Assistant Instructor

The NAUI Assistant Instructor rating is Limit Breakers' introduction to actually teaching diving, rather than only doing it. It is a NAUI leadership-level certification designed to build the fundamentals of dive instruction and test the in-water skills required to assist safely and competently.

Once certified, an Assistant Instructor is authorized to help active NAUI Instructors run diving courses, and can be counted toward the student-to-instructor ratios that keep classes safe. That authorization extends to varied conditions similar to your training environment; specialized activities like deep, wreck-penetration, cavern, or ice diving require additional training beyond this rating.

The prerequisites are deliberately demanding, because this course marks the transition from diver to diving professional. You will need a strong logged dive history (a minimum of fifty open-water dives with at least twenty-five hours of bottom time across varied environments, depths, and activities), current medical clearance from a licensed physician, and the full stack of certifications this page lists.

For most candidates, Assistant Instructor is not the finish line, it is the credential that unlocks the next two: once you have assisted with at least one full NAUI Scuba Diver course, you become eligible to enter either the Divemaster Training Course or the Instructor Training Course.