It is sink or swim time. 
In the last month, I have moved from team teaching and assisting Anna into taking complete charge of my own classes. And it was a scary break to make. However in the spirit of my entire diving career to date, I tried not to think how nervous I was/am and am instead channelling all my energy into preparation and planning.
I have recently completed an Open Water course.
I quite enjoy teaching this course and am feeling comfortable with the way I teach. In fact, evening pool sessions are one of my favorite days of the week.
This weekend, I have an Advanced Open Water course – and with being on Pacific Hideaway for the weekend and out at the Poor Knights, I know I have all the equipment I need and most of the dive plans have been completed.
But I was not 100% prepared to teach my first Rescue Diver course.
And I spent a lot of time preparing for it.
Perhaps I could have done more.
The course was scheduled to have one night and one morning in the classroom.
Each of the student divers had previously completed their First Aid and CPR course (which is good because I need to complete my EFR Instructor course).
We all watched the Rescue Diver DVD and answered the Knowledge Review sections – and I had planned to lead the students through discussions that would be applicable to their environments. Two of my students were travellers – one as a seaman on board a yacht so not every situation that might occur in New Zealand would be relevant for them.
Nervous at first, but I was pleased that I had also reviewed the Rescue Diver student manual and knew the skills descriptions and key places where other groups had gotten stuck.
There is also one evening pool session and one afternoon. The main worry for me was that I would be able to understand the performance requirements, complete the briefing and the demonstrations in time and that everyone would complete all their tasks in the time that we had available. I completed as much as I could the first night – including time to see what level their skills were out and how comfortable they were in the water and I also used ‘Open Season’ to have the whole group participate in some scenarios to see how they coped under pressure. On Saturday afternoon, I had AnnaR as a divemaster and that was a lot easier! We completed scenarios and had time to repeat them and the team dealt with pretty much everything we threw at them.
By Sunday, our scheduled Open Water scenario day, I was even more comfortable with the course and the way that I was running it but even more importantly; with how my students were mastering the skills and knowledge.
We made our way out to Matheson Bay on Sunday morning to find several groups of divers.
Anna and I had driven up together and we had run through all the required scenarios. I planned to combine the open water dives into 2 dives – 1 & 2 and then 3 & 4. We also threw a couple of gnarly ones at them through the day – including feeling sick before diving – to see that they were always paying attention.
The day went well!
We completed our debriefing and logging of dives at the pub in Matakana – and I came home with a light dusting of colour on my face. And a couple of ideas about what to do better next time, which is the way I like it.
I enjoy the challenge of completing something new – and the rush of doing the job, and doing it well, but always taking a learning home.