A very bad week in Florida

[Jeff Toorish]

Ok Bruciebabe
I do not know you but I do believe to give a guy a fair chance.

I have read this thread enough. I am willing to give you the opportunity to prove yourself as the cave diver you claim you can be. I have read your bio here as posted on scubaboard and with what you write you should have had no problem with completeing this course. That is all subject to the instruction you have previously received. I am about the instruction and not the card. I have come to expect that for the most part a students previous instruction means little to me when I meet them for the first time. I have to go by what my standards are. Again I state:Not every instructor is suited to every student. So with this in mind I am willing to meet with you and run you through some prerequisit fundamentals and a cave training review to the level you hold a c-card for by any agency. I do cave diving skill reviews at no cost, asking only for a donation to be made to the NACD. You will need to bring with you all the certification cards you have and you will be reviewed in the same equipment that you were wearing with the other instructor. We will critique the outcome regardless of the performance. I will not berate you but do not expect me to be all positive reenforcing. I will call it as I see it and some things will be negative. You will be put into scenarios and expected to think. At the Intro cave level I do not want to see any hands in the silt, any knees down, any fins fluttering or bouncy buoyancy. I expect a clean equipment setup. If you do something one way I will ask you why you do it that way and expect a logical answer with some thought behind it. Afterall in the end it is the environment which will tell you if it works or not. You will be multi-tasked and pushed to what I see as your limits. Should a real situation occur I expect you to think it through and solve it with no help from me. We will also cover some basic cave acdemics I can match cylinders in metric or imperial..
Understanding that you have some traveling to do I am willing to work with you on a schedule.

No tricks everything up front, DO YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER?

Brucie,

I have read this entire thread, as well as every word written up to this point on other boards.

So far, I have refrained from posting with an eye towrd keeping an open mind. (Early on, before the full impact of this controversy was apparent, I had considered posting and suggesting you get in touch with GDI for training.)

I am posting now to vouch for GDI. He is exactly what he represents and he will give you a fair shake, no tricks or games. In all honesty, this is a good chance to put an end to all the speculation and innuendo.

Rick (GDI) is very well known on this board, and in the cave diving community. He has trained many students at all levels and he is one of the finest instructors in any field I have met and worked with.

This seems to me an incredibly generous offer from him. Personally, I would take him up on his offer.

Jeff

 

[in_cavediver]

As they say: The proof is in the pudding.....

I would take up this very generous offer..... On the same token GDI, can we get a high level report out to confirm the outcome of this?

Yeah, A very very generous offer. Even though I have the full cave card, I am sure GDI could teach me a thing or two. Just reading the class reports on SB speaks highly of him.

Oh and Bruce - If you want references, do a search on SB for GDI class reports. There should be several to choose from.

 

[lamont]

I am willing to give you the opportunity to prove yourself as the cave diver you claim you can be.

Part of me wants to see the trainwreck, but this just seems like a bad idea to me.

 

[Trickie Dickie 99]

Bummer about work - great way to define the thread however

You have to laugh don't you? Since Friday night my time, this has been running on at least 6 fora that I'm aware of, three based in the UK, three in the US.

They say "no publicity is bad publicity", but you have to wonder about this one.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Great offer, Rick. I don't expect any kind of public report from you. I don't think you would do such a thing. But I suspect it would become public anyway...

I'm sure your reputation can survive that, though.

 

[mania]

Well
I must write one thing. At the beggining I took the whole story at the face value. This was my mistake and I should have waited a bit for more info to come.
Now I'm not able to say who is right (as I was not there and didn't witness anything). Therefore I would like to apologise to CI for my first comments.

Mania
PS. But the rest of my first post in this thread remains - GDI rules!!!!!!

 

[Dive-aholic]

I still question why CI would continue to take Bruce into the caves if his assessment was that his diving was so poor. That in itself was poor judgment.

However...

...the following (taken from Bruce's profile) opens up things for me a bit as far as Bruce's reliability...

About Me
PADI Instructor (+ 11 speciality instructor tickets), GUE DIR, IANTD Intro to cave, IANTD Full Trimix, DSAT Trimix Blender, EFR Instructor, Cressi factory regulator technician, TDI Advanced Wreck, BSAC Advanced Diver, CMAS 3 star. Over 1,000 dives.

Vitals
Location: Uk Midlands
Occupation: Own/run several businesses.
Gender: Decline to State
Interests: Drive my Ferrari.

 

[Meng_Tze]

Great offer, Rick. I don't expect any kind of public report from you. I don't think you would do such a thing. But I suspect it would become public anyway...

I'm sure your reputation can survive that, though.

A simple high level report would do:

" Brucie passed, we had a great time" That's all....

 

[Bruciebabe]

Ok Bruciebabe
I do not know you but I do believe to give a guy a fair chance.

I have read this thread enough. I am willing to give you the opportunity to prove yourself as the cave diver you claim you can be. I have read your bio here as posted on scubaboard and with what you write you should have had no problem with completeing this course. That is all subject to the instruction you have previously received. I am about the instruction and not the card. I have come to expect that for the most part a students previous instruction means little to me when I meet them for the first time. I have to go by what my standards are. Again I state:Not every instructor is suited to every student. So with this in mind I am willing to meet with you and run you through some prerequisit fundamentals and a cave training review to the level you hold a c-card for by any agency. I do cave diving skill reviews at no cost, asking only for a donation to be made to the NACD. You will need to bring with you all the certification cards you have and you will be reviewed in the same equipment that you were wearing with the other instructor. We will critique the outcome regardless of the performance. I will not berate you but do not expect me to be all positive reenforcing. I will call it as I see it and some things will be negative. You will be put into scenarios and expected to think. At the Intro cave level I do not want to see any hands in the silt, any knees down, any fins fluttering or bouncy buoyancy. I expect a clean equipment setup. If you do something one way I will ask you why you do it that way and expect a logical answer with some thought behind it. Afterall in the end it is the environment which will tell you if it works or not. You will be multi-tasked and pushed to what I see as your limits. Should a real situation occur I expect you to think it through and solve it with no help from me. We will also cover some basic cave acdemics I can match cylinders in metric or imperial..
Understanding that you have some traveling to do I am willing to work with you on a schedule.

No tricks everything up front, DO YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER?

Thank you very much for this offer, which is very tempting. Especially with all the good things that people say about you.
However I am in the British Midlands and you are in Florida. By the time I have found the time, paid for the airfare, car hire, accomodation etc I may just as well do a full cave course as a (free) cave diving review.
Currently I am a bit traumatised by the whole training and instruction thing. So I am just going to work on my skills and do some fun diving. When I have the time, money and inclination I will probably do a full cave course. I don't know where, with what instructor or to which agency's standards yet.

 

[Diver Dennis]

After reading through this and other threads on this subject, I have to say that your reply to GDI is a very telling one, BB. Especially this line...

Currently I am a bit traumatised by the whole training and instruction thing.

I can't see a person who has already gone through the amount of training you would have to achieve the certs in your bio saying something like this. It dosen't make sense to me. I could imagine a new diver saying that but not someone who is an instructor themselves.