I need to say something, and some people aren't going to like it.

These "Elite Instructor" awards the agencies hand out every year? They're garbage. And worse than garbage, they're actually hurting the industry and the divers in it. So let's talk about it.

Here's how these awards work. You certify a certain number of students in a year, you hit some magic number, and boom, you're "Elite!" You get the badge for your email. You get the line on your shop's website. You get to tell new students you're one of the best.

But let me ask you something. What does that number actually measure?

It measures how many cards you printed. That's it. That's the whole thing.

It doesn't measure whether those divers can actually dive. It doesn't measure whether they can hold a stop, handle a failure, or stay calm when a dive goes sideways. It doesn't measure a single thing about quality. It measures volume. How fast you moved product. And the agency dressed it up to sound like excellence because that's what sells.

Let's be honest about who this is really for

The agency makes money when cards get issued. Simple. So the instructor who issues the most cards makes the agency the most money. And that's the instructor who gets called "Elite."

So you're not elite because you're good. You're elite because you're profitable. You're elite to them. Read that again. You can be a subpar instructor, sloppy, lazy, teaching the bare minimum, and still get crowned Elite, because the only thing that award is rewarding is the money you brought in.

That's not recognition. That's a sales bonus with a fancy name. Be better than that. Demand better than that.

Here's the part that actually makes me angry

Think about the instructor who does it right.

The one who runs longer courses. The one who adds extra water time when a student isn't ready. The one who actually fails people when they haven't earned the card. The one who looks a student in the eye and says "you're not ready yet, let's go again."

That instructor certifies fewer divers a year. Of course they do. You can't do it right and do it fast. It doesn't work that way.

So under these awards, the instructor doing the most for their students, more time, higher standards, harder calls, scores worse than the guy running people through on the minimums as fast as the schedule allows.

Think about how backwards that is. The person showing the most commitment to education gets ranked below the person showing the least. The award doesn't just miss quality. It points you in the exact wrong direction.

And don't get me started on the "commitment to safety" line

You've all seen the language. "This instructor has demonstrated a commitment to safety and education." That's on the award. That's in the press release.

It's a lie.

The metric behind the award has nothing to do with safety and nothing to do with education. You can teach to the absolute minimum. You can rush. You can pump out divers who are technically certified and genuinely not ready. And if you do enough of it, you'll get handed a piece of paper congratulating you on your commitment to safety.

Meanwhile the instructor who actually lives those words, who treats the minimum as a floor, not a goal, gets nothing. Why? Because they refused to cut the corners that pump up the numbers. They got punished for caring.

That's the whole problem in one sentence. We're rewarding the wrong thing and calling it the right thing.

What "elite" should actually mean

If we wanted these awards to mean something, they'd ask different questions:

Do you teach above the minimum standard? Can you prove it? What does a diver look like when they leave your course compared to the day they walked in? How do your students dive six months later, on their own, when you're not there holding their hand? Are you willing to fail someone who didn't earn it? What are you giving them beyond the syllabus?

None of that is easy to count. That's exactly why nobody counts it. Volume is easy. So they measure volume and slap the word "elite" on it and hope nobody asks questions.

I'm asking questions!

Why this matters

This isn't about hurt feelings. I don't care about a plaque. This is about the new diver standing in a shop trying to figure out who to trust with their training and their safety.

They see "Elite Instructor" and they think better. They think safer. And they're being misled. Not by one bad person, but by a whole system that quietly decided excellence and productivity are the same thing. They're not. They never were.

Diving doesn't forgive bad training. The water does not care how many cards your instructor printed last year. It cares whether they taught you to handle it.

So here's what I want from you.

If you're an instructor or an instructor trainer chasing one of these awards, stop! Chase better divers instead. Run the longer course. Fail the student who needs to be failed. Be the person the award claims to celebrate, even when the award never will.

And if you're a new diver? Don't let a badge make the decision for you. Ask how long the course runs. Ask how many people they've failed. Ask what happens if you're not ready on the last day. The answers will tell you more about who's actually elite than any award ever will.

We can do better. We have to do better. Be 1% better today than you were yesterday — that's how we fix this. One instructor, one course, one diver at a time.

Be better. Do better. You have the option.