How to Pick Dive Courses Without Going Off the Deep End

By Benjamin Hadfield, Instructor Trainer, Stuart Scuba

Let’s get one thing out of the way: there are a lot of paths in scuba. Not all of them lead back to the surface. That’s a joke… mostly. The ocean is big, training options are many, and a shiny specialty card is not a substitute for judgment. If you want your diving to be safe, fun, and shaped around your goals (instead of your buddy’s social media), the smartest move you can make is choosing the right local dive shop and the right mix of instructors—on purpose.

Below is one instructor’s perspective—pro–dive shop, but open and no hard sell—to help you chart a sensible route.

Start with Trust: Your Local Dive Shop Is Life Support, Not a Souvenir Stand

When you pick a dive shop or instructor, you’re not just picking where to fill tanks—you’re choosing a team that supports your diving life. A good shop will:

Invest in your safety: Properly maintained rental gear, solid fill procedures, and staff who notice when a BC strap looks tired before it snaps in the water.
Offer real protection: Clear policies, liability coverage, and training standards that don’t wobble when the schedule gets tight or the weather gets iffy.
Stand behind you in the water: From pre-dive briefings that make sense to post-dive debriefs that make you better, not just wetter.

Independent instructors can be excellent. Affiliation with a quality shop simply adds infrastructure—spares, pool/classroom access, backup staff, and formal QA—that often makes the experience smoother and safer.

If your first interaction is in a parking lot with an instructor who teaches out of the trunk of their car, this should raise some serious red flags. While this isn’t a deal breaker and there are some great instructors out there, working with an instructor that is affiliated with a quality dive shop can make a huge difference. A shop will be certified with at least one agency (possibly several), carry liability insurance, and have a visable and proven track record of success.

Kindness Isn’t Optional: Professionalism Beats Pettiness

Scuba is a team sport. When something goes sideways, you want a calm, respectful professional next to you—not someone who performs for likes. An instructor’s online behavior is often the clearest preview of their behavior on the dock and underwater.

What to Look For (Green Flags)

Respectful tone in comments. Disagrees without sneering; cites standards and experience instead of dunking on people or agencies.
Constructive feedback. Offers specific, actionable tips rather than vague criticism.
Composure under pressure. Handles heated threads by slowing down, clarifying, and de-escalating—exactly what you want at depth.
Humor that doesn’t punch down. Fun is welcome; ridicule isn’t.
Accountability. If they get something wrong, they correct it instead of doubling down.

Clear Red Flags

Pettiness or snark as a brand. Mocking students, other instructors, or “newbie questions.”
Rudeness or name-calling. If they can’t keep it professional online, expect worse when the viz goes to soup.
Subtweeting and gossip. Turning industry disagreements into soap operas.

How to Research (Quiet Due Diligence)

Read the comments, not just the posts. Tone shows up in replies: do they teach, or do they win?
Scan multiple platforms and groups. Are they consistent, or professional only where their boss follows them?
Search their name + agency/region. Look for balanced reviews, not just glowing testimonials from friends.
Note how they handle disagreement. Facts, standards, and empathy—or sarcasm and pile-ons?
Ask for references. A couple of recent students (ideally with similar goals/needs) will tell you how it felt to learn with them.

Why It Matters

Kindness isn’t about being “soft.” It’s about psychological safety, which speeds learning, reduces task loading, and keeps small mistakes from becoming big ones. The instructor who can stay courteous in a messy comment thread is the same person who’ll keep you focused when a mask flood, a current shift, or an equipment hiccup shows up.

Bottom line: Choose instructors who are skilled and gracious. Composure, kindness, and respect are not extras in dive training—they’re part of your safety gear. Back-biting and pettiness will begin to share their true nature and will give you a clear picture of who they really are.

Cert Counts vs. Calendar Years (What Actually Signals Quality)

Certifications issued ≠ bragging rights only. While the number of students an instructor has certified isn’t the be-all, end-all, it does show a history of delivering training to standard—over time, with paperwork and QA behind it. Trends matter more than totals: steady activity with solid outcomes beats a single mega-season years ago.

Years of teaching ≠ automatic safety. “I’ve been teaching 40 years” can mean wisdom—or it can mean someone has become excellent at doing the same thing poorly. Longevity without evolution is a red flag.

What to actually look for:

Recent activity: How many courses in the last 12–18 months, and in what conditions (local, travel, cold, low viz)?
Ongoing development: Current agency updates, crossover training, refreshed Rescue/CPR/O₂ instructor creds, and new specialties.
Student outcomes: Clear skill progression, not just plastic cards—ask about remediation plans, debrief quality, and post-course mentorship.
- The most common example of remediation is re-teaching: simply repeating and re-doing the instruction to benefit learners who may have missed something the first time.
QA footprint: Clean quality-assurance history and willingness to show credentials, insurance, and standards.
Peer ecosystem: Teaches within a shop that audits quality, provides gear, supports ratios, and has backup instructors when life (or weather) happens.

Provides students the standards: Any instructor worth their salt will show students the standards that govern the course, where they can find them on their own—and, when possible, provide a copy for review. Standards set the minimum required skills and knowledge. Great instructors treat them as a floor, not a ceiling, and consistently go above and beyond to deliver the highest-quality instruction.

Bottom line: Count proof of current, standards-based teaching—not just years on a business card. Recent, relevant, and reviewed beats rusty, routine, and rote every time.

Your Path, Your Pace: Choose the skills you want, on a timeline that works for you.

Think of scuba training like building a house:

Open Water is your foundation.
Advanced adds rooms you’ll actually live in.
Rescue is the reinforced beams that make everything sturdier.
Beyond that, you’re picking out specialized spaces—wreck, deep, night, navigation, photography, nitrox, tech—based on how you want to “live” underwater.

Ask yourself:

Where do I want to dive in the next 12–18 months? Local reefs? Springs? Liveaboards? High-current drifts?
Who am I diving with? Family, club, future research team, or the “call me when there are sharks” crowd?
What conditions will I actually face? Cold water? Low viz? Boat entries that feel like slip-n-slides?
What skills reduce the most real risk for me right now? Often the answer is Rescue + First Aid and buoyancy tuning—not the sexiest, but absolutely the most useful.

Let your goals drive your course sequence. If you dream about swim-throughs and wrecks, pursue the training that builds that competence step by step. If you want effortless reef dives and stunning photos, invest in buoyancy, trim, and camera handling. The card should be a side effect of capability—not the other way around.

Don’t Marry Your Instructor (Metaphorically): Variety Makes Better Divers

I say this as an Instructor Trainer who loves teaching: taking all your courses from one instructor can limit your growth. Different instructors bring different strengths and perspectives:

One might be a navigation ninja who can turn a sand plain into a map.
Another might be a trim whisperer who fixes your frog kick with three words and a raised eyebrow.
Someone else might be brilliant at stress management, turning “I’m task-loaded!” into “I’m composed.”

A good shop will encourage instructor variety and coordinate your training so the skills build coherently. Think of it like cross-training for your brain: different voices, same standards, richer learning.

Green Flags to Look For (and a Few Red Ones)

Green flags:

Structured briefing & debriefing: You always know the plan, the signals, the objective, and what to improve next time.
Clear standards & boundaries: If conditions/ratios aren’t right, the dive changes or it doesn’t happen—no drama, just professionalism.
Inclusive mindset: Gear options and teaching styles that meet different bodies, brains, and comfort levels where they are.
Instructor humility: “Let’s practice that again.” beats “Good enough, here’s your card.”

Skills Over Cards: What You’re Really Buying: A good dive shop sells training and judgment—not plastic. They will guarantee you’ll learn and progress at a safe pace; the certification card is issued by the training center once you meet the standards. Your readiness, not your payment, triggers the card.

Red flags:

Vague safety talk: “We’ll figure it out on the boat” is how we collect good stories with bad endings.
Chronically late or chaotic: If the surface is disorganized, the underwater plan probably is too.
One-size-fits-all training: Your needs aren’t a template.

Practical Planner: How to Build Your Course Sequence

Get honest about your baseline. Discuss where you are at in diving, honestly and openly. Bringing ego into the equation never helps.. (Yes, even if you’ve been diving for years.) Honest reps beat optimistic memories.
Map your next year of diving. Trips, local seasons, typical conditions. Choose courses that match that reality.
Schedule Rescue earlier than you think. It makes every future dive safer and calmer, and it’s the single best confidence booster most divers ever take.
Mix your instructors. Let the shop pair you with specialists for each step.
Do buoyancy work between specialties. A weekend of focused buoyancy and trim can make every future class easier (and your photos prettier). This is also one of the keys to using less gas on dives and is imperative if you ever decide to move beyond recreational diving.
Practice deliberately. One new skill per dive. Tell your buddy your focus. Do it on purpose. Take yoru Oceanic+ housing or GoPro… OFTEN and get video of yourself diving. While a photo is great for a profile pic, the truth is often revealed in the video replay.

“Many Paths, Not All to the Surface”: What That Really Means

Scuba has endless rabbit holes—tech, caves, rebreathers, spearfishing, photography, scientific diving. Some paths carry more overhead in training, gear, and risk. None are “better.” Some are simply less forgiving of shortcuts. If a path interests you, fantastic—seek the right mentorship, follow the standards, and move at the speed of mastery, not impatience.

The ocean doesn’t care about your timeline. That’s why your shop and your instructors must.

Parting Bubbles

Pick a local dive shop and/or instructor you trust with your life support and your learning. Choose courses that line up with your goals and the dives you’ll actually do. Rotate instructors to collect perspectives, not just plastic. And remember: there are many paths in scuba, and the best ones bring you back to the surface smiling, skilled, and already planning the next splash.

If you want help mapping your path, come talk to us at Stuart Scuba. We’ll ask good questions, listen carefully, and point you toward the next right dive—no mystery lanyards required.

SDI/TDI Standards

https://www.tdisdi.com/documents/sdi-standards/

SSI Standards

https://www.divessi.com/en/get-certified