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Agreed. Which is why I still teach it rather than ignoring it. Mostly logistics and availability. I tend to do a few shallow dives, then some ascent training, then come back to the shallows to do some skill refinement. There's normally a few cylinders kicking around that are part fills of...

There's always going to be something that the instructor disagrees with. For example, there is one TDI performance requirement in the Decompression Procedures course that I'd rather was different. I can't remember exactly how it's worded, but it's essentially 'buddy breathing a deco gas'. I...

I think I could convince the wife to move.....! ;) Somewhere in between. The requirement is to be affiliated with a "facility". That doesn't mean a shop. For example, I know of a University Dive Club that is in the process of setting itself up as a facility.

Page 128. Step 3 of how to deploy a lift bag: "At the same time, if you can, hold on to something with your legs, or have your team mates hold you down, so you fill the bag as much as possible without it carrying you upward. The more you fill it the better." Which is of course...

I don't know either, though I can think of many reasons why - one being local availability. The GUE courses I've done have been great, but have also had to fly in an instructor from overseas to do them. I think that many people don't have the time to dedicate to such an endeavour (or to travel...

I don't beleive that you can seperate the instructor from the agency. Take me as an example. I can teach the PADI courses - and I could teach a good one. But to do so, I would have to bend many of the course standards and probably break a few. I would have to contradict the 'ethos' of the...

Indeed. The thing I find quite interesting is that both PADI and I share the same view of this picture - that it is a picture that should be used to express the merits of the course!!! ;)

And this is a course being taught be one of the TDD Technical Diving Consultants to a PADI Examiner..... .... I also love the nice, crisp cylinder labelling conventions in use. It's really clear what is in each tank, don't you think?

This is one of my favourites I've found on the web: See the attachment, or look at the original article on the Tec Rec blog. The Tec 50 Course « TecRec Blog From the blog; "Tec 50 really allows the diver to refine foundation skills – one handed staging & retrieving, efficient cylinder...

Following on from Steve's comments.... well, I'm not biased! I can teach both PADI Tec courses and TDI. I prefer to teach the latter. The PADI curriculum has some fairly fundamental flaws in it, IMHO. For example, in my instructor exam one of the questions asked about procedures for what to do...

Provided your body shape doesn't prevent it, you can always where the weightbelt over the harness. It may or may not be comfortable - my wife, for example, is very short and find the plate and the weightbelt interfere with each other. A "short" plate (e.g. DSS) may help, though it was easier...

What Gareth said! Personally, I don't have ditchable weight. Well, I kind of do - I have a weightbelt with 2kg on it, but it's worn under my harness so in practice would take a bit more jiggling to ditch. The reasons I'm not too concerned about ditchable weight: 1. I have a balanced...

Grudge match! :D

Totally. But my point was that sometimes GUE are highlighted as being very rigid - yet I don't believe that they are. Solo diving was discussed fairly extensively in my Tech 1 class, for example. Typically along the lines of "If you were solo diving, you probably wouldn't do it this way...".

I can't really comment on the solo diving aspect, but I can comment (albeit second hand) on the deep(ish) air view that GUE has of it's instructors. I used to be in partnership with a GUE instructor (Jamie Obern in NZ) who (according to him) had a conversation with JJ about the inavailability...

What Tammy said. Just go diving heaps. And then some more. Once you've done a rescue course, offer to help out on another one. I quite often get ex-students to be victims during a course - it will give you an insight into how courses are run (and what it takes out of the instructor) that you...

Dare I say it, but I suspect that at least part of this problem is performance anxiety! I bet that if you gave your friend a Fundies card now that he could probably reach those valves no problem! In addition to all the other advice, probably the biggest suggestion is to slow it down and relax...

You'll get as many recommendations as there are NZ divers on here!! ;) Unless you specifically need to do day trips (e.g. non diving partner), then you get more bang for your buck with a liveaboard. Both OceanBlue and Pacific Hideaway are good options. OceanBlue is more likely to have space, PH...

and You will find many answers to these questions - as many as there are SDI Solo instructors. This is a sample from the SDI manual, albeit from 2006 - there have been some changes since then...