Too Old, Too Fat, Too Young, Too Thin?

One of the questions I often get from prospective interns is whether I think they are too old / too fat / too young / too thin / too whatever to be an instructor or divemaster. It’s an interesting question and one that, potentially, a troublesome one to answer.

Naturally, as a company that sells diving instructor courses, we are interested in getting customers, so the natural answer is “no, most certainly not!” And, in fact, that answer has been true in every case in which I’ve had to answer the question. In the past two years, we’ve had interns as old as 51 (with another age 61 about to start) and interns who by their own admission are very overweight. We’ve had a couple that started with us at age 17 and some that have been maybe 90 pounds soaking wet.

And, in fact, the combination of our Personalized Training System and the PADI system of instruction really make it possible for every motivated person to reach their goal of becoming a PADI Professional. That’s not to say it will be as easy for those in the “too much” category as it is for a fit, muscular 25-year-old guy. Nor can it be assured that these “too much” instructors will be as good. But they certainly will be safe and competent.

So this week we were presented with our first real challenge in the form of a new female intern who embodies the term “slight.” Laura is a very thin vegetarian woman from northern Canada. She came to us as an Advanced Open Water Diver with only 10 dives. We started her off with just diving to get used to her new gear, the environment and simply to build up experience and confidence. This week she started her Rescue Diver course.

Now Rescue Diver is a challenging course for anyone. Laura and Ed, another recent male intern, did their course together. He’s a hearty guy but tomorrow he’s taking a day off. He’s beat. It’s a demanding course with two days of skills and scenarios. You’re towing divers. You’re “rescuing” people acting as panicked divers. It’s not only the physical demands, but the mental fatigue of getting the rescue breathing done on time while removing equipment while towing them back to the boat. It’s a lot of work.

It was also the first time in our intern program that a student didn’t pass the first day. For Laura, it was just a bit too much. And while PADI allowed her to take the course at her stage of development, it also seems it was a bit soon. She nailed the academics, but she’s got to spend some more time building up her dive strength and stamina.

Now if Laura had gone and taken the Rescue Diver course alone at some dive center, she’d have failed. The money would be gone. Thanks very much. Come back again.

In an Aquanauts internship, that’s not the case. IDC Staff Instructor Bob Scull, who was working one-on-one with her, sat her down and gave her a good counseling session. He identified where she needed to focus and then we drafted a plan for her to work with other interns to practice those skills and then be re-evaluated by not the instructor, but one of our Course Directors. She’ll be getting the best evaluation on how to continue.

Fast forward to today. “She was like a different person,” Scull said. Both skills and confidence were improved markedly because we had taken the time to work with her as an individual, not just push her through to the next step on the Instructor Assembly Line.

Time will tell whether Laura’s got the physical strength to go all the way. It’s certainly not going to be easy for her. But she’s excited and motivated and so are we. We’ll keep you updated over the next four months on her progress.