How to become a proper Divemaster Role model.

15 May How to become a proper Divemaster Role model.

A role model in the diving world is a person who is seen as the living example how the perfect Divemaster or Dive Instructor should be in attitude, knowledge and awareness. You become a role model in the eyes of those who respect you and who, therefore, want to be more like you (at least with respect to diving) by doing what you do. You’re only seen as a role model if you’re credible and trusted by the divers you supervise and interact with. During your divemaster course on Bali with Joe’s Gone Diving, being a great role model for the guests we work with is very important.

Specified characteristics of a good, role-model PADI Professional Divemaster/Instructor include:

• Excellent dive skills. As a dive leader, you should be calm, and have outstanding skills underwater. Whether demonstrating for a class or simply performing them routinely, your dive skills should be fluid and appear effortless.
• Demonstrate confidence and prioritising personal safety and the safety of others.
• Practicing safe, responsible diving. By definition, to be a good role-model you dive the way you advise others to dive.

• Reading people’s situations and making conservative judgment calls based on them.
• Demonstrating care for the environment. Your behaviour should exemplify how to minimise human effects on the underwater world.
• Using well maintained, up to date equipment. There’s nothing wrong with a trusty old dive knife in good shape, but if your regulator, BCD and computer look like museum relics, you are not role modelling the state-of-the-art.
• Staying in shape and maintaining good fitness is crucial for diving. Diving is a physical activity: in fact, one of the major cause of fatalities in diving are heart diseases. You should be a role model by being fit for diving by exercising regularly, eating well and getting adequate rest.
• Keeping up with dive and environmental trends and practices. Professionals who know what’s going on in their field are credible, because they can at least speak to the latest, hottest topics.
• Easily building rapport with others. It’s a cliche but true that no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. A good role model is a “people person.”
• Demonstrating costumer service and acting on the needs of dive operation. Your behaviours reflect upon PADI and the dive operation through which you’re working; a good role model act accordingly.

Keen to find out more about divemaster training on Bali at Joe’s Gone Diving? Have a look at our page about the PADI Divemaster course on Bali.