Most people arrive at their first scuba class with very little experience using diving equipment. You might have tried scuba on vacation, or perhaps you've never breathed through a regulator before. Either way, your instructor isn't expecting you to arrive knowing how to dive. Teaching you those skills is the entire purpose of the course.
An Open Water certification course generally has three parts: academic learning, confined-water training, and open-water certification dives. Each builds on the previous one, giving you an opportunity to understand what you're doing, practice it in controlled conditions, and eventually demonstrate those skills during actual dives.
Before Your First Class
Before training begins, you'll complete a medical questionnaire and demonstrate basic swimming ability. The swimming assessment typically includes swimming a specified distance without assistance and remaining afloat for ten minutes. You don't need to be an accomplished competitive swimmer, but you should be reasonably comfortable in the water. Certain medical questionnaire responses may also require a physician's evaluation before you can participate.
You'll also need some personal equipment. Most dive shops expect students to purchase a mask and fins, and some require a snorkel. Regulators, cylinders, BCDs, and other equipment are usually provided or rented during training. Confirm what's included before purchasing anything, particularly since equipment requirements and course pricing vary between shops.
If you haven't selected a training program yet, I've written about how to choose a dive shop and instructor. I place considerably more importance on the quality of the instructor and the amount of individual attention you'll receive than on which certification agency appears on your card.
The Academic Portion
Your academic training introduces the principles that make scuba diving possible. You'll learn how water pressure affects your body, why you need to equalize your ears, how breathing gas is consumed at different depths, and how to plan dives within recreational limits. You'll also learn about equipment, communication, buddy procedures, and handling common underwater problems.
Most programs offer online learning that you can complete before meeting your instructor, although classroom-based instruction is still available. Expect knowledge reviews, quizzes, and a final assessment to demonstrate that you understand the material.
Some concepts may be unfamiliar, particularly the relationship between pressure, depth, and gas consumption. Your instructor should help you understand those concepts rather than simply memorize the correct answers. They're fundamental to making good decisions underwater, and you'll use them long after completing the course.
Learning to Dive in the Pool
Confined-water training is where everything starts coming together. You'll put on your equipment, enter a swimming pool or similarly controlled environment, and begin learning how to move and function underwater.
Your instructor will teach you to assemble and check your equipment, breathe through and recover your regulator, clear water from your mask, control your buoyancy, and communicate with your buddy. You'll also practice sharing breathing gas, making controlled ascents, and responding to equipment problems.
Some of these exercises will probably feel awkward initially. Mask clearing, for example, requires deliberately allowing water into the mask and then removing it while continuing to breathe through your regulator. For some students, that's straightforward. For others, it takes considerable practice before they're comfortable.
You'll also discover that controlling your buoyancy requires coordination between your breathing, weighting, and BCD. It's common for new students to struggle with remaining at a consistent depth or maintaining a comfortable body position. These are skills that develop through practice, and your instructor should give you enough time to understand and demonstrate them.
Pool training might take place over several evenings or during an intensive weekend. The schedule matters considerably less than whether you've actually learned the required skills before progressing to open water.
Your Four Open Water Dives
Once you've completed the necessary academic and confined-water training, you'll move into open water. Depending on where you're taking the course, that might mean an ocean, lake, or quarry. You'll complete four certification dives, generally spread over at least two days.
These dives introduce additional considerations that weren't necessarily present in the pool. Visibility may be limited, the water might be colder, and entries and exits can be more complicated. You'll need to manage your equipment, remain aware of your surroundings, and stay with your buddy while following your instructor's directions.
During the dives, you'll demonstrate skills you've already practiced, including buoyancy control, regulator and mask procedures, and safe descents and ascents. You'll also begin putting those skills together as you swim underwater, monitor your gas supply, and follow a dive plan.
The depth and duration of individual dives depend on the training standards, conditions, and your progress. Some dives may include time to explore the site, but you're still participating in supervised training with specific skills to complete.
For many students, this is where diving begins to feel considerably more natural. You spend less time concentrating on every piece of equipment and become more aware of the environment around you. That adjustment happens at different speeds, and there's no reason to expect every student to reach the same level of comfort on the same dive.
What Happens If You Struggle With a Skill?
Almost everyone encounters something during training that takes additional practice. It might be removing a mask, controlling buoyancy, or becoming comfortable with water around the face. Some students have difficulty equalizing their ears, which requires stopping the descent rather than attempting to force their way through discomfort.
I would encourage you to tell your instructor whenever something isn't working. There's no advantage to pretending you're comfortable when you're not, particularly when you're learning skills you'll eventually need to perform without an instructor beside you.
A good instructor will give you the opportunity to practice, explain what you're doing incorrectly, and help you develop the skill. Occasionally, that means additional pool time or delaying your certification dives. Those arrangements may involve extra costs, depending on the training program.
Certification requires demonstrating the applicable performance standards, and there's nothing wrong with needing more time to reach them. I'd much rather see a student spend an extra afternoon practicing than leave the course with a certification card and serious doubts about their ability to perform an essential skill.
What Your Open Water Certification Means
Once you've successfully completed the academic requirements, confined-water skills, and four open-water dives, you'll receive your Open Water certification.
For a typical adult recreational certification, that generally means you're qualified to plan and conduct dives with a buddy, within the depth limits of your certification and conditions appropriate to your training and experience. The commonly recognized beginner depth limit is 60 feet (18 meters), although limits and restrictions depend on the certification and diver's age.
What I think new divers should understand is that certification establishes a starting level of competence. You'll have demonstrated the required skills, but you won't necessarily be comfortable performing them in unfamiliar conditions or after several months away from diving.
My recommendation is to spend some time making relatively easy dives after certification. Practice your buoyancy, become familiar with your equipment, and develop the habits you learned during training. There's no particular reason to rush into another certification course when ordinary diving experience can do so much to improve your abilities.
I've written more about that progression in What to Do After Open Water Certification. For a more personal discussion of the training experience itself, there's also a chapter called "Your Open Water Class" in The First Breath.