Any additional benefit to GUE training?

[German Yañez]

To be a great cave diver you dont need a new terms call DOING IT RIGHT or new agencies, you will probably need an expirience instructor with good reputation. cave diving is not a science. just takes time, dedication, discipline, continunig education, common sense, good judgment and practice.
once you are train for cave diving, DIVE ! and make sure you choose expirience guides or buddys because you will learn a lot from them. belive me.

I been training divers with DIR certs and they been RE-EVALUATE in bouyancy skills, trim and kicking techniques, not because they didnt learn good or those DIR courses are bad ITS just because they dont practice or dive often.

Any continuing education you get will make you a better diver. Get your DIR class but dont stop learing from others, out there are many expirience explorers with lots to share with you.

Cave diving is for open mind people who can take the best from each individual or training system

good luck and have fun in your continuing education.

 

[jeandiver]

I am a little late jumping into this one but I think you said it best...

PRACTICE , PRACTICE , PRACTICE !!!!

Jeano Beano

P.S. Just my very humble 1.5 cents worth , of course !!! But what do I know ... (blonde ... er ... nevermind )

 

[H2Andy]

German, i really agree with almost everything you said, so let me take
exception to just one small part of your argument:

To be a great cave diver you dont need a new terms call DOING IT RIGHT or new agencies, you will probably need an expirience instructor with good reputation.

you may be creating a false dichotomy here, with

[DIR or a new agency]

being the polar opposite of

[experienced instructor with good reputation]

let me remind you, that the two are not mutually exclusive. the DIR system,
as taught by GUE (a relatively new agency) is a great system taught by
experienced instructors with good reputations. most of those instructors
hold several instructor qualifications with other agencies (PADI, NAUI, NSS-CDS, etc.)
in addition to their GUE credentials.

i was lucky enough to train with three GUE instructor candiates, and i can tell
you, all three were amongst the best instructors i've ever learned from, and
i've learned from some darned good ones.

 

[German Yañez]

Andy.. i never say those new agencies have instructors that where not good instructors or with bad reputation. that wasnt my point.
my point is learn for others, doesnt matter if is from these new agencies or olda agencies, but keep your mind open to learn other ways of diving, then with the time you will decide whats fits to your needs. its not the same the needs of a Sump cave diver than a Spring cave diver just to give you an example.

Hope you dont missunderstand my point. and anyway its just my personal view point nothing else. i am sure there some will not agree and other will. i understand that.

talk to you soon, i am going to have a nice sleep for my cave dive tomorrow.

 

[mart1]

I just finished my Fundamentals class, and promised to let you guys know my thoughts, so here goes.
The class was conducted by Andy Kerslake. I don't know other instructors, so I cannot compare.
What I do know is I enjoyed the class very much. I even learned a lot, but most of this was outside the curriculum, so does not really count. I am happy I did take the course, because it gave me a much better understanding of the DIR system, which turned out to be much more coherent than I thought in advance. I am not sure I could live with all the restrictions it poses on a diver, but can understand now where all the rules are coming from.
Now the question which started this thread. Would it make any difference if students turned up for a cave class with a Fundamentals certification? I am sure it would make a big difference. On the one hand every decent tech or cave class will cover the same skills and equipment considerations (with the exception of smb in caves ). But first of all I have seen a lot of bad tech classes (for some reason I never heard of a bad cave class) and in this case it would certainly be worth the time and effort. But even with a very good tech or cave class you will get more out of it if you are prepared, and fundamentals will prepare you for this type of diving. So yes, I would recommend it.

ciao, maarten