Ocean Diver Plus and Excellent Diver

[David Lisk]

It would seem that the BSAC course system in Japan has two extra diver categories, 'Ocean Diver Plus' and 'Excellent Diver'.

http://www.bsac.jp/index.php/BSAC03

Out of interest does anyone know more about these qualifications and what they entail?

How come the BSAC system in Japan is different to that in the UK?

[Edward]

It would seem that the BSAC course system in Japan has two extra diver categories, 'Ocean Diver Plus' and 'Excellent Diver'.

http://www.bsac.jp/index.php/BSAC03

Out of interest does anyone know more about these qualifications and what they entail?

How come the BSAC system in Japan is different to that in the UK?
Hi David,

From memory, the system in Japan is run predominantly on commercial lines like PADI elsewhere.

Excellent Diver is, I believe, their interpretation of First Class, but it only requires the completion of a set number of specialist courses (the number escapes me).

However, the training syllabus is the one we have in UK - that's what BSAC Japan pay for.

Regards

Edward

[David Lisk]

Excellent Diver is, I believe, their interpretation of First Class, but it only requires the completion of a set number of specialist courses (the number escapes me).



Thanks Edward,

It seems however that Excellent diver comes between Sports Diver and Dive Leader.

According to the chart, it would appear that you need to be an Advanced Diver before you can become an Instructor. So although the syllabus may be the same for the main grades in the UK the pre-requisites appear to be different, as well as there being additional diver grades available.

I am still unsure why this would be.

David

[Gareth]

David

I think the thing to remember is that although BSAC Japan & BSAC Korea are affiliated to the BSAC, they are different organisation's. As such they are run on different lines.

As Edwards says, I believe there are no branches in the way that we have them in the UK. All training is done via schools, as such all instructors are commercial instructors.

It is also interesting to note that the demographic is different. In the UK I would hazard a guess that the largest number of divers are male, in Asia, it tends to be female. This means that a lot of the merchandising is targeted at female consumers, rather than male!

Some one will probably be along with more information.

One of these days I may actually get the opportunity to dive in Korea or Japan.

Gareth

[Fiona]

It is also interesting to note that the demographic is different. In the UK I would hazard a guess that the largest number of divers are male, in Asia, it tends to be female. This means that a lot of the merchandising is targeted at female consumers, rather than male!

Gareth

Apart from there being a lot of exellent female divers out there, I am trying to work out what your point is.

[Adrian Kelland]

Apart from there being a lot of exellent female divers out there, I am trying to work out what your point is.
There tends to be a difference to how the sexes respond to marketing approaches. So if you want to sell to women, use an approach that works for women. I daresay that there are also cultural (east/west) differences to allow for.

[Gareth]

Apart from there being a lot of exellent female divers out there, I am trying to work out what your point is.


Fiona

The two points I was making where, first, that the branch structure as we know it does not exist in Japan, diver training is a commercial activity.
The second point I was making is that the demographic is completely different to the UK. I don't understand why this is.It may relate to the UK climate being somewhat cold & requiring more thermal protection. Or other issues?

One of the best instructors/buddies/mentors I ever had was my DO, who just happened to be female. What has always been a slight dispointment, is that we have always struggled to increase the number of female divers within our branch, even when we had a predominantly female committee. We still currently only have 20% of the membership female, which is a big disapointment.
My limited understanding, is that there are different marketing stratagies for male/female demographic. Similarly, what the differenet sexs place greater emphasis on different services.
I do find it somewhat disapointing that you appear to assume a predominently female demographic as a negative?

Gareth

[Fiona]

I do find it somewhat disapointing that you appear to assume a predominently female demographic as a negative?

Gareth

:confused: you got me there, I am not aware that is what I said at all. 6 of us have just been to the Redsea 5 of the group female.

16 of us went to the Galapagos last year half of which were female and they weren't partnering men, approximately the same number went to the Redsea in 2005 and again it was about a 50/50 split.

I quoted your post because it looked to me like you were insinuating that the addition of the grade "Excellent Diver" between Sports and Dive leader was purely for the female market, and it looked like you were saying that female divers didn't want to or didn't feel like they wanted to attain the Dive Leader qualification, however the use of the word merchandise might just have refereed to the female biased goods on the website, I don't know because I don't speak Japanese.

[TerryH]

We still currently only have 20% of the membership female, which is a big disapointment.


Need to join a Uni club. We have on average a 40-50% female membership.
Our current active Instructor team of 12 NQI's, has 7 female Instructors :D

[Gareth]

Need to join a Uni club. We have on average a 40-50% female membership.
Our current active Instructor team of 12 NQI's, has 7 female Instructors :D

I don't think I'm eligible to join a University club these days.

You got me thinking about our current instructor team, of 17 instructors we unfortunately only have 3 female instructors, although one is an AI.

I'm impressed with your success. One of our potential instructors went to University this year, if she does continue with her training she will make an excellent instructor.

Cheers

Gareth

[Fiona]

Maybe Gareth it is your club which needs to look at itself. The club I was a member of had a large female membership and often club trips would be 50/50 or even a greater majority being female, I don't believe it is the same now.

I only dive with people from forums I want to dive with now, and in all honesty I don't care if they are male or female they are all just divers.

[TerryH]

TBH it's not rocket science.

We do Ocean, Sport, IFC, DL etc.

We see the IFC as an intregral part of the diver training programme, not as
a parrallel course. Ok the takeup rate from IFC to NQI is at best 20%, but
thats still 2 Instructors for every 10 that do an IFC and in the meantime
you have loads of assistants :D

If you think about it, this isnt that far off what was done many years ago
when DL's used to train club members. Just replace DL with Sport/ADI.

[Gareth]

:I quoted your post because it looked to me like you were insinuating that the addition of the grade "Excellent Diver" between Sports and Dive leader was purely for the female market, and it looked like you were saying that female divers didn't want to or didn't feel like they wanted to attain the Dive Leader qualification, however the use of the word merchandise might just have refereed to the female biased goods on the website, I don't know because I don't speak Japanese.

Fiona

That was not my inference, or at least not my intended inference.

What surprises me about the Korean & Japanese market is that the demographic of divers is so significnatly different to that in UK, & I suspect the European market. I also suspect it is significantly different from the North American market. This may be totally wrong, just based on the magazines available in these markets.

What I don't understand is why the demographic is so significantly different. It may well be a cultural thing, but it still confuses me. I may of course be misinterpreting the demographic in the UK. But in my experience of branches, regional events & the ITS, is that there are significantly more male participants than female. Even on YD, there seem to be significantly more male posters than female.

With regard to the diving grades in Japan I think it is very dangerous to compare them directly with the UK grades unless you actually have the definitions available & the skills covered. They are a set of grades specifically targeted at a different training regime. Grades like excellent diver may well be similar to grades such as Advanced Open Water. i.e. grades that have minimal additional training but present an additional sales opportunity.
When I was last working in Korea, the technical diving agencies had made little progress in Korea, there was little if any interest, therefore very few instructors.

At no time have I, or will I make dispariging remarks about female divers. In the main, most female buddies I have had have been truely excellent, their only fault is that i can't persuade them to do things they don't want too:D , but that isn't unique to the diving enviroment:D . There are bad divers out there,their sex or grade isn't relevent, they are just bad divers.


Gareth

[Gareth]

Maybe Gareth it is your club which needs to look at itself. The club I was a member of had a large female membership and often club trips would be 50/50 or even a greater majority being female, I don't believe it is the same now.

I only dive with people from forums I want to dive with now, and in all honesty I don't care if they are male or female they are all just divers.
Fiona

You may well be correct in saying this is a fault within my branch. If so, then I am disappointed, having & having had very capable & senior female divers in the branch since I joined over 15 years ago.
I was somewhat disappointed when I looked at the number of active female instructors in the branch to find that we only currently have 3, we have had significantly more, although some have stopped diving & others have moved away.

I would actually be interested to know what the BSAC demographic is like, maybe Edward has the figures. I would be pleasantly surprised if we do have a 50/50 female/male membership. Disappointingly, I suspect this is not the case.



Gareth