10 Things You Can Do to Make Your IDC Easier

Here are a few tips to help you get through you Instructor Development Course. These are not tips to do when you arrive. They are to help you prepare BEFORE you arrive. Many candidates arrive unprepared and can struggle through the course. The PADI IDC is not a course where you are taught the basics again, there simply will not be time. It is a course where you learn to teach. Here are some tips that will make your IDC easier.

PADI assumes that you retained everything that you have learnt in your previous courses, Open Water Course, Advanced Open Water Course, Rescue Course and Divemaster course.

The IDC is not the time to learn how to do your dive tables again, learn to navigate or do the CESA again. Your PADI Course Director and PADI believe that you have retained the information you learnt previously. Most of the tips below you have learnt previously. Having to relearn them during you IDC adds undue stress to a course that already challenging enough.

Take the time to prepare BEFORE you arrive on day one of your PADI Instructor Development course. You will have a much more enjoyable course and minimize the risk of not passing.

1. Get your head around physics

Of all the things I have seen drag an IDC candidate down is Physics.It would be the #1 topic that IDC Candidates struggle with. Some candidates get nervous even saying the word physics. If you were not very good at Physics at high school/college, then you will most likely be the same at your IDC. Take the time to get your head around it. Work through the Dive Knowledge Workbook, ask you Course Director for some practice exams and talk to any instructors you may know. If you only do one thing, get your head around physics.

2. Make sure you can hover

Believe it or not, there are a lot of candidates come to an IDC and cannot hover. The IDC is not the place to find out you cannot or forgotten how to hover. After all, you did learn it in your Open Water Course, gone through it again in your Advance Open Water Course and should have been proficient in your PADI Divemaster course. Before your IDC try to make to time to practice your hover and most of the other basic skills. A really good way to do this is to try and assist on a PADI Open Water Course and practice the skills with the students.

3. Open your instructor manual

You received a PADI Instructor Manual in the crew pack for your Divemaster Course. PADI expect you to know your way around the manual or at least taken it out of the plastic. It can be downloaded free in digital format off the PADI Pro site. Take the time to go through it and try and understand it. You do not need to read it from cover to cover, but get you head around the format of it.

4. Remember to proper PADI terminology

You will be doing presentations in front of PADI examiners. In all the PADI courses, PADI refers to the yellow object attached to your BCD as an Alternate Air Source. Not an occy or octopus or the secondary regulator. Confined water is not the pool and Open Water is not the sea. Your life as a dive instructor will be easier if you use the same terminology as in the manual and PADI Videos. Your PADI Examiner will be more impressed if you do too.

5. Complete the Dive Knowledge Workbook

Probably one of the driest books you will ever read. But hey, it will make your IDC a lot easier. Just work through it and get it done before you arrive. It will be worth it in the end.

6. Work through your previous course manuals

Have a browse through your previous manuals. Try to remember the course structure and work through the knowledge reviews again. Your classroom presentation questions come from these manuals. It can be embarrassing to not know the answer from the Open Water Course. If you have the time, try and watch the PADI DVDs for each course. You will be surprised how much you may have forgotten.

7. Understand decompression sickness

Truly try and understand decompression sickness. Understand the different types, symptoms and causes. DCS is not just about going to the surface too quickly. Understanding DCS will not only make your IDC easier but make you a safer instructor.

8. Know the difference between an adventure dive and a specialty dive

Again a terminology thing. You will be talking a lot about the PADI Advanced Open Water Course in your classroom presentations. It is sweet music to your Course Directors ears if you get this terminology correct.

The PADI Advanced Open Water course has five adventure dives. Yes, these are the same dives as the corresponding PADI Specialties.

However, when doing an PADI Advanced Open Water course they are adventure dives, when you are doing a PADI Specialty they are specialties.

This will be of benefit for you during your classroom presentations.

9. Understand the ears

Ear problems will be the most likely problems you will encounter as a dive instructor.

There will be questions on your Physiology exam about the ears. Try to learn how the ear pertains to scuba diving and the names of each part. Read the attached PDF.

This will assist with your exams and will make you a better instructor when you start teaching.

10. Don’t forget your snorkel

PADI has a mandatory equipment list for dive pros. You can find that in your PADI Instructor Manual.

This list does include a snorkel and you will be required to wear one during the IDC and whenever you are teaching as an instructor.

Also on that list is computer, compass, SMB, time monitoring device and a knife or cutting tool.

These are required by you for the IDC. Please don’t leave them at home.