News
After an initial meeting with the student, where we discussed possibilities and limitations for the student to scuba-dive, it was time to take the no barrier tour and a try scuba dive. When the student had gotten his medical approval we hit the pool.
Hi there! This is Riet and Tom writing, two of the newest Disabled Divers International Instructors. We recently completed our course with founder Flemming Thyge and new DDI Course Director Sander Buis at Oceans 5 Dive in wonderful Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia.
No Barrier Tour in Bali
Once in your life you will get an amazing experience.
This happened to me the 9th of September 2014. A friend of mine and CEO of DDI (Disabled Divers International) organized a DDI No Barrier Tour in Bali at Crystal Divers. He asked me to help to give disabled Indonesian persons a chance to feel how it feels to dive, to breath underwater.
The diving club first try with Nino Batagelj, a tetraplegic person from Slovenia, May 29th 2014 on the Croatian coast. After a pre-meeting, which was mainly based on explanations about the “ddi first try dive programm” that sunny day was perfectly made for putting the theory into practice.
Nino was before his accident, which caused his adverse effect, very active in different kind of sports, but never tried diving before, so he was quite excited. Nino was very interested in the procedure how to prepare theequipement and passed all the required skills without any problems in confined water. Although Nino’s mobility of fingers is limited, he never lost his patience, enthusiasm or motivation.
DDI Instructor Trainer Angel Navarro recently taught the Pro Trainer Course at Pro Dive Mexico, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and world record holder Leo Morales was amongst the students.
Leo is a bit of a celebrity around Mexico, indeed he is a familiar name to divers worldwide. Leo’s right leg was amputated in 2008 after he developed an aggressive type of cancer and all other treatments failed. But Leo did not let that stop him and he continued his dive education and became both a tec diver and cave diver. Last year he became a PADI Instructor, and he holds two world records for divers with disabilities – one for the deepest scuba dive (410 feet) and the other for the longest single dive on rebreather (8 hrs 15 mins).
Happy faces: two new DDI Instructors (Thomas & Xenia) and one new Staff Instructor (Alex) were presented their certificates by DDI Instructor Trainer Examinator Flemming - who was also happy to welcome new members to the DDI family!
This was well deserved after a great weekend of
hard work! The DDI instructor candidates looked into lots of academics and learned a great deal about different types of disabilities. After the classroom it was pool time! The inwater workshop was a clear eye-opener for everyone -
including blind diving!
On the 24th and 25th of february, in the south of Portugal, the 1st Meeting of Adapted Sports of Casa do Povo de Messines took place.
Daniel Jacó, a young professional in the area of sports for disabled people was the mentor of this meeting and his effort on this event was really magnificent. The Casa do Povo de Messines hosted of the meeting with superior nobleness.
The weekend from 28th of February to the 2nd of March, Aqua Team is conducting a DDI Pro Training course in Athens Greece for diving professionals.
The course teaches the candidates how to teach and dive with disabled divers, using DDI techniques, programs and standards.
After the successful completion of the Pro Training, the DDI Professionals can train and guide disabled divers during their underwater activities.
The program is intended for Divemasters and Instructors from all international training organizations and lasts for approximately 3 days.