Instructing Sub Aqua Trainees For The First Time

Scuba Diving is one of the very best and exciting outdoor sports there is. You can get the best experiences to be had from the sea for many years if you stay fit and healthy. If your training is not the very best however there is always the risk that the undforseen can develop into a dangerous incident.

Only a few people are killed each year diving. When the statistics are reviewed it seems that most of these could have been prevented if the casualty had known what to do - or not to do. Diver training by the popular agencies including the British Sub Aqua Club, the Sub Aqua Association and the Professional Association of Diving Instructors and many others is of a very high standard. This includes the excellent standard of training given to instructors in order to pass on the training to students. The trouble is that a few training agencies do not insist on such high levels of safety and even some of the best can occasionally miss the underperformace of one or two of their instructors.

When a new diver approaches a club or school wanting to learn to dive this is the optimum time for instilling the safety ethos. A fresh canvas is always ready to absorb a culture of safety first whereas an old self taught hand has bad habits that are difficult to change.

Every lesson will begin with a briefing, whether it is a dry practical lesson on land, the first sheltered water session probably in a swimming pool or an open water training session in the sea. The briefing itself will commence with a number of safety aspects, such as fitness to dive and safety issues relating to the skills being taught and the diving site being used. When learning to remove a regulator underwater it may seem obvious but a student is warned to hold their breath for a short while until it is replaced! Safety warnings may seem like overkill at times and may be repeated but they do have the desired effect.

Teaching skills are important, especially for new students waiting like sponges to absorb all the new knowledge you have to give them. Skills are best learned when demonstrated in small bits before putting them together for the complete procedure. Every discrete part of a diving skill can be taught in a safe way, such that the sudent carries it out safely. By starting with small chunks and building up this is more easily achievable.


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Mark Jenner is a British Sub Aqua Club dive leader and enjoys teaching sub aqua. He has dived abroad a number of times and enjoys writing about his cold water diving experiences.