GUE Fundamental course

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@rjack321 I’m sure there is a world in which things line up that cleanly into two nicely separable cases.
Yeah, that's not reflective of the real world. At. All.
 
@Ayisha, My bladder disintegration might have occurred shortly after I got to the bottom at the start of the dive. So I'm heavy by all my gas. Say two AL80s worth. (sidemount and all).

So I'm balanced in being able to swim it up. But not neutral as my bladder just exploded. Not feeling like diving old school, sans BC, I've decided to ascend, and being really safety conscious I still want the stop. Or maybe want to swim out from under the kelp.

(Ah, I'm sure these principle are explained in Fundies, but there is no internet version, you could have read them in... But then you must have taken it, if you're DIR... :)) (not meaning to be mean, just playful or ironic, as in you might have left out neutral vs balanced.)
 
...divealert (which is best left in a pocket until you need it)

Haha, my Dive Alert was removed on my first day of Fundies and my instructor said exactly that: I could keep it in a pocket until I need it.

I had removed my Tobin cap for warm water diving right before Fundies and he said to just keep it off. :D
 
...My bladder disintegration might have occurred shortly after I got to the bottom at the start of the dive. So I'm heavy by all my gas. Say two AL80s worth. (sidemount and all)...

Aah, I didn't realize it was still part of your contingency planning. I thought it sounded like your normal diving.

In that case, I was going to ask you why you would feel the need to do a safety stop with a wing failure if you just descended, presumably to a recreational depth, but you already edited your post including adding in still wanting to do the safety stop.

BTW, if you were diving trimix, you'd still be pretty close to neutral with a wing failure, so nope, nothing in your post says you're diving a "heavy" gas.
 
Ah, remind me of the cost of trimix.

Does trimix not weight anything at all. Just absolutely zero weight? So a full trimix tank and an empty trimix tank weigh the same?
 
You raised a good question here:
All of these equipment and procedure questions that are not part of GUE are somehow in this thread and others about GUE Fundamentals.
Paraphrasing: Why is all this non-GUE stuff in a thread about Fundies.

Good question. A possible reason is someone asks or says things like:
- "After the class you can always do X". (X = use that other wing, dive air, dive in twos, etc, etc)
And a GUE/DIR inspired person says something like:
- "X is never needed." (period end of statement)
Which leads to several people saying:
- "Well, really in circumstance A, B, C, it's fine.
And is told:
- "No it's never fine"
With a few rounds of discussion.
And eventually we get to:
- "Well within GUE, it's never fine."

Which would have been a great place to have started.
 
You raised a good question here:

Paraphrasing: Why is all this non-GUE stuff in a thread about Fundies.

Good question. A possible reason is someone asks or says things like:
- "After the class you can always do X". (X = use that other wing, dive air, dive in twos, etc, etc)
And a GUE/DIR inspired person says something like:
- "X is never needed." (period end of statement)
Which leads to several people saying:
- "Well, really in circumstance A, B, C, it's fine.
And is told:
- "No it's ever fine"
With a few rounds of discussion.
And eventually we get to:
- "Well within GUE, it's never fine."

Which would have been a great place to have started.
Poor equipment choices are always poor choices.
 
Poor equipment choices are always poor choices.
With all due respect, it is that sentiment that has kept me from taking Fundies. I have an interest in the class and have even gone so far as to reach out to a couple of very highly regarded instructors. I do appreciate the quality of the instruction. However the complete inflexibility in dive configuration and the sentiment that just because something isn’t completely necessary that it is bad to use doesn’t really sit well with me. Also if I was ever to get into diving multiple cylinders it would almost certainly be in a side mount configuration so the realization that no matter how much I liked Fundies that I would never pursue higher level training with GUE kind of soured me as well.
 
With all due respect, it is that sentiment that has kept me from taking Fundies. I have an interest in the class and have even gone so far as to reach out to a couple of very highly regarded instructors. I do appreciate the quality of the instruction. However the complete inflexibility in dive configuration and the sentiment that just because something isn’t completely necessary that it is bad to use doesn’t really sit well with me. Also if I was ever to get into diving multiple cylinders it would almost certainly be in a side mount configuration so the realization that no matter how much I liked Fundies that I would never pursue higher level training with GUE kind of soured me as well.
If you decide to take fundamentals, you’re of course free to dive as you please before and after the class. If you got something out of the class and liked what you experienced... why dive Sidemount?

Fundamentals is like anything in life. If it speaks to you, use it. If not, discard and move on. I’d suggest taking what you can and want from the course and enjoy your life.

I fully believe that divers are routinely encumbered by poor equipment choices. They haven’t mastered even the simplest of gear. Then additions come. They choose something poorly, and add additional stuff to compensate for it. For what?

Thankfully, we have discussion boards where we can share our experiences and opinions.
 
With all due respect, it is that sentiment that has kept me from taking Fundies. I have an interest in the class and have even gone so far as to reach out to a couple of very highly regarded instructors. I do appreciate the quality of the instruction. However the complete inflexibility in dive configuration and the sentiment that just because something isn’t completely necessary that it is bad to use doesn’t really sit well with me. Also if I was ever to get into diving multiple cylinders it would almost certainly be in a side mount configuration so the realization that no matter how much I liked Fundies that I would never pursue higher level training with GUE kind of soured me as well.
That is your loss. I stopped at Fundies, but it was just an awesome class. T1 is supposed to be better. I was told "You don't have to drink the Kool Aid. Just go for the skills."

Just adopt the configuration for the course and go back to whatever you want afterwards. You WILL be a much better diver. The reason I didn't continue with T1 is that my configuration of choice is sidemount. Taking fundies interrupted my progress there, but I believe it was well worth it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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