The first level of dive professional. As a Divemaster Candidate (DMC), you will work with real students assisting instructors as they teach students at various levels of training from PADI Open Water thru various levels of continuous education such as PADI Advanced Open Water and PADI Rescue Diver. The Divemaster needs to have strong dive skills, so we will work to make sure you have role-model quality demonstration skills, good dive physical fitness, and strong dive knowledge in areas such as physics, physiology, dive theory, the environment, and dive planning.
Upon completion of the PADI Divemaster course, you can immediately enroll in the PADI Assistant Instructor (AI) course. The AI course will introduce you to the teaching skills used by instructors in the classroom, the pool, and in the open water environment. Upon completion of this program, the AI is allowed to assist with evaluation of surface Dive Flexible skills and can independently teach some courses like Project Aware and Peak Performance Buoyancy.
The DM that has not yet completed the AI program will enroll in a full IDC course, while the AI may skip the first portion of the course and just attend the OWSI portion. The combination of the AI and the OWSI makes up the Instructor Development Course (IDC). This course, which usually occurs over a 5-7 day period, contains a series of activities and events in the classroom, the pool, and the open water that prepare the instructor candidate to become and independent instructor of PADI materials. Upon successful completion of this course, the candidate may sit for the PADI Instructor Examination (IE).