IFC Personal Experiences
To IFC or not to IFC that is the question?Within our branch everyone who is interested is given the chance to get involved with teaching/try dives and I felt that having passed my Sports Diver the next step for me was to tackle the IFC. I was particularly looking forward to it as I’d heard lots of good things about the IFC being good both for your own diving and being an excellent first step on the instructor ladder. However, I was also quite nervous. I’m a vet and I’ve spent my whole life doing exams. People who know me and what I do are always surprised that I get nervous about being watched doing practical skills, but I do, and I knew the IFC would take this one step further and involve me being watched not only doing practical skills, but teaching practical skills. The only real pressure on the IFC is the pressure you put on yourself as "it's a course, not an exam" (this became my mantra!) and you’re really there to be taught how to teach, but unfortunately I’m quite good at self-pressure! Thankfully I was one of a group of 3 from my club all doing the IFC together so I had lots of moral support.
I gained a great deal of confidence from the IFC, and can’t wait to start putting what I learned into practice - so I’m lucky that our club is keen for us to do so. It was everything everyone said it would be - fun, intense, tiring, useful, interesting, relevant, thought-provoking - and I'd thoroughly recommend it!
Helen Butcher
Peninsula SAC
Read more of Helen's Experience on the IFC
How could one become complacent about teaching a skill on which one’s life depends? For me, the IFC was about sharpening my thinking about the importance of SEEDS and encouraging me to want to practice, practice and yes practice. The course gives you a taster of what is to come and for those bold enough, to go on to do the open water instructors exams/training, I believe it lays solid foundations on which to consolidate your own core knowledge and existing diving skills.
Knowing of the way, good instructors have handled me over the past 18 months, particularly, as a disabled diver, I need not have been as anxious about, what I may have perceived as being a lack of skill/level of competence in order to become a trainee instructor. So Ok, I have only done 105 dives of which only 5 have been over 35 meters and I’m afraid my navigation, isn’t the best, at the best of times. Yet the course seeks to put you at ease, and yes, they do tell you not to spend hours preparing for your presentation and pool sessions on the Sunday. Yet, you probably do, because that’s precisely why you want to do the course in the first place. To learn how to teach others safely, effectively and progressively.
Ian Gould
Dudley Dolphins
Read more of Ian's Experience on the IFC
Page last modified: 13th May 2008 - 15:49:26