DIR- GUE Reflections on Fundamentals

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Curious about the frankenbreather comment.

seems like you can either put the bailout on your back or put it on your sides. Not really much difference otherwise.
Frankenbreather is just a joke :wink: In my personal opinion GUE has configured the JJ in a way I definitely do not like and do not want to dive.I get the reasoning behind the GUE breather, but it does not suit my style of diving. No doubts it works fine for the GUE guys, but not for me (heavy, cumbersome and clumsy imo).
 
I would have to disagree with this opinion. Having a GUE Instructor be honest about their ability is what the agency is all about. Their courses' QA and safety standards are extremely high, if not the highest, in the industry. They would not say this if they did not mean it.

I agree that having an instructor be honest with you is a good thing, particularly moving into technical diving. What seems to be a mismatch to me is the philosophy of coaching and feedback and the GUE course restrictions that others have posted about; specifically the 6th month redo time limit if you get a provisional, or if you fail entirely you have to completely redo the course.

Individuals develop at different paces. Some get it quickly, others have to work on some skills, others have to go back to the drawing board entirely. What you learn does not evaporate though. If you continue to dive, and apply the methodology that you learned in classes, knowledge does not *disappear*, it gets reinforced and internalized over time.

I was listening to a podcast interview with Jarod Jablonski (league of extraordinary divers podcast) where he outlined how he developed GUE and the coaching methodology, essentially that you could coach folks over time and then give them a certification when they met the goals or standards necessary to advance. What he talked about made a lot of sense, but unfortunately is not reflected in the current GUE fundamentals structure, which is much more all or nothing than his original concept. When you take fundies you have 4 possible outcomes. 1. you get a tech pass, 2. you get a provisional tech pass, 3 you get a rec pass, 3. you fail completely. In 3 of the 4 outcomes you either have to do a follow up session within 6 months or redo the class entirely if you want to pursue technical training through GUE. My question is what drives the 6 months or the need to redo a class entirely and how does that match with the coaching folks over time philosophy that Jablonski advocates? If you are continuing to dive and train using the GUE method than 6 months is irrelevant, you will not lose the skill set you gained during fundies, in fact you will internalize it and make it habit; while you are building and refining the skills you have to work on. Retaking a class in whole is a waste of $$ and time. If you failed fundies becuase you had a hard time maintaining trim and buoyancy while performing skills than retaking fundies and spending time and $$ going over equipment configuration again is not going to do anything but discourage and dissuade folks, the opposite of what we should be trying to do.

I was going to take fundies this summer, in fact I had already started the academics and some of the remote teaching sessions for the class. Through a turn of events the class was cancelled and I could not make timing work to do it at another time. Because of this I found stumbled upon UTD and took their version of fundies, essentials. The UTD system is very close to GUE and their training methodology looks to me like it matches more closely Jablinski's original concept of coaching until someone is ready to progress then GUEs does now. In fact there is a shop in Rockville Maryland that does their pricing in exactly that way, you pay $95 for each coaching session until they get you to a point where you are ready to move on to the next level of training (they estimate 7 sessions for the average person). Please note that I am not trying to sell UTD kool-aide here, every agency will have things that seem off to folks and UTD is no different (for example I have a lot of reservations about Ratio Deco); but their training program methodology appears to be much truer to the original Jablonski idea than GUE does now.

I have also heard folks say that GUE fundies is more than skills development, it is also a critical element to team development and ensuring everyone has standardized procedures. I get that argument, makes a lot of sense, but again if someone has the fundamental skills that making them do a class that wastes time and money going over things they have mastered to get to the team procedures is going to be a put-off to many. Why not have a different transition course? Do a check dive session with someone to evaluate if they truly have the fundamental skills and then have a shorter procedure oriented course to onboard them to GUE team SOPs? I have a theory on that but don't want to distract from my main point, that GUE appears to have drifted from elements of their founding training ideals
 
Question: If someone feels like they aren't ready yet and need more time to develop the necessary skills then why not start with GUE Rec 1? Here this course can take up to about 4 months so there is way more time to practice and less pressure to get everything right instantly.

Me and my partner where really satisfied with the fundamentals training, but we already where experienced (drysuit) divers at the time. We prepared ourselves by making sure we got our gear configuration in place months before the training started. The we just went diving as much as we could, tweaking weight placement etc. for optimal trim and buoyancy. During these months our instructor was very willing to give us tips and advice when we had questions.

We also watched (just watched, didn’t practice) GUE skill video's so we knew what to expect. Once the third team member subscribed to the course we also went diving with him a couple of times, getting to know each other beforehand.

In the end we all passed with a Tech rating on the first go (rarely happens according to our instructor). Our third team member had about a hundred dives at the time so it is not impossible .
 
Question: If someone feels like they aren't ready yet and need more time to develop the necessary skills then why not start with GUE Rec 1? Here this course can take up to about 4 months so there is way more time to practice and less pressure to get everything right instantly.

Me and my partner where really satisfied with the fundamentals training, but we already where experienced (drysuit) divers at the time. We prepared ourselves by making sure we got our gear configuration in place months before the training started. The we just went diving as much as we could, tweaking weight placement etc. for optimal trim and buoyancy. During these months our instructor was very willing to give us tips and advice when we had questions.

We also watched (just watched, didn’t practice) GUE skill video's so we knew what to expect. Once the third team member subscribed to the course we also went diving with him a couple of times, getting to know each other beforehand.

In the end we all passed with a Tech rating on the first go (rarely happens according to our instructor). Our third team member had about a hundred dives at the time so it is not impossible .

Why take a rec course if you are already certified as a recreational diver and your goal is to move into technical training or just become a better diver? Isn't that what coaching or fundies is for? Taking a rec course is just going to have you repeating a bunch of stuff you already know just to get to a few things you might not, or might need some help with.
 
....E.g. you were not there, so how would you know?

No, I was not, yet I can read and I did read this whole post. He passed Fundies with Zero Gravity, with Chis as one of his instructors. Same student, different teacher, different outcome. That is how I know. And the OP is not the first person I've met that has had similar experiences. And it aint like I'm not a "true believer" of GUE, hell, as I stated in my link, when my daughter wanted to get certified there was not other option on the table other then GUE.

And I get it, as typical with SB, you took my post as "100% of the time", for clarification, maybe I should have added "most of the time...". But, again, in my experience with GUE, the "unteachable" students (most of the time) are ones that fight the "system", take a GUE course but want to show the instructor why the way they dive is just as good. (and I was in a class like that with a student). I didn't get that from the OP.

And for the record, I've had the pleasure of meeting Chris and actually went to dinner with him a few year a ago when I was down in Mexico. Great guy (he wouldn't remember me though....)
 
Why take a rec course if you are already certified as a recreational diver and your goal is to move into technical training or just become a better diver? Isn't that what coaching or fundies is for? Taking a rec course is just going to have you repeating a bunch of stuff you already know just to get to a few things you might not, or might need some help with.
Depends on your experience. If you never did dive a Wing/Backplate combo, don't know about GUE Team concept, etc. It can be usefull to take Rec first. Fundies is quite a tep for most divers. At least it was for me and I was diving W/Bp for quite a while.
 
Why take a rec course if you are already certified as a recreational diver and your goal is to move into technical training or just become a better diver? Isn't that what coaching or fundies is for? Taking a rec course is just going to have you repeating a bunch of stuff you already know just to get to a few things you might not, or might need some help with.

AJ:
Depends on your experience. If you never did dive a Wing/Backplate combo, don't know about GUE Team concept, etc. It can be usefull to take Rec first. Fundies is quite a tep for most divers. At least it was for me and I was diving W/Bp for quite a while.

Exactly. Like mentioned before, some people just need more time or a slower pace to get things right. Is it really that terrible to start from scratch even if the ultimate goal is technical diving?

If there are just a few (minor) things that need improving then it shouldn’t be a problem to focus on these things during the fundamentals training.
 
If you are focused on learning the skills and not the cert you will be fine and I suspect can easily find a GUE instructor to work with you. If all you care about is the tech pass and minimizing costs, and you lack the necessary talent for an immediate pass it will not be a pleasant process for you.

Way too many divers focus on collecting the cards rather than gaining the experience and skills. Most of the card collectors quit diving after a few years. If you enjoy the diving and are willing to progress at the pace your diving talent allows you will have more fun.
 
I agree that having an instructor be honest with you is a good thing, particularly moving into technical diving. What seems to be a mismatch to me is the philosophy of coaching and feedback and the GUE course restrictions that others have posted about; specifically the 6th month redo time limit if you get a provisional, or if you fail entirely you have to completely redo the course.

Individuals develop at different paces. Some get it quickly, others have to work on some skills, others have to go back to the drawing board entirely. What you learn does not evaporate though. If you continue to dive, and apply the methodology that you learned in classes, knowledge does not *disappear*, it gets reinforced and internalized over time.

I was listening to a podcast interview with Jarod Jablonski (league of extraordinary divers podcast) where he outlined how he developed GUE and the coaching methodology, essentially that you could coach folks over time and then give them a certification when they met the goals or standards necessary to advance. What he talked about made a lot of sense, but unfortunately is not reflected in the current GUE fundamentals structure, which is much more all or nothing than his original concept. When you take fundies you have 4 possible outcomes. 1. you get a tech pass, 2. you get a provisional tech pass, 3 you get a rec pass, 3. you fail completely. In 3 of the 4 outcomes you either have to do a follow up session within 6 months or redo the class entirely if you want to pursue technical training through GUE. My question is what drives the 6 months or the need to redo a class entirely and how does that match with the coaching folks over time philosophy that Jablonski advocates? If you are continuing to dive and train using the GUE method than 6 months is irrelevant, you will not lose the skill set you gained during fundies, in fact you will internalize it and make it habit; while you are building and refining the skills you have to work on. Retaking a class in whole is a waste of $$ and time. If you failed fundies becuase you had a hard time maintaining trim and buoyancy while performing skills than retaking fundies and spending time and $$ going over equipment configuration again is not going to do anything but discourage and dissuade folks, the opposite of what we should be trying to do.

I was going to take fundies this summer, in fact I had already started the academics and some of the remote teaching sessions for the class. Through a turn of events the class was cancelled and I could not make timing work to do it at another time. Because of this I found stumbled upon UTD and took their version of fundies, essentials. The UTD system is very close to GUE and their training methodology looks to me like it matches more closely Jablinski's original concept of coaching until someone is ready to progress then GUEs does now. In fact there is a shop in Rockville Maryland that does their pricing in exactly that way, you pay $95 for each coaching session until they get you to a point where you are ready to move on to the next level of training (they estimate 7 sessions for the average person). Please note that I am not trying to sell UTD kool-aide here, every agency will have things that seem off to folks and UTD is no different (for example I have a lot of reservations about Ratio Deco); but their training program methodology appears to be much truer to the original Jablonski idea than GUE does now.

I have also heard folks say that GUE fundies is more than skills development, it is also a critical element to team development and ensuring everyone has standardized procedures. I get that argument, makes a lot of sense, but again if someone has the fundamental skills that making them do a class that wastes time and money going over things they have mastered to get to the team procedures is going to be a put-off to many. Why not have a different transition course? Do a check dive session with someone to evaluate if they truly have the fundamental skills and then have a shorter procedure oriented course to onboard them to GUE team SOPs? I have a theory on that but don't want to distract from my main point, that GUE appears to have drifted from elements of their founding training ideals

There is a bunch here that is incorrect. The 4 ratings are tech pas, rec pass, provisional, and fail. Fail means you are completely unsafe in diving and essentially unreachable within GUE framework----there are almost none of these and for all intensive purposes the provision is the fail aka 'did not pass'

The only rating that has the six month window is the provisional. There is no official tech pass provisional and even if there was it would still be a pass (rec pass at least) and not subject to the 6 month rule.

There are a threads detailing the history of fundies on this site. Bottom line, the method of fundies you describe with it being more of a checkout dive/workshop was the initial iteration of the course. It was ultimately not successful--too high a failure rate, failed in its goal of producing divers capable of working, too much effort with limited results.

The 4 day course was a great improvement in creating successful outcomes. The current iteration of Part 1 and Part 2 addressed issues of too much too soon, and time constraints of people needing to take time off of work and I don't see how GUE could make the course any more available and flexible without compromising the stated mission.
 
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