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Instructor Training CoursesFounding Fathers of the HSA and PHSA

HSA Instructor course and Open Wate Dive Buddy Course
offered on Demand :: please contact us at phsaceo@att.net
or via Phone at 734-238-2411 or via  TEXT message at 734-358-8728.

Depending on class size, instruction can be completed
over the course of one weekend.

As an Instructor, rise above the rest to become a Handicap Scuba Association Instructor and take your instructional skills to a higher level.

We look forward to hearing form you!

Cost: $375, includes all course material, equipment  rental, pool and open water dives.  Needed is all your SCUBA equipment and an electronic passport size photo.

POSEIDON HANDICAP SCUBA ADVENTURES
HANDICAPPED SCUBA ASSOCIATION ITC

954 Holbrooke Drive, Canton, MI 48187

Name _________________________________________________________

Address _______________________ City _____________ State ____ Zip _____

Country _______ Phone/FAX _______________ email ____________________

YES: Enroll me in this ITC, here’s my check payment, deposit of $150.00.
Payment: Check [ ]
Please make checks payable to:  Poseidon Handicap Scuba Adventures

 Where will our classroom and open water dives be conducted at?


HSA INSTRUCTOR TRAINING COURSE BROCHURE The HSA Instructor Training Course (ITC) was created in 1986 to satisfy the growing demands by Instructors for comprehensive training in this specialized, and rewarding, area of Underwater Instruction.The course content was chosen to answer the many questions ASKED by interested SCUBA Instructors. We also wanted to share many years of teaching experience, as well as to insure a complete understanding of HSA Physical Performance Standards and our unique multi-level Certification program.Over sixteen thousand (1,600) Instructors in 45 countries have been trained and certified as HSA Instructors, including 20 Medical Doctors and numerous other health professionals.Because the HSA trains TOP underwater educators throughout the World, instructors such as Dennis Graver (HSA 0100, NAUI 1103L), Bob Rutledge, M.D. (HSA 0066, NAUI 5127) and Phil Stelnicki, (PADI 3, HSA 0637), we regularly receive excellent up to date input in all areas of our educational programs. The result is, our Instructor Training Course, Manuals, and Physical Performance Standards are regularly rewritten to keep up with changing equipment, attitudes and educational requirements of this dynamic sport.”I have been disabled for 10 years, and have been diving for 8 years. I was certified in Israel by the HSA. Scuba diving is one of the very few adult recreational activities available for me that I can enjoy with friends and family in a normal setting.”

Michelle Galler, HSA C-0006

 


 

ITC COURSE CONTENT

This course will be taught by Mark Rausch (HSA CD 28-614). Mark is the founder of HSA and has taught paraplegic and quadriplegic individuals to scuba dive. He began diving in 1978 and since 1992 has spent his entire diving career assisting, teaching and sport diving with people who have disabilities.

LECTURES: There will be approximately 10 hours of lectures covering twelve Disability types, what they are, how they occur, and how they effect people, the criteria for HSA certification, accessibility issues, equipment considerations, and how it all relates to Scuba diving. This broad understanding will give you the extra confidence you need to make your students more comfortable.

The value of the Lectures cannot be underestimated because Instructors are now dealing with an entirely new population of divers with medical conditions for which they were not trained to encounter.

These Lectures succinctly cover a wide variety of Medical topics that are easy to understand and to incorporate into the Instructor’s preexisting knowledge of Scuba training.”

Terry J. Brown, M.D., HSA 0792
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

 

CONFINED WATER: There will be about 6 hours of confined water exercises while simulating various disability types. As Scuba Instructors you train your students to dive based on the way you dive. If your students do it another way you must try to duplicate the differences yourself to develop the experiential resources you need to teach them. Simulating disability types while performing typically problematic exercises helps you develop the skills and sensitivity you will need to teach your students with disabilities.

You will simulate PARAPLEGIA by taking off your fins, tying your legs together and simulating functional loss of your stomach, back and leg muscles. You will then perform a series of skills such as an Emergency Swimming Ascent with an oral inflation of your BCD at the surface.

You will simulate QUADRIPLEGIA by simulating complete functional loss of ALL muscle groups below the level of your neck, thereby becoming totally dependent upon your buddies for most of your diving activities. Conversely, as the able bodied Instructor of the Quadriplegic Diver you will be required to perform basic Scuba skills, such as descending while controlling buoyancy for both you and your student, as well as a variety of emergency procedures designed to prepare you for the real world.

You will simulate BLINDNESS by wearing a blacked out mask and thereby becoming dependent upon your buddy for your visual needs, and dependent upon “tactile” methods of communication while underwater. As the Instructor you will be required to “tell” your student such things as, adjust your buoyancy, perform an emergency swimming ascent, and buddy breathe as the donor.

When possible, you will have the opportunity to give a SCUBA EXPERIENCE to someone with a disability. This will include basic Scuba skills such as, swimming, recovering the regulator second stage, breathing from an alternate air source and mask clearing.

“As a practicing PADI Instructor, I was recruited this past January by a British charity for the spinally injured and asked to organize a program of SCUBA diving for them. I have, at present, around a hundred students to teach. In June I took the HSA ITC in Kiel, Germany.
The course, particularly the required water skills while having my own swimming mobility impaired, has prepared me far better than I could have imagined. It is the best training course available in the world for preparing instructors to work with physically impaired divers. ”
Bob Austin, HSA 0984

OPEN WATER: The open water training is about logistics. You will be in a group of three: one with their legs tied simulating PARAPLEGIA, one wearing a blacked out mask simulating BLINDNESS and one acting as the INSTRUCTOR. It is the Instructor’s responsibility to take their two handicapped students on a successful Scuba dive of about 10 minutes. When the Instructor has completed the dive and the Students out of the water, the Blind student will remove the blacked out mask and become an able-bodied assistant for the Instructor. The Paraplegic student will become QUADRIPLEGIC and the Instructor, along with the assistant, will take the Quadriplegic student on a dive of about 10 minutes. You will play all four roles.

EXAM: The Exam is Multiple Choice and takes about 2 hours to complete. It is an Open Book exam and you will discuss the questions and answers among yourselves, the discussion is part of the exam. When you have finished the Course Director will correct it with you. You are encouraged to discuss any of the questions with him, including disagreements about the answers.

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A multi-dimensional program :: encompassing all aspects of aquatic liberation for people with disabilities and those who care about them.   www.normanmcmillan.com/free-in-the-sea-projects/

Tom Dailey ::  BluWaveAdventure.com

Most of you know us, but we have been the premier dive/snorkel/glass bottom boat operator, in the same location, in Key Largo, FL,for the past 32 years. We are the closest dive operation to the Christ of the Abyss reef, The Elbow and dozens of inner reefs including our huge artificial reef, the 510’ Wreck of the Spiegel Grove.

We have three boats which keeps us from having to overload one boat thus keeping your diving fun and enjoyable. We also would like to invite you  during your HSA training to join us for our “must see” dive: the world famous Creature Feature!