Wet Rocks, Wet Schmocks! Class report UTD Cave 1 & 2

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I do think there is some kind of issue to look at with your gas consumption. Either you weren't comfortable (either mentally, or with improperly balanced equipment) or your propulsion is not efficient, or something else is wrong. My beloved dive buddy, who was one of my Cave 1 classmates, has a SAC rate that's 2.5 times mine, but he makes it to lots of jump lines without any problems at all.

Being in the caves the first time was stressful. But over the previous few days I had settled in. I do not absorb well, academically. I'm the kind of person that needs to actually practice something to truly understand it. By taking notes in a lecture alone, I will not always connect the dots between theory and practice. Often I need to see examples to break the ice on my comprehension. We had just learned about all the different rules of jumps and T's and I was running the line on the first dive into Temple of Doom and had to navigate the jumps and T's and drop the markers and I'll openly admit that it was overwhelming to me, the desire to not f--k up and get lost down there and knowing for sure it would be a blind exit back (all our exits were blind up to this point) making sure my mind was alert enough to get back. It was overwhelming and I'm pretty sure I stressed about it and blew through my air much quicker because of it. The intensity in the Cave 2 portion of training is incredibly higher than in Cave 1.

Part of it is psycological, part of it is the cave system is noticably more complex than previous, part of it is because now we're applying completely new-to-us skills that are much more complex than the previous.

I do just fine in my post-class dives so should have no problems being ready for it when I return.
 
this time around it's the zero to hero cave course and letting students run out of gas :)

I would hardly consider this a zero-to-hero cave course. I find it hard to believe that every student passes GUE Cave 1 or 2 (or any other agency) flawlessly their first attempt, also.

The only reason I didn't paint a spectacularily rosy picture of myself passing Cave 1 only and omitting the part about Cave 2 is because I wanted to share the experience with others who may come across this thread in the hopes that someone may benefit from the experience. For me, the second portion of the class was too much so soon, that is not the fault of UTD or the instructor (or anyone else).

I'm glad you had a good class though

It was a great class, I learned a lot, grew a lot, and found a new love for SCUBA in caves.
 
It was overwhelming and I'm pretty sure I stressed about it and blew through my air much quicker because of it. The intensity in the Cave 2 portion of training is incredibly higher than in Cave 1.

That's really true if your hold on the C1 skills is brand new or tenuous. You'll see -- if you can get 25 or 30 C1 dives in, things will become much more routine, line work will become less stressful, you'll figure out your buoyancy better when putting ties in (hint: don't use your breath!) and you'll come back to C2 in much better shape.
 
this time around it's the zero to hero cave course and letting students run out of gas :)

I'm glad you had a good class though

It's honestly no different than doing NACD / NSS-CDS Intro and Cave in one shot. The course outline is basically the same.
 
this time around it's the zero to hero cave course and letting students run out of gas :)
Get off your high horse. Sometimes things slip through the cracks when you're busy teaching/writing a DIR Sidemount CCR course the week before a cave class and live over 1000 miles from a cave. They're doing the best they can with the work ahead of them.
 
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