I tasted the Kool Aide and it didnt agree with me

[Bob Sherwood]

Buoyancy controls is a significant part of the curriculum, but remember that prior to entering a fundamentals program one needs to be a certified diver. The industry needs to help here. The buoyancy window in fundamentals to pass is 5 feet from target depth. Again, people put the emphasis on passing. While we are not going to change this i reiterate it is not the valuable commodity of the program. Even if ones buoyancy is outside of this window i think there is considerable value to the course. But one needs to be honest prior to the class as to what their expectation is, and how realistic it is to achieve in a given amount of time.
I don't think one needs to practice or prepare for the fundamentals course, but should go into the course understanding what the real value is. Getting the information, and a clear picture of strengths and weakness's, and most importantly, how to improve the areas that need addressing. All diver capacities are not the same. Some catch on quicker and others take more time. Given attitude and desire both can reach similar levels but maybe in different time frames.
That said, I think it is important to shop for all instructors for any course that one takes. Instructors are not created equal. Even those relatively equal in experience and knowledge and ability to educate have different personalities and that in itself will allow more or less information to hit its target.
We have really great instructors in our organization, but there will always be a range. One can always look to the Training Director's or member's of the training council, as they train the instructor core. There is a reason that Jarrod's cave courses are always full and booked years in advance, and cost more. But I would never hesitate to send one of my students to our newest cave instructor as I know that they will get a good course, and will be safe and enjoy themselves. Best,
Bob

 

[rjack321]

You can play word games all day long but an overhead is an overhead. To do it deep, solo, and on a single Al80 is most definitley not DIR. Why is this conversation even happening in here?

Because nobody has the nuts to cut Catherine's strokery ways out of this forum. She continually asks questions which are clearly leading not-DIR ways and then elaborates on her not-DIR approach. I don't give a rats patooty about how or why she deep, air, single AL80, solo dives. It belongs in the solo forum or someplace else I have not opted into cause I don't want to hear about it. Call me closed minded but if your post isn't either a DIR question or a DIR answer it should be deleted here. Since they are not, most of us who really do DIR dives have gone elsewhere to network.

 

[MHK]

I think this is a problem with Fundies. From all of the reports I've read, why take the class if you're not ready? As an introduction to skills you've never attempted? I understand the goal is to learn something (as we all should be doing) and not a "pass" or card but I think bringing in students that are way unprepared along side of students that may be very prepared may be an issue.

RiverRat,

I have a couple of comments to offer regarding your post:

1) As for "why" to take the class if not ready, it may be helpful to understand that it is nearly impossible for a certified diver to not be ready to take this class for purposes of learning what the class has to offer. If the goal is to "pass" the class then a diver needs to look at the larger picture of what does "passing" the class actually mean?

Essentially the only thing a "pass" does for a diver is allow them to go onto future GUE classes, short of that the "pass" is meaningless.

The evolution of this class was such that it began as a workshop based class with the primary purpose of re-introducing skills that should have been taught in basic OW, along with a flavor of the DIR approach to equipment configuration. Over a period of time, as the success of the class, become more well-known and widespread, what we saw was that it was no longer sufficient to continue to offer the class on a workshop type basis since there was no way to measure a students performance. Moreover, what we were seeing was that students would sit through the workshop type format with no gauge of performance other then our feedback, and then would go on to future classes, ie; tech 1 and/or cave 1, and lack the requisite skill required of those classes. Accordingly, the training council felt that we needed a better way to measure performance and offer students a greater opportunity to get prepared for upper level training, thus the concept of a more formalized pass/fail structure was born. So if one's goal is future GUE training, then the earlier the better to take and incorporate the protocols into their diving. If a diver has no desire for future GUE training, then I'm not sure what s/he needs to prepare for since all we teach in this class is pretty basic and fundamental stuff; do a mask R & R while nuetrally bouyant; do a valve drill while maintaining position, trim and bouyancy; various propulsion techniques, etc, etc. Either way, I have never been an advocate of people "traning" for this class since more often then not what the student is training and/or emphasizing usually needs to be undone and fixed.

2) The other comment I'd like to make is regarding your comment: "As an introduction to skills you've never attempted". In my view the real question is why haven't the students attempted this before? Mask R & R's, various propulsion techniques, et. al. should very well be part of basic open water training, so if the 1st time a student is encountering these skills is in our class, then the problem is with the industry and/or the training received prior to our class, since our DIR-F class isn't offering anything that the student shouldn't have seen before. Certainly we may have a different view of "mastering" the skill, but that aside, the skills should have at least been atempted prior to our class.

Hope that helps.

 

[piikki]

Because nobody has the nuts to cut Catherine's strokery ways out of this forum. She continually asks questions which are clearly leading not-DIR ways and then elaborates on her not-DIR approach. I don't give a rats patooty about how or why she deep, air, single AL80, solo dives. It belongs in the solo forum or someplace else I have not opted into cause I don't want to hear about it. Call me closed minded but if your post isn't either a DIR question or a DIR answer it should be deleted here. Since they are not, most of us who really do DIR dives have gone elsewhere to network.

Most of us who aren't even DIR wish that someone had them nuts already.

Good luck to those trying to re-steer discussions back on some sort of track dodging the repeat offenders.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Because nobody has the nuts to cut Catherine's strokery ways out of this forum. She continually asks questions which are clearly leading not-DIR ways and then elaborates on her not-DIR approach. I don't give a rats patooty about how or why she deep, air, single AL80, solo dives. It belongs in the solo forum or someplace else I have not opted into cause I don't want to hear about it. Call me closed minded but if your post isn't either a DIR question or a DIR answer it should be deleted here. Since they are not, most of us who really do DIR dives have gone elsewhere to network.

First off, the only SB mod who's shown an interest in this forum since the departure of Uncle Pug and Snowbear is TSandM ... and since she participates in these discussions, by the board's own rules she's disallowed from moderating them.

Secondly, I don't think anyone else on staff really gives a rat's patooty about the DIR divers or their discussions. Why would they, when they're not DIR? There was a time when SB had several DIR-trained divers in its moderator corps. Today I can only think of two ... Lynne and Rick Inman ... and Rick's gone more the IANTD route these days.

Finally, the increasing signal-to-noise ratio in this forum isn't any different than it is anywhere else on SB. It's just a reflection of how the board's evolving.

So yeah ... I think you're right ... this ain't the place for serious DIR discussions anymore ... if in fact it ever was.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Darnold9999]

I did get instruction, and was pleased with the quality. The only complaint I had was that the course was rushed as we did it in two days instead of the normal three so I did not feel there was enough time to retry or apply the corrections on skills that did not go well first time around. We did it in two as there was only the two of us taking the course so we got a fair amount of individual instruction, but things were rushed. At times there were more helpers than students, which was great.

In a three day course I suspect there would be a little more time for practice and it would be a little less intense.

I came in to the class quite comfortable in my rig - first time for the long hose and had some trouble with it. My donation instincts were great as I learned to donate the primary years ago - restowing was a comedy act however. Same with the bungied second - took a couple tries to get comfortable with finding it - no big deal. Shooting a bag was a first and while "successful" was not my finest moment. Frog kick in my fins simply does not work well at all, traded with one of the video guys for a dive and everything worked as it should. Heard nothing but whines about my fins after the dive from the video guy - couldn't back kick at all.

All of this is to say that where I was already quite comfortable - boyancy, situation awareness, task loading, the course went well and I was able to take a lot from it and build one skill on another. Where I was learning new skills, back kick, shoot a bag, dealing with the long hose I did not do so well and there really wasn't time to do more than learn what the skill was, how to do it, try it - get the critique and move on. Practice and perfect later.

IMHO If you come in with the idea that you will learn alot and perfect it later you will be fine no matter what level you come in at. If you expect to perfect everything during the course I think you will be disappointed as there isn't enough time to learn AND perfect all of the skills in the time allocated unless you already have significant skills - particularly with bouyancy control - and it is a three day course.

 

[piikki]

First off, the only SB mod who's shown an interest in this forum since the departure of Uncle Pug and Snowbear is TSandM ... and since she participates in these discussions, by the board's own rules she's disallowed from moderating them.

How DIR do you need to be to be able to moderate (out) the 6-10 worst offenders on this forum? Not much I say. If I can spot it, I am sure you don't need DIR training to be able to cut the noise by, at least, 50%... Huge improvement...

 

[John_B]

The buoyancy window in fundamentals to pass is 5 feet from target depth.

Bob, I appreciate you chiming in here. In this past month alone I've read reports of people needing a 1' or even 6" buoyancy window for a DIR-F/GUE-F tech pass with certain instructors. Is that realistic?

What buoyancy window would you say is needed going into Fundies to get value from the class?

Thanks!

John

 

[RiverRat]

RiverRat,

I have a couple of comments to offer regarding your post:

1) As for "why" to take the class if not ready, it may be helpful to understand that it is nearly impossible for a certified diver to not be ready to take this class for purposes of learning what the class has to offer. If the goal is to "pass" the class then a diver needs to look at the larger picture of what does "passing" the class actually mean? [/QIOTE]

I've got to remember I've been diving over 4 years now so I'm not that "new" coming into this and to be honest I never really bought into a lot of the standard industry hogwash I was exposed to early on. I was told I'd just about kill myself in the rig I decided to build without any real explanation as to why. It turns out I was on the right track right after all. Luckily for me I found some training to help me out in deficient areas before I go into GUE-F. I understand this is not available to everyone and GUE-F may be their first introduction. For me I just needed some help that I could not get from any other local training. And the goal right now for me is to learn although passing GUE-F later on would be of benefit if I decide to continue on that path. I have a clear expectation. I'm just making observations from my perspective.

Essentially the only thing a "pass" does for a diver is allow them to go onto future GUE classes, short of that the "pass" is meaningless.

I agree

The evolution of this class was such that it began as a workshop based class with the primary purpose of re-introducing skills that should have been taught in basic OW, along with a flavor of the DIR approach to equipment configuration. Over a period of time, as the success of the class, become more well-known and widespread, what we saw was that it was no longer sufficient to continue to offer the class on a workshop type basis since there was no way to measure a students performance. Moreover, what we were seeing was that students would sit through the workshop type format with no gauge of performance other then our feedback, and then would go on to future classes, ie; tech 1 and/or cave 1, and lack the requisite skill required of those classes. Accordingly, the training council felt that we needed a better way to measure performance and offer students a greater opportunity to get prepared for upper level training, thus the concept of a more formalized pass/fail structure was born.

ok, that sounds like the history of GUE-F as I understand it.

So if one's goal is future GUE training, then the earlier the better to take and incorporate the protocols into their diving. If a diver has no desire for future GUE training, then I'm not sure what s/he needs to prepare for since all we teach in this class is pretty basic and fundamental stuff; do a mask R & R while nuetrally bouyant; do a valve drill while maintaining position, trim and bouyancy; various propulsion techniques, etc, etc. Either way, I have never been an advocate of people "training" for this class since more often then not what the student is training and/or emphasizing usually needs to be undone and fixed.

I certainly can attest to breaking old habits. That is the downside of taking the course after diving a certain way for almost 5 years. But the bonus of the class I "trained" in was that it's basically DIR driven so by it's very design it starts to break you down. I can't see any bad in it. Then again I only needed to "break" some things so it may not be that bad for me. (my impression, not necessarily the impressions of others). I do agree that many of the basics need to be taught from the beginning and the way the industry is going it just aint happening to a large degree. The main reason I took this particular class was to learn some more kicking technique. Unless I took a cave course I know of no other way to get instructed. I had some friends show me the basics but that only does so much. Not only did I get some good basics there I learned quite a bit more and I really feel I got a lot out of the class.

2) The other comment I'd like to make is regarding your comment: "As an introduction to skills you've never attempted". In my view the real question is why haven't the students attempted this before? Mask R & R's, various propulsion techniques, et. al. should very well be part of basic open water training, so if the 1st time a student is encountering these skills is in our class, then the problem is with the industry and/or the training received prior to our class, since our DIR-F class isn't offering anything that the student shouldn't have seen before. Certainly we may have a different view of "mastering" the skill, but that aside, the skills should have at least been atempted prior to our class.

Hope that helps.

Yes. Like I said before, it's an industry issue. That's why I gravitated toward the class I took. Right up my alley. So for me it fills a "void" between levels/agencies if you will. Like I said before, I could care less about passing or a card. I want to learn. If I do pass and can go on then surely that's a benefit. I don't know, I'm sure my expectations are different, or will be different when I take GUE-F because of taking the prep classes. It seems to be working for me.

 

[Sloth]

2) The other comment I'd like to make is regarding your comment: "As an introduction to skills you've never attempted". In my view the real question is why haven't the students attempted this before? Mask R & R's, various propulsion techniques, et. al. should very well be part of basic open water training, so if the 1st time a student is encountering these skills is in our class, then the problem is with the industry and/or the training received prior to our class, since our DIR-F class isn't offering anything that the student shouldn't have seen before. Certainly we may have a different view of "mastering" the skill, but that aside, the skills should have at least been atempted prior to our class.

Hope that helps.

Since GUE has a very specific way to do value drills, S-drills, shoot a lift bag, deploy a back up light, ect. Even the most experienced tech divers might struggle to re-learn these skills in the short time frame given when going for a tech pass