I agree that the training is important. Obviously there are some things that you can learn just by diving with someone who knows what they are doing, i.e. uw photography / video, but the training not only teaches you how to do things, but why to do things. If you take a class and learn how and why to do certain things it leads you to better thinking when the normal steps aren’t working so that you may come up with an idea that does. I think that this is very important when it comes to training that involves safety issues. I know that I could have learned how to put a regulator in my mouth and to breathe off of it under water, but without the proper training from someone who knows how to teach I may not have learned what to do when that regulator stopped working. which brings up the point of knowing how to teach. As a Law Enforcement instructor I have seen a lot of people try to teach others without the ability to do so. It isn’t that they don’t know what they are talking about, only that they do not know how to pass it on to others. As for me, I will opt for the training.