The biggest difference between an instructor and an advanced Instructor is that you will not only give open water scuba courses, but you will also be able to conduct independent continued courses like Advanced, Rescue and Divemaster courses.
To become an FCOA Advanced Scuba Instructor you need to have
- completed your FCOA Lead Coach rating
- certified at least one FCOA COACH
- certified at least one FCOA Nitrox diver
- certified at least one FCOA Oxygen administrator.
- certified at least 5 FCOA scuba divers
- given at least one Advanced course under supervision with minimum help
- given at least one Rescue Course under supervision with minimum help
- given at least one Divemaster Course under supervision with minimum help
To become an CMAS ADVANCED INSTRUCTOR (Or M2 or 2 star Instructor) with CMAS Philippines
- You need to be an CMAS M1 Instructor
- You need to have certified a certain number of open water students. (Between 5 and 25, this requirement is not in writing and varies over time).
- You need to pay a certain amount between 50.000 php and 1500 php, the amount depends on various factors like: are you in a region where CMAS is not yet represented, are you also an Advanced Instructor with another agency, your patience, your negotiation skills.
- The licensee has no expiration date on it and is valid for life. CMAS might ask you to pay 1500php per year when you haven't certified anyone. As long as you certify 1 person per year they wave the membership fee.
The Advanced course is an experienced based program. This means there are no skills that require mastery. We recommend our members to undergo advanced training right after their open water course and panic proofing dive, so that from that point onwards they can fine tune their new practiced skills.
TIPS ON HOW TO CONDUCT CONTINUED COURSES :
FOR THE 5 DIVES OF ADVANCED:
1. Peak performance buoyance:
- Provide a safe and shallow sandy patch for students to practice.
- Don't allow student to move arms or legs during the hover.
2. Navigation
- A good briefing is half the work. Make sure to do all navigation exercises first on land before doing them in the water.
- Let the student lead the dive, if you lead the dive, you deprive them of the navigation practice.
3. Deep
- Either make them do the deep dive quiz or do it with them. They should be aware and briefed on the additional risks.
- They should have looked up the No Decompression Time for their planned depth.
- Any depth between 18 and 25 meter can be logged as a deep dive.
- Monitor their behavior and air consumption.
4. Search and Recovery
- Make sure to do all search patterns first on land before doing them in the water.
- Tell the student there is a missing object, for example a weight belt, but don't place it in advance. You don't want them to find the object to early when they had no chance to practice the search patters. You also don't want them to search for a very long time when they have already proven mastery. Just drop the item in their path when they have proven mastery.
- Swim above their compass and correct them right away when they are of by more than 3 degrees. Students don't learn much from doing things wrong for prolonged times. It would cost a lot of time. So if they are about to head in the wrong direction correct them right away for efficiency.
5. Drift
- Let the student refresh on Tidal forcasting in FCOA lesson 3 "Navigation.
- Let them deploy the SMB 2 or 3 times while in hover. They don't have to master it, but it's good to keep offering those learning moments and to keep repeating this skill development. It's a skill that takes repetition to master.
- Make them also take in the SMB, pulling it down and storing it, all in the hover. This can get practiced every dive, the safety stop is an ideal moment to practice this.
RESCUE
- When it comes to exciting an unconscious diver. This does not need mastery because for a small diver it might be impossible a heavy victim in to the boat or on to the beach. They simple have to show that they understand and can execute various techniques to get a unconscious diver out of the water. But don't allow them to get hurt or hurt the victim by pushing to hard.
- When we surface unconscious divers we should practice it at an accent speed of 10 meter per minute, not faster. First of all, this will make them more aware of their speed. And since we practice 4 different ways, it's good to go up slow to reduce decompression risk. If it be real, they could spend up to 20 meters per minute. Not more.
- Make very clear that the most important thing to do when surfacing an unconscious diver is to keep his airway open. If you don't you could cause him lung damage. This is a big difference compared to black out response on freedivers where we move as fast as possible not having to worry about lung overexpansion or decompression sickness.
- Don't certify students to early, be very clear what exactly you still expect from them. Once the said expectations have been met you should certify them the same day.
DIVEMASTER
Personality development:
Training divemasters is different from giving other courses, because now you are teaching them to teach. This requires a close and honest bond. At times it also requires discussions on how we are perceived by our students and how to optimize that. The biggest difference might be that you won't tell someone that they are badly dressed of have a bad smelling breath when they do open water, advance and rescue, but once they are divemasters in training you have to bring it up that their bad breath might shy away future students from talking to them or that the way they dress in and out of the water maybe makes clients wonder how professional they really are. The bad breath can be used as metaphor for character trades that can get optimized. Character traits to examine are:
- Talking to much, it's all about them
- Talking to little, not connecting as much as they could with clients and students
- Not able to admit mistakes
- Always wanting to be right
- Always wanting to have the last word.
- Not properly listening to clients/students
- Not properly answering questions of clients/students. Or giving answers that don't Match the question
- Being over superstitious (Procedures before prayers), when a problem occurs, it should get dealt with in a procedural fashion without delays caused by prayers. We can pray after we have completed all our procedures'.
- Giving non factual information.
When you comment on certain of those character traits it's good to distinguish if your observation is personal or factual. In the beginning the student might argue that there is something wrong about your observation or the way you feel about them. Eventually they have to learn to say "Thank you for you feedback" and they should realize that when you observe something less ideal, others are likely to observe the same.
Encourage students to comment on your character trades also. Don't be a god, don't pretend to be all knowing. Admit when you make mistakes and praise them and thank them for noticing your mistakes so that you can also grow. It makes the process more human.
Waterwork
- First repeat the rescue training
- Practice the 20 kills and all other skills at demonstration style.
- Do a 3 part role play before allowing them to teach DSD's
- Make sure they are very close to their students at all times. Most dive masters in training are further away then needed.
- Over and over point out how much safer it is to practice shallow instead of deep.
Reading materials
https://www.thehumandiver.com
Conduct of the Advanced course:
