My core approach as an instructor is to value patience and guided self-discovery. That means, letting students take the lead and allowing them to make mistakes, because acknowledging and learning from errors is how we build safe and competent divers. For instance, in open water courses, I give students lots of supervised time to simply swim around and experiment on their own, before giving feedback on buoyancy and trim. We're going to have honest discussions about the risks involved in diving and any deficiencies students may have when it comes to skills. However, those conversations will always be constructive and open.

For example, when practicing running lines in a cavern class, I let students who encounter issues (e.g., jammed reels, line entanglement) attempt to solve them on their own, and discuss later what worked (and didn’t) about their chosen approach. We either figure out the issues students have in class (and tailor the course to address them), or develop a plan for folks to improve outside of the course and come back to try again.

Some instructors, and some agencies, teach that there's one “right” way to dive. That has, historically, limited the number and type of people who want to engage with diving, creates unsafe divers when students feel forced into emulating instructors or procedures that don't work for them, and impedes learning when students don't feel comfortable asking questions and expressing concerns. Different people learn in different ways.

When teaching a class, I demonstrate multiple ways to approach a skill - whether that’s mask-clearing, running and tying off a line, or planning for redundancy in deep dives. There are very few topics in diving that can't be grappled through multiple approaches; “Doing It Right” (DIR) is one approach that works for many divers, but it’s not the only one. I welcome (and teach) different perspectives and different ways of doing things. It’s always okay to ask questions, or express when certain equipment or skills don’t work for you; we can discuss alternatives or ways to modify those, safely.

To that end, my classes are less procedural and drill-focused, and take a more holistic approach, in setting realistic scenarios for students to work through - whether that’s something basic like a tour of Catfish Hotel (for open water students) or more advanced, like simulating a lost line for a cavern class.

Finally, we're in an area with a number of "old school” instructors, where they can be a lot of egos, politics and short tempers; some instructors take a drill sergeant or bootcamp approach, and believe that yelling and “breaking down” the student is the way to build good divers; I fundamentally disagree with this approach. Yelling and berating a student is never acceptable.

I trust that students in my courses want to be here, and come to class motivated to become good safe divers. Our job together is to focus that towards developing both the technical and “soft” skills that divers need to dive safely and comfortably. I look forward to hearing about your diving goals, and our time learning together.