A somewhat sad conversation last night

[boulderjohn]

These skills are equipment independent, (which the exception of helicopter turns and back kicks which can be damnably hard in the wrong fins). I agree that it would be nice if LDSs were to rent "tech gear" but I don't think that the demand is there. If it were, then they would. Shops rent one of two types of gear, either the cheapest that they can get away with or the best that they have that they want to sell. There are lots of rather obvious reasons as to why they do this and "tech gear" rarely fits into either category, though you'd think that LDSs would cotton to the concept that with a BP/w one size fits all and the need for a bunch of different sized BCDs goes away.

Having gone through this with a couple of different shops, I assure you that in our neck of the woods, carrying unsold tech inventory is a potential financial disaster which owners rightfully fear. Where Bob lives there is enough of a market to justify that risk; in our area the market is small indeed.

A couple of years ago a SB member who is a shop owner (I think it was Phil Ellis--could be wrong) cited industry statistics indicating that BP/Ws constituted less than 1% of total BCD sales in the U.S. the previous year. Of that 1%, I would bet that a handful of locations made the majority of those sales. That means the market is pretty much nonexistent in other places. When you further consider that some of the companies that make this equipment require contracts guaranteeing a pretty hefty amount of annual sales, you have a very big incentive for a LDS to stay out of the market and leave the risk to a competitor.

 

[Thalassamania]

Perhaps I'm naive, but I suspect that were I to stock a shop with just BP/Ws, no BCDs, only rent BP/Ws and have all my staff using BP/Ws I would sell as many of them as I had BCDs previously. Not all lines require big booking commitments (e.g., HOG). Granted, I'd have to do the dance that I don't like about how this is the only way to dive ... etc. But I'm sure that it would work just fine, those of us in the "industry" forget that scuba brands to not carry the weight (at least to a new diver) that name brands in more mundane products (like cars or appliances) do. Diving gear is a market that, at least with respect to the brand, you create ... it's not just there waiting for you to fill the order. Sure, your not gonna sell HOG to the diehard SP user, but that's not the sale you need, the sales you need are to the 300 new divers a year the shop has to produce.

 

[JamesK]

the only reason bp/w combos do not sell in the mainstream market is because new divers are not taught in it. I see it all the time here. the lds I volunteer at does not sell bp/w combos. when I talk to new divers buying gear, they want what they used in class. if they were introduced to alternatives, they would buy them. the manager always comments that if I worked there and was staying here, the store would have a completely different inventory.

sorry about the punctuation. I am on my iPad and hate hitting the shift key.

 

[TSandM]

We're certainly seeing our students fresh out of OW go buy backplate setups. Of course, we encourage it, and they saw us diving the stuff. In fact, we're trying to work with our LDS to put together a "Peter package" for students, with a good middle-of-the-road cold water reg, some basic gauges, and a backplate rig. People don't want this gear because it looks forbidding in the shop, if you have never seen anyone diving it who told you it's good stuff.

I agree with everybody who has said that you can learn the skills that are presented in Fundies in other places. Most of them are available in any cavern class, and depending on the instructor, you will learn them in an Intro to Tech. The standard to which you will be held may vary (the Fundies standards are pretty high, and they are published, so you know what they are ahead of time) but the skills can be learned. What's unique about Fundamentals is that it is the introduction to the GUE system of diving, which includes more than specific, isolated skills. Standardization and teamwork are also big parts of it.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

True, and if my information is any good, it is still a lot like taking fundies twice. Bob, boulderjohn, Thalassamania, and others are cause for great encouragement.

You point out just how resource-limited GUE really is. Being so, I would imagine that GUE targets the "better" students for a lot of reasons.

I don't think GUE targets the "better" students ... rather the other way around. The fact that they make you work your ass off if you want to pass is a rather self-selecting motivation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Griffo]

Perhaps I'm naive, but I suspect that were I to stock a shop with just BP/Ws, no BCDs, only rent BP/Ws and have all my staff using BP/Ws I would sell as many of them as I had BCDs previously. Not all lines require big booking commitments (e.g., HOG). Granted, I'd have to do the dance that I don't like about how this is the only way to dive ... etc. But I'm sure that it would work just fine, those of us in the "industry" forget that scuba brands to not carry the weight (at least to a new diver) that name brands in more mundane products (like cars or appliances) do. Diving gear is a market that, at least with respect to the brand, you create ... it's not just there waiting for you to fill the order. Sure, your not gonna sell HOG to the diehard SP user, but that's not the sale you need, the sales you need are to the 300 new divers a year the shop has to produce.

Two of my local LDS's have actually had their teams of instructors switch over to BP/W setups for teaching. While the rental gear is still jackets, they also stock the Scuba-Pro & Halcyon range of backplate systems. They also promote 'tech' days where people can try out BPW setups and twin sets etc. And their newsletters carry ads for their tech courses as well as the usual rec courses. When I speak to the owners, they claim the tech courses are always booked out. I'm sure this is a market they are helping to create by directly advertising to their customer base.

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't think GUE targets the "better" students ... rather the other way around. The fact that they make you work your ass off if you want to pass is a rather self-selecting motivation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob, you said it yourself a while back: "It truly does boil down to motivation ... if you believe something is hard, or unnecessary to learn, you won't learn it ... even if it's completely within your capability."

No one ever told me that teaching students to have really good buoyancy and trim was [-]hard[/-] impossible, I was too stupid to know that it was [-]hard[/-] impossible, and I was lucky enough to blunder into a 100 hour, semester long course format which I replicated, and low and behold, it was completely within my/our/their capability.

As Lynne pointed out there is much more to a GUE program than buoyancy and trim, just as there is, similarly, much more to a 100 hr. class, or even your run-of-the-mill PADI resort based course. But it seems to me that it would be beneficial to have a campaign to motivate instructors, to get them to see a new target of producing divers with the best possible buoyancy and trim within the time constraints that now operate under, even to get them to chafe a bit under their constraints and expand, at least to where they routinely produce divers with acceptable buoyancy and trim without an add on program.

 

[JamesK]

Two of my local LDS's have actually had their teams of instructors switch over to BP/W setups for teaching. While the rental gear is still jackets, they also stock the Scuba-Pro & Halcyon range of backplate systems. They also promote 'tech' days where people can try out BPW setups and twin sets etc. And their newsletters carry ads for their tech courses as well as the usual rec courses. When I speak to the owners, they claim the tech courses are always booked out. I'm sure this is a market they are helping to create by directly advertising to their customer base.

While I think this is great, I also think this actually hurts. Promoting "tech days" and teaching that Hogarth/DIR/BPW is "tech" reinforces the thought that it is completely unnecessary for a standard OW diver, and can not help them. Just my opinion though.

 

[lowviz]

People speak as if GUE is the only place you can learn these skills. Remember that fundies was born from the need to have students better prepared for the technical training needed for cave work. Almost all technical diving agencies have a similar program. I am a TDI instructor, and a student who takes Intro to Tech from me will get a very similar course.. ...//...

I know that these skills can be had by other means, a wise man told me so almost exactly one year ago in post #110: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...-no-fundies-dir-agnostics-11.html#post5891791 Too bad you aren't within driving distance, boulderjohn or NWGD. Funny, I'm looking at a PSAI Intro to Tech at this moment. Promises the same focus. I have a cave cert, but I knew that I had to either fight flow or keep moving forward to attain the required degree of control. -not good enough for me, need to demonstrate static trim and buoyancy to myself. Will then re-do cave someday, just because...

I don't think GUE targets the "better" students ... rather the other way around. The fact that they make you work your ass off if you want to pass is a rather self-selecting motivation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

-That is exactly how I would target the better student...



Final word:
GUE remains perfectly maddening to me, crave the skills, but any agency that requires serious mentoring to pass THE one single introductory course aimed at developing the precisely defined fundamental structure from which everything else builds, is a platinum "bell-jar France metric standard" for Inconsistency. It is obvious that they aren't targeting me, I need to let this (and them) go. No hard feelings...

 

[TSandM]

Lowviz, I sure wish you could come out and visit the PNW. I think you have a bunch of misconceptions we could clear up rather quickly.

If GUE targeted the "better students", they would never have had anything to do with me. Thank goodness, they did; I have struggled mightily with every GUE class I've taken, except Cave 1 (which wasn't that hard because I had taken another agency's equivalent class first) but I have never, ever regretted throwing myself at their bar, even if I have trouble reaching it. At least I know what's possible, and what I need to keep trying to achieve.