Will Goodman

Goodman has taught technical diving from the Gili Islands for twenty years and is unusually specialised: the JJ-CCR runs through almost every review, from a diver's first rebreather course to mixed-gas dives to 100m. He took an unmodified JJ-CCR to 290m in 2014 and holds a Guinness record for the longest scuba dive, and students say the value of that is context — procedures explained against dives he has actually done. The most consistent theme across his reviews is that the certification is not assumed. Nine separate reviewers make some version of the same point unprompted: if you want a card, go elsewhere. One diver was held at MOD 1 Air Diluent no-deco because his general water skills were not there yet, spent six months building comfort on the unit with Goodman answering questions throughout, and came back for the upgrade — he describes being told no as the most useful lesson he got. Another was stopped mid-course on unsatisfactory skills, drilled on land, and passed the next dive. Teaching is described as tailored rather than standard: weaknesses identified early and worked at, time given to repeat a skill until it is automatic, and a human-factors debrief after a dive that went badly, run with the whole team rather than one-to-one. Several reviewers with decades of diving and instructor ratings of their own rate it above anything else they have taken. The caveats worth knowing are practical, not critical: the courses are deliberately hard and reviewers say so plainly, and the most common complaint is that he is booked well in advance.