go in, you know, quite frankly, I got a discount if I bought the materials from the training center because they were doing in a much larger volume than I ever could.

MARK SCOTT:      So I’m not trying to be insulting to anybody, but I do think independent instructor is more of a fallacy because you are going to be connected to a training center anyway.  Obviously SSI was founded by a group of dive retailers, but we believe that the dive center is the center of the universe. Everybody should be going there to meet their instructors. And then from there, when you develop that relationship with your students, they’re going to prefer to take classes from you because of the way you teach, the experiences you offer, the opportunities that you give them. In all of our materials we tell people, listen, you should buy your own total diving system. You should take continuing education. You should commit to at least 50 log dives when you start your open water adventure. Because those are the people that are going to continue to support and fund the local dive center, the local dive professional and they will travel with you.

MARK SCOTT:      It will go on fun times with you and they will continue to be an important part of your business because of that return customer. They will be a good advertiser for you. They’ll say, “Hey, I love taking classes with Tec. You should come take this class with me.” And next thing you know you’re growing your business and you’re getting a following. So we have a lot of SSI instructors who can affiliate to multiple training centers and move around as they would like, but they have a specific following because they may be a technical diver, they may do caves, they may do specific caverns. And so those are the things that attract people to those dive professionals. Right?

TEC CLARK:           Absolutely. Yeah. I think this is a really good point. The top independent instructors that I know are connected to dive shops and in some cases more than one, they are going to work with their client and really try to satisfy their client needs. So now they might be using two stores that they’ve had a relationship with. And so what I’m hearing is that by the affiliation process you could, as you’re saying, kind of move around in that and be affiliated, but you’re still connected to a dive center. And I also really like the concept. You know, Doug McNeese is on the League of Extraordinary Divers and Doug talked about that. That was one of the foundational things. I think it’s possibly a carry over from NASDS, but you know, here into this logic of, Hey look, if you’re going to be a diver, invest fasting and training, why not invest in equipment? And the full kit, the full package, what does that look like to now be able to call yourself a diver and to make that investment? I think that there is something really special about that you’re seeing. How does that play out in the SSI shop? How does that, how does that work?

MARK SCOTT:      Well, because our materials tell the student, listen, you will be the most comfortable if you buy your own total dining system. Nothing fits like a wet suit that you’ve gone and sized properly with a trained professional in a retail store or an instructor that’s going to make the time to sit down with you and tell you this is what need to buy. Our professionals, we treat them like professionals. 80% of the time, they have the most influence over that student and their buying decisions based off of what the instructor’s wearing. And all we’re asking is as a professional, wouldn’t it be better if you supported your dive center and wore the equipment that your dive center sells and from there your students will support and buy their equipment locally.

MARK SCOTT:      I have nothing, nothing against great deals from longtime online retailers or those that may offer, you know, cheaper options.  Everybody needs a to be aware of their financial resources. But the brilliance of being able to support the local dive center is they can come in, they can touch it, they can feel it, they can size it, and the instructor has the most influence over what gets purchased. And so right from the very beginning, every digital material says you’re going to be most comfortable. And if you’ve ever rented a car, I’ve driven lots of cars, but my car, the mirrors are already set. The seats already set. The radio stations are already there, so I’m having a better time than when I go to an airport, rent a car, and then I’ve got to make all those adjustments on the fly while I’m trying to figure out where I’m going.

MARK SCOTT:      All traffic patterns are different, so maybe you’re stressed out from a flight in or out. All that’s eliminated when you own your own total diving system.

TEC CLARK:           That’s a great point. I love that. It’s almost a sales, a sales talk. You could tell somebody that and they’d go, you’re right.

MARK SCOTT:      But, it’s not high pressure and you know exactly what we’re doing is presenting the opportunity to say, this is why you need these things. Right? And then you can talk about, well, what can you find initially afford? And it’s good for everybody. We’re not trying to put students into high pressure buying situations where they feel intimidated. This is stuff that you need to do. If you were going to go mountain biking or if you were going to go skiing, you would sit down with an expert. They would tell you exactly why you want this bike or why you want these skis or these bindings or these boots. So why are we not doing that in the scuba industry?

TEC CLARK:           Yeah, you’re absolutely right, and we have to remember too that when we call ourselves professionals, that by nature means that we’re not in hobby mode anymore. We are being paid for our programs, our services, the retail experience, all of the things that we’re doing. So we’re transferring knowledge to somebody. We as professionals want to transfer the knowledge of here is what it means to be a diver. Then on and on and on in this as a, just a great tip to, to say that, and I think that a lot of people are a little bashful on the retail experience side of it. Their great instructors, they love teaching. There they are. They’re rock stars in the pool, but then they get sweaty palms when it comes time to this person saying, well, what should I get?

MARK SCOTT:      Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, and so I love the logic of just that it’s clearly laid out, but yeah, no, you’ve heard it from multiple sources that you need to do this. It’s not a high pressure sale. It’s just definitely showcasing why this is a good option.

MARK SCOTT:      Absolutely. Well, how many times have we had that student that looks at you and goes, why did you pick that mask? Why do you like that BCD? Why do you like those regulators? Yeah, so just answer the questions. Yeah. We all have our personal preferences and that’s what makes scuba diving so awesome. Yeah. You know, here’s the DEMA show. We’ve got dive educators, but also dive manufacturers, right? I’ve walked that floor. There are some exciting things in dive manufacturing going on right now. You know the rebreather that doesn’t have a tank, it’s just a totally self contained helmet. And I’m going, we’re getting to the Jetsons era.

TEC CLARK:           I still don’t know about that one. I can’t get my arms around that one does make you think you sit there and go, wait a minute.

MARK SCOTT:      Well, I, I’m not trying to make fun of anybody that’s bought a completely dry snorkel, but at the end of the day it’s like how can a snorkel stay dry if you go under water? Right. So those little scientific advances that we’ve used to improve on the dive equipment has made it so much more fun to go diving, you know, low volume masks. I remember we used to dive with a half of an aquarium on our face? Now those were scary times.

TEC CLARK:           Right, right, right. That’s awesome. Well, Mark, this has been great.  Please tell folks that are listening how they can connect with SSI. They might not even be on the, I’m not saying that you’re an SSI person, but somebody that wants to learn more about what you guys do and how you do it. Just what would you point him to?

MARK SCOTT:      So I would say, listen, just go to our website, divessi.com.  I would say take your smart device and download the app. It’s absolutely free. Costs you an email address and a little bit about five minutes of time. It’ll give you full access to experience SSI’s, digital materials. Everything that we tell students is in every single page and offering. We’ve got blogs, we’ve got news articles, all of our training centers put their events on there.

MARK SCOTT: And that’s exactly what you’re going to see. The videos are absolutely amazing. We put a blend of things on those videos lists, so it’s like how to use the app better, how to use the website better.  some skill demonstrations and we rotate through that content as well as the videos of the diving experience. So many people don’t know what it’s like to go diving and you can show them a video and say, “this is what the fish do, this is what your buddy’s doing, this is what you’ll see and how it sounds.”

MARK SCOTT:      So it’s just a great way to connect to more information. So, like you said, even if you’re not an SSI professional or a student, even if you don’t have SSI on your radar, it’s still just a great diving information tool. And that’s what we want people to do.

TEC CLARK:           Neat. But clarify it. So someone is not an SSI leader, they can still see your educational materials?

MARK SCOTT:      They absolutely can. So when you download the app, one of the things we’ve encouraged all of our training centers and professionals to understand is we’re giving you free material to show people as an acquisition tool. What brings them in? We’ll usually, it’s fear of the unknown. So we’re going to take our try scuba diving, which is our introductory to scuba experience. We’re going to take scuba diver, which is the first three chapters of the open water manual.

MARK SCOTT:      We’re going to give them a try free diving and snorkeling. Now a lot of people and professionals especially will make fun of us because we emphasize snorkeling at SSI. But think about it. There’s seven to 8 million divers on the planet. There’s 15 million snorkelers. So I don’t know which one you want to try to sell to and capture, but snorkeling is a great entry tool. Also our scuba ranger program for eight, nine year olds, you have about a 90% conversion rate for those folks. Those young kids going into the junior open water diver program and they’re not just going to come by themselves. They’re going to bring their friends, their siblings, their parents, their aunts, uncles, they’re probably born into a diving family anyway. So the materials really help you acquire new students and you can share those things. Everything’s connected to Facebook and Twitter and you can say, “I’m going to do a scuba experience. Who wants to come with me?”

MARK SCOTT:      Diving is a buddy sport and it’s so much more fun and community and we are a really fun community to be involved with. We’re so helpful. You know, every time I’d go diving I tried to put my gear together incorrectly and you’d be surprised at how many people offer to help me correct that situation. You know? And it’s, we’re just warm and helpful, friendly people. Yeah. And it was really fun to hang out with.

TEC CLARK:           So yeah, you know, and I think this is remarkable. So people often come to the DEMA show and they are checking out other agencies because they know they might not want to walk into their competitors’ dive center and flip through the manual pages. You guys have done a different approach. I remember, you know, even Doug with his his… 

MARK SCOTT:      Scuba university?

TEC CLARK:           Yes, yes. He would just invite people. Just come, just come and see what we mean and see what our philosophies are.  And so your openness, like SSI’s had a very, very strong openness. And so I think that that’s a really neat thing that to check out the materials and so forth. And this is a great way to dig in. So I will put all of these links that we’ve talked about here on our show notes page. That way people can check that out.  and go right to what it is that you’re talking about.

MARK SCOTT:      Well, the thing I love about being a dive professional is professionals are always learning, And so we do that. We invest the time and the resources to keep up to date with what’s going on.  the things that we study, these are other tools for our toolbox.

MARK SCOTT:      That’s all they are. And you know, one of the things I love about our dealers summits is we get together at the end of every year and we say, “what are our top 10 dive centers or training centers done that made them their top 10?” And then we ask them, “can we share that information?” And this is how we’re getting more students and this is how we’re selling more continuing education. This is a thing that we’ve done to get more conversions from try scuba’s to open water divers. And all of a sudden now when you share that with the entire dive center base with all the professionals, we’re giving you new ideas, we’re giving fresh perspectives and we’re giving you tips that are verifying to work. And that’s one of the greatest things that we’ve seen. All boats rise in the tide and everybody that takes care of scuba diving contributes. I don’t care what agency you’re in, what your passions are. We’re, we’re just diving together.

TEC CLARK:           That’s really cool. Well put. Well thank you so much Mark. This has been a wonderful check-in and I think you’ve enlightened folks onto what you guys are doing here in showcasing. All the best to you and great success to the rest of the show and into 2020 as well.

MARK SCOTT:      Absolutely. Can’t thank you enough for having me.

TEC CLARK:           Thanks Mark.

MARK SCOTT:      Appreciate you Tec.

I love Mark. He is so down to earth. Head on over to the show notes page at scubaguru.com or you can see a transcript of this episode there. You can also link to SSI or visit them at divessi.com or download the app. Check that out. The app is really good by the way. I will also have a link to Cline’s fourth quarter diving survey for you to participate in this important survey that will only take three to four minutes to complete. Please do that.

Thanks For Listening!

Well that’s it for today everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live, and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com. There you can also click on the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care my friends.

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019 NAUI Check-In

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In this episode of The Dive Locker podcast we hear from NAUI’s Director of Training Terrence Tysall of the many happenings in NAUI.

Welcome to the Dive Locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that made you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management, and dive business.

I’m your host Tec Clark. Welcome everyone. In today’s episode, we’re going to have another training agency check-in. Today we’ll hear from Terrence Tysall, Director of Training for NAUI. Now, since it’s been a while since we’ve done a check-in, let me explain it. This is an opportunity for you to hear right from the training agencies themselves on what they’re about as an organization and what new things they’ve got going on. And listen, you don’t have to be a NAUI professional to listen. Don’t switch the dial because you’re not a NAUI professional. In fact, it’s always been my wish that if you’re an instructor or dive pro or a divemaster of one agency, you can learn about other agencies by hearing directly from them, not by listening to rumor mills or from the shop down the street, but by hearing from them on these check-ins.

And so also we had lots of good feedback from the last episode, “Your next class is always your best class.” It seemed like that episode resonated with many of you out there. We got lots of likes and shares from that one and that’s really cool because I know many of you have the same quality mindset as I do and we share that together, so keep it up. That’s awesome. I like to see that and keep up the likes and the shares as well of these episodes. So without any further ado, let’s hear from Terrence Tysall for the NAUI check in.

TEC CLARK:           Well Terrence, here we are at the NAUI check-in at DEMA 2019 it’s so good to have you on the Dive Locker. How are you doing?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              I’m good Tec. Thanks a bunch. I appreciate you having us.

TEC CLARK:           Yeah. Well tell us about this. You know, NAUI check in. It’s your opportunity to tell us what’s going on in NAUI, but I want to start with right off the bat, what makes NAUI different from all of the training agencies that are out there?

 TERRENCE TYSALL:             Two things spring to mind. Immediately. The first one, of course, hearkening back to our bylaws in which we have enshrined what we refer to as the loved one concept. And this is a written contract, a document in our bylaws that, States that we would not certify anybody at any level, whether it’s leadership or lower, unless we would be willing to have those people dive with our loved ones at the same level as an equal body. So it’s super important to us.

TEC CLARK:           Right. I remember it well. That’s when I, you know, went through my first instructor training in that was the whole level that we measured upon and the entire instructor training course group would have to feel that way about everybody going through that led to such unification in who was coming through and who was getting certified. That was a really important tenet of what it meant to be a NAUI pro. And, and that’s the first thing you say is one of the differences. Would I trust this person to teach a loved one to dive. I think that that is a really great, great hallmark.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Yeah. Or even more importantly, even at that, even at the most basic open water level, would you trust that person to be a buddy? Or, the loved one of yours. And that’s just, and again, it’s in our DNA I guess. And then I guess the second thing is, is it’s funny, it’s hard to even visualize from outside, but in NAUI there’s this vaunted concept of instruction or academic freedom, which means when you have a basic set of standards that you adhere to that then past that, as long as the students know in advance and you’ve explained it, then you can take that course and teach it to the next level.

TERRENCE TYSALL: And you with your, you know, with your training experience, you know that, I mean, it’s a, I’ve been real fortunate in my life to, to train a lot of technical things and then train multiple years at universities where you can get an open water student for a semester. So it’s, it’s just wonderful. And, I think that’s important in today’s culture because I mean, we’re members of the RSTC and it’s so frustrating to hear of the norm now as a two day scuba course or four days scuba course. And we can’t do that. That’s just, yeah, it’s tough.

TEC CLARK:           Yeah. I think those are really remarkable. the academic freedom thing has been, you know, something that is, is, is highly celebrated amongst NAUI instructors worldwide. and you know, this has been from the beginning, you know, you guys have been on that, and part of those bylaws since, since the inception back in what, 1960?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              It’s, yeah, it’s our 60th anniversary this year. 60th anniversary. That’s pretty amazing.

TEC CLARK:           Yeah. All right, so we’re hitting 60 years right now. You’re at the show, you’ve got a wonderful booth. the booth was packed when I was just there to visit you. Tell us what you got going on. What are some of the new things?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Well now I’m always going to view things through my, fairly biased viewpoint of, of course, training as the training director. So, the entire agency, the whole organization, I mean we’re a membership based organization. We’re a legitimate 501c3. We’re the only one of the large or any of the agencies to be a not for profit. And that’s important to us too. It’s a member based organization. So our job is to walk that tight rope of servicing our members this amazingly eclectic blend of instructional styles and all that and get this organization moving forward.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              So I, I tend to gravitate towards things from training. I mean obviously the booth is wonderful. Our marketing team is, has just knocked it out of the park with that. all of the staff, whether it’s the ladies that are normally on the phone but are now, they’re in the booth answering questions and helping people resolve problems. And then of course, again, the, you know, the guys that are in the back shipping stuff. I mean, it’s such a neat team. we’ve got our, you know, our financial guys are our IT guys, everybody, all, everybody’s everyday comes to work with this mission of, “Hey, how can we service our members?” So the exciting things to me initially, and of course the team has really changed. We’ve had some pretty profound leadership changes in the last almost a rotational basis in the last decade. We’re, we’re hitting some stability and I think we’re getting key personnel positions filled that are going to anchor us for the next decade.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              I mean, we’re sitting in a room next to somebody I hope succeeds me someday. And I hope that the two that I have working with me in the training department are there long after I’ve moved on. But more tangible, one of the first things that comes to mind is in the rebranding and repackaging of our, of our basic level course materials, everything from, the open water class through, two of our freediver levels. We have eight new tecs in the last year. And, there I think the repackaged, I think they flow better. I think they certainly are refreshing and bright looking. And, then in that journey, I’m looking over at Chris laughing, is because in that journey we discovered always trying to vet our materials against the, the touchstones of our industries, such as the U S Navy diving manual, the NOAA diving program, all that.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              sure enough, we found out that our, our tables were not in some cases, as conservative as the new Navy rev seven. And again, you know, you kind of wish, “Oh, why did we look under this rock?” But we did. And then what can we do? We ha we owe it to the membership and our, and our people to see that through. So we had to redesign NAUI dive tables that had been around, I want to say since the 90s, early nineties. And so we incorporated the new a US Navy revision seven stuff in that did 80% of those no decompression times. And, and it just sounds so simple in two sentences, but it took us weeks and weeks and of course, editing. So the books, the new tables are certainly the most updated in the industry. And, and then of course a, a concept that I’m, it’s super near and dear to my heart and I know yours is, is technical training.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              And NAUI was the first of the major organizations to sanction it. And, then I, I think we in our drive for quality and you know, that educational purity and then just leadership styles. I don’t think in previous decades, I mean this is the thirty year of, you know, event with NAUI with tech or more, I don’t know if it was always the priority that, that of course people that are tech interested would like. So yeah, I think a, I think this year the board made a super courageous decision for us to, to do a new alignment with our tech programs. Within the next year, we’re hoping to have updated materials for those. And I think NAUI tech is gonna hopefully be in that preeminent position again where it was.

TEC CLARK:           Oh, that’s great to hear. That’s outstanding. Yeah. You mentioned the dive tables we got into, I was just teaching a course and it was funny to bounce from the and then the Navy and to watch which ones leapfrogging first and who comes out and then all of a sudden one gets ready and it’s going to print and then here comes the next one and it’s never consistent. And so I then when you plug in and you look at the agencies like yourself that are taking US Navy and backing off, that has to change. So I, I applaud that. I think that that is a super responsible way to say, “yep, the only thing that’s constant is change.” And so it’s inevitable and you’re rightfully doing that. I think that’s wonderful.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Yeah. We had a, we were, I think we’re on rev six of the NOAA manual now and of course, rev seven of the U S Navy diving manual. So, and again, as you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not passe yet, but certainly most people are using other, other table bases in their computers, whether it’s RGBM or, or you know, a VPM or whichever of the, them decompression models. But still in the, at the end of the day, if the electronics fail, you, we need our students from all agencies to be able to reach into that pocket and be able to still use those tables and feel confident with them. So.

TEC CLARK:           That’s fantastic. And you also mentioned the board that the board is driving a lot of the decisions of, you know, where you’re heading and things like that. Tell us about that. I think that that is another unique thing about NAUI, as you mentioned earlier in the 501c3 status and, and so forth. tell us what kind of, a strong point that is when the board can collectively come together to help drive the mission forward and, and all, how, how does that work?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Well, it’s, it’s neat. I mean, it’s almost like in, I’m going to be just teased mercilessly for this, but it’s almost as if our country has caught up with, with, with NAUI. And what I mean by that is, is I mean it’s democracy in action. You know, this isn’t a big corporation owned by some other big corporation or anything like that. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a, this isn’t an insult to any other traditionally organized companies, but this is a nine member group with international advisors, of, from all around the world. Cause effectively half of our businesses is outside of the United States and growing rapidly. And we have, I want to say it’s 16 representatives just in Europe alone. So it’s this diverse group, you know, different languages, different cultures all coming together for this passion about diving and to set those strategic goals for the corporation, which then we that are fortunate enough to work for NAUI on a day to day basis, try to turn that into a tangible policy and then execute it. So it’s, it’s really, it’s, it’s, we’re, we’re super lucky.

TEC CLARK:           That’s fantastic. Excellent. Let’s talk about freediving, the NAUI free diving program launched under PFI. lots of really cool things there. I’ve been tracking that. and you know, I’m a passionate freediver myself. So, that was really neat to see. Has anything changed now with the freediving program with the change in, in ownership, if you will, with PFI? Does that, does that influence anything?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              It  doesn’t, enter, it doesn’t change our training strategy whatsoever. I mean, you know, this is such a, a small and hopefully mutually respected, you know, industry which we’re in and, and this is where, TDI SDI, since they’ve acquired PFI, we just literally sat down with the, the two entities and had some groups because we knew that would come up at DEMA. And so it’s just, I mean, that’s the thing that, that I think people don’t realize is most of the heads of these organizations at one point or another, we’ve sat in each other’s presence and had one on one conversations and it’s, it’s really nice. So as I’m a obviously training guy, not necessarily a business guy, so I may be a tad naive, but, everybody that, with the new acquisition of PFI has been super, flexible with us.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              And so what we’re going to do is we’re going to continue offering our NAUI, freediver programs effectively, the same courses, but we’re going to make sure that the branding is NAUI only rather than that NAUI PFI Alliance and since that contract is, is expired and they’ve moved on to other things, we’re gonna, you know, we support them. And, and the biggest thing from NAUI’s standpoint in the training department is we just want responsible, freediving out there and cause like you, I just love freediving. It was my first form of diving. It was my, my, I still, it’s still, despite the caves and the deep wrecks and all that, it’s still, I think that the purest form and my favorite because it’s just, you know, so. And I think it’s going to be such an exciting time and freediving.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              And I, it’s so funny, I, this industry wants to pit them against each other, but to me they’re so intertwined that at some point a freediver’s going to want to try scuba and vice versa. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to be that elegant gliding animal going head down into the dark? Exactly. Cause we are, we are mammals. Yeah.

TEC CLARK:           That’s awesome. Good to hear that. So tell everybody how they can follow you and you know, how, how do pros keep up with what NAUI’s got going on?

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Well, I mean obviously we’ll, we’ll go the step over the line and say, well, just become a member. That’s one of the greatest way. We’d love to have everybody do it. And we don’t mind if you’re a member of another organization because most of those organizations in one way, shape or form in their lifetime were an offshoot of NAUI, and so, the neat thing is, all of the major social media outlets and platforms are going to have a NAUI  presence.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              if you find one that we haven’t, you know, then let us know. And there’s of course, the good old, telephone. And then our website, which is a just very simple NAUI dot org. Now that’s a great way to do it. But yeah, we have a marketing department that is on it. We have, the Sources blog of course, that used to be our classic magazine or journal. And now that’s in a blog form, which is really nice. And like most organizations, we’re probably just a striving to keep pace with the latest, developments in social media because they change so rapidly. Yeah. What’s, what’s neat is, with our, change of direction in Europe now, the individual, representatives and, areas in inside individual countries, also have their, individual social media presence for NAUI in each of those regions.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              So whether it’s NAUI Croatia, Romania or, or on and on. So yeah, there’s a variety of, of NAUI source information there.

TEC CLARK:           That’s interesting. Yeah, that would be really beneficial for the different markets that you have there. Well, I’ll, we’ll put these links in the show notes page so that people can, touch base with you all. Thanks so much for this time and the NAUI update. it looks like you’re doing some really great things on that show floor. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful DEMA show and we’ll check in with you next year.

TERRENCE TYSALL:              Thanks Tec, I appreciate it. Thanks for letting us talk. I mean it’s, we love what we do.

Would you trust this person to teach a loved one to dive. Well, I can’t tell you how many times I had to answer that question as a NAUI instructor trainer because it was just something that we had to do in instructor training courses and I always thought that that was really an awesome filter to go through to become a NAUI instructor. I thought that was really, really cool because you know, it wasn’t about how that someone’s going to get blackballed because a person doesn’t like the way they parted their hair. No, it was truly, truly “would you trust this person to teach a loved one of yours to dive?” And when you have to answer that question, it comes really quick whether or not you say yes or no because – I don’t know about you, but I’m only going to turn over people that I truly trust and respect to be able to teach a loved one of mine to dive.

So I just thought that was a great filter and I’m glad Terrence described that here, in this check-in. So thanks so much. Hey, you know, you can go over to the show notes page over at scubaguru.com where you can find a transcript of this episode and there you can also see a link to NAUI or visit them directly at NAUI.org.

Thanks For Listening!

That’s it for today everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care my friends.

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Welcome to ScubaGuru.com!  The ScubaGuru brand is dedicated to giving dive professionals tools and techniques to be GREAT LEADERS – leaders in the classroom, leaders underwater, and leaders in their diving businesses.  With unique leadership skill-sets, the dive professional can create:

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