Under Pressure

Continuing on from the AI section of the IDC

The OWSI Section of an IDC is delivered by a Course Director, in our case Clive Albon (CD#59733).

Clive, Florian & Michelle

Laura and Pika have a flat warming party this is where we all meet Clive as Dave had picked him up straight from the airport, I have another early night and had only lemonade at the party.

Clive took over where Dave left off, going through the presentations from the Candidate workbook, drilling us continually for knowledge reviews and taking the micro teaching further with the sessions on prescriptive teaching.

We where each given two prescriptive teaching topics to do in class, two open water subjects to teach and two confined water teaching subjects.

Clive took us to the lovely heated pool again and went through the complete skill circuit again, Clive made me redo CESA a good few times as usual it was my weakest skill to demonstrate, I really do not like CESA (after a few attempts at CESA I eventually scored 90 overall, which was a relief).

We then done our first confined water teaching presentations, I cant remember which one I had but it was one of the timed ones for sixty seconds, I had Florian and Mike (Mike put the AAS in upside down and I didn’t even spot it at first) both do it but I failed to time it correctly and scored a overall one due to not meeting standards (one of the breathing from an Alternative Air Source skills – stationary for 30 seconds), a harsh blow for my confidence however I would rather score a one on the IDC than at the IE. Must remember as an Instructor demonstrating the skill you don’t need to do it for the time but the students must do it.

Clive then went through alternative ways to demo the unresponsive diver on the bottom and the unresponsive diver on the surface, we all had a few attempts at these with varying degrees of success, even more off putting when people are counting in Swiss and Austrian as I try to concentrate on my own counts.

Back to the classroom to do our prescriptive teaching using each other as students (we eat all of Dave’s precious Yorkie chocolate now).

I write this from memory so may have missed bits out…

Prescriptive Teaching: Laura, Rina, Michelle, Me & Florian

Introduction (Tell them what your going to tell them): Contact (something non diving), Topic, Value, relevance to student, relate to local diving, relate to actual diving. “Turn to page…. highlight, take notes ask questions”

Body (tell them it): Key points, Teach subject matter from manuals, slides or official material, use training aids (more points scored for non diving training aid, use maps to illustrate planning i.e dive tables – interact with the students) Sell a related continuing education programme (remember to tell them availability, how many dives and how long it will take) and some dive gear (i.e a computer).

“In Summary” (the magic words, tell them what you told them) : Key points, value, check they got it, relate to actual dive they will do so give value to what they are learning, sell the con ed and the kit.

Dave told me to chill a bit, Clive said I was manic, they both said they have never had to tell somebody to slow down and try not to sell so much stuff before…….

Anyway I scored well enough 4.4, good enough to get to and pass the IE.

Another couple of days of Presentations, knowledge reviews & evening study, knot tying sessions and with Clive going over everything making sure we all learned, learned and learned.

At a few points there where some clashes of personalities between Clive and us, it was obvious he wanted us to pass and wanted us performing well but sometimes he just rubbed us up a bit the wrong way.

If I didn’t know better I would have thought that during the ethical standards presentations he even took joy in showing us that there is no mention of an instructor being polite and courteous …..

Back to the lovley warm pool for more rescue practice and more confined water teaching presentations, this time everything goes smoothly for me and I score a five (maximum points)

We do another Prescriptive teaching session and this time I score a 4.8 (Roving diver survey technique), so I start feeling good about this IE thing coming up soon.

Out to open water for a couple of dives, the Open water teaching presentations and an adventure dive workshop.

Dive 248: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 35 Minutes.

I gave my briefings on the mask partial flood and the Search and Recovery, two two half hitches knot exercise I had.

In we all go, taking turns at being DM, Instructor or students, (why did I write DM first? maybe its still the most important role to me…) helping each other out by not making things hard for each other is about all we can do.

Typically Clive gave the students errors to put into the skills and you have to spot them, stop them, make sure the student is no no danger especially from buoyancy and air skills, are they blowing bubbles, are they putting too much air in, have they spat the regulator out. Watch for this one at strange times, hover with no reg in anybody? Mask remove and replace with reg spat out, oh boy but these things will all happen in real life, is the alternate air source the right way up?

Florian seems to have forget he is meant to be getting one of us to rig the lifting bag and make the anchor neutrally buoyant, no he is just having fun…. comedy.

It gets cold in 17oC water sitting about watching people do skills…

After a short surface interval we head under again for our Adventure dive workshop dive.

Dive 249: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 20 Minutes.

Utilising the roving diver survey technique and with fish slates and blank slates for marking up the rough numbers we had split into buddy teams, Rina and I see some fish, mark them up, continue round the small rocks and reef marking down what we see. The Buddy teams all meet up at the bottom of the buoy line after twenty minutes and Florian unties the buoy, we all swim back to shore.

Back to the Esperanza and the Scuba Med Dive Centre , we do our debriefs and Clive tells me I scored well in my open water teaching presentations, I think a 4.5 and a 4.3 but cant in truth remember.

The Pricing workshop is interesting and makes me worried that I dont think I would ever be able to afford to do this on my own, I do need to find some friendly dive centres back home to work with otherwise the overheads would be far too much.

We go over more Presentations and knowledge reviews, sit the theory exams, I pass them all but once again scrape the Physics and Physiology ones with 75% and a 82%, the others are all 92%+, technically they should all be 100% but I blame the warm weather, long hours and lack of alcohol, Ive been here nearly ten days and havent been out on a session once, hey I must be taking this seriously……

….Its Thursday the IE starts tomorrow (Friday May 3rd) and the IDC is finished, time to rectify that non drinking situation…

We all head out via the donner king for a kebab (poor Mike, he hasn’t had a kebab in his life now ten days with us lot and he has had three…. I hate to think what his poor partner will think when he gets home with a kebab addiction, watch out for a kebab van at 8 acre lake!) A few beers at Cafe Pris, the Red Lion to watch the Kareoke and then off to Charly’s for some games of pool and a giggle downstairs at the dance floor, I stumble from Charly’s around 3am heading for the Flamenco..

It was good to see the Alexei (The RSM), Luchi, Patric, Stuchy, KitKat and a few more of last years faces out and about, I do like Can Picafort, its a fun wee place.

Friday Morning the IDC is over but we take the opportunity to do the new PADI Emergency Oxygen Provider Speciality Instructor course.

Lots of fun, we finally, I think, all bond with Clive and realise that he does actually care very much that we do well, we call each other ambulances, all do the skills for the O2, we go through the instructor course for it including the marketing and pricing workshops and its actually a nice course, the books for it have got great illustrations and nice snippets of information.

Friday evening we all pack the van full of everything we can find (I mean everything! plastic fish, staples, giant wheels, drysuits, bottles full of sand, dive gear, cylinders etc etc, the kitchen sink…. to go to Santa Ponsa for the IE.

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