My descent into and out of madness: GUE Fundamentals, or Instruction vs Evaluation

[Goingforsound]

Hey, i dont have much time to type like you do, but i relate with the team diving being hard to get into, especialy with other students in a course setting.

Great write up!

 

[rjack321]

That was a good write-up.

I'm curious what your historical "normal" pre-dive is like with your buddies? Do you not talk about max depth and a dive/deco time even on an AN/DP dive or recreationally? Which direction to swim? BC, drysuit and weight check?

These don't have to be GUEEDGE level of rigor but even PADI OW students are taught to do a buddy check. I actually rather enjoy their BWRAF acronym...

 

[Compressor]

@tmassey Beautiful report and writing style.

 

[rvojr]

Thank you for the write-up. I'll be doing it as well in 3 weeks.

 

[EireDiver606]

One thing I wish GUE did was how to dive with non gue divers after the course, or just have my instructor talk about it.
I don’t want to seem like a know all and seem like I’m telling people how to do briefings, and procedures, trim, buoyancy, eye contact during ascents/descents, staying together as a team etc.
I wish I could dive with GUE divers where I live but there are none, I don’t want to impose my diving mindset onto others here even though I think there are clear benefits over other diving ethos.
The main one being equipment. 7 foot lose and wing and backplate is very different to what everyone else here dives.

It’s like during the course, it’s drilled into your head to do everything properly the way GUE teaches. What I found was, after the course, no one is going to practice skills or dives the way you wish they did (the same as you) like you were taught, so unfortunately, it’s hard to be a GUE diver without diving with GUE divers regularly. The next time I go for a GUE course, I feel like I will have lost the quality of my muscle memory and will be relearning maybe?

 

[eelnoraa]

I actually don't think fundie is an expansive class in a relative sense. Sure the absolute number maybe greater than say average OW class, but consider you get 4.5 days of class, easily 8-10 hours per day time with the instructors, 3-4 hour water dive per day, and 1:3 student instructor ratio, this alone is a better value. Not mention the skill taught in the class. It is sure a very demanding class tho even for the experienced

 

[eelnoraa]

One thing I wish GUE did was how to dive with non gue divers after the course, or just have my instructor talk about it.
I don’t want to seem like a know all and seem like I’m telling people how to do briefings, and procedures, trim, buoyancy, eye contact during ascents/descents, staying together as a team etc.
I wish I could dive with GUE divers where I live but there are none, I don’t want to impose my diving mindset onto others here even though I think there are clear benefits over other diving ethos.
The main one being equipment. 7 foot lose and wing and backplate is very different to what everyone else here dives.

I totally get your feeling. Diving with other GUE trained divers, no matter where you meet them, you kind of know exact what to expect on your first dive. With non GUE/DIR train divers, you just have to estimate that expectation from zero, go conservative. You will get used to it in time. You just have to make sure you do your briefing/gear check yourself, let other know how to operate the critical gears and start conservative. There are a lot of great non GUE/DIR trained divers as well.

 

[Goingforsound]

Diving with non gue in rec mode is easy. But i cant imagine diving tech with non gue.

 

[KevinNM]

Diving with non gue in rec mode is easy. But i cant imagine diving tech with non gue.

Not a tech diver. But generally everyone who is not GUE says they want to do at least one non-serious dive with someone before doing a tech dive with them, and often more than one. There seems to be a lot more trust with GUE divers, that you wouldn't have the card if you couldn't perform as people expect a GUE certified diver to behave.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Diving with non gue in rec mode is easy. But i cant imagine diving tech with non gue.

That seems backwards to me. The way tech gear is configured, and the procedures, are actually more uniform across agencies, instructors, etc., than rec gear and procedures.