Unlike other sports whose best competitors are witnessed by large crowds of spectators, diving is nearly an invisible sport in which even the participants generally don't watch one another's performance for anything but brief periods. Cave and technical divers being the top level participants are more apt to criticize individual performance. They are also in the minority of divers who know what too look for when judging performance ability.
The "demonstration quality" skills shown in most recreational educational videos would be considered a "failure to perform" in a tech or cave course. Yet, unlike competitive sports, the instructors in our sport are too busy trying to teach the course their training agency has crafted instead of teaching the highest level of skill such as a golf or tennis pro would be striving to help their clients attain.
Many instructors cannot perform the most rudimentary trim, buoyancy, propulsion, team and emergency skills that a cavern student might learn. There are many deficient technical instructors and a very few poor quality cave instructors. In golf and tennis the lack of an instructor's skill would be largely apparent. Many scuba students do not know the true level of quality, or lack there of, their instructor possesses.
This is where I give GUE the most credit in the world. If the organization has done one thing it has been to teach greatest amount of quality skill-work to the most students who really deserve their certifications. In turn, the quality of the instructors allows them to charge a premium for their courses. I think the GUE Fundamentals program has done for diving today what L.A. County, then the YMCA and NAUI did for scuba education in the beginning by organizing training. GUE has redefined our sport.
If all organizations strive for the same sort of quality no matter what their philosophies instructors and the education offered will have both educational and financial value for the consumer much like the best tennis and golf pros.
To answer the OP, you can learn anything on your own, but the best training in the world is available when you have the right instructors. My personal goal is to help the agencies through which I teach to join GUE and UTD in redefining what both instructors and students should be able to do.
In my history, I learned on my own, I was mentored, and I took courses. Navigation I learned on my own, for example, and became quite good at it. For tech and cave diving I sought training. If I had access to what we can provide students today as a kid ... Wow!
The "demonstration quality" skills shown in most recreational educational videos would be considered a "failure to perform" in a tech or cave course. Yet, unlike competitive sports, the instructors in our sport are too busy trying to teach the course their training agency has crafted instead of teaching the highest level of skill such as a golf or tennis pro would be striving to help their clients attain.
Many instructors cannot perform the most rudimentary trim, buoyancy, propulsion, team and emergency skills that a cavern student might learn. There are many deficient technical instructors and a very few poor quality cave instructors. In golf and tennis the lack of an instructor's skill would be largely apparent. Many scuba students do not know the true level of quality, or lack there of, their instructor possesses.
This is where I give GUE the most credit in the world. If the organization has done one thing it has been to teach greatest amount of quality skill-work to the most students who really deserve their certifications. In turn, the quality of the instructors allows them to charge a premium for their courses. I think the GUE Fundamentals program has done for diving today what L.A. County, then the YMCA and NAUI did for scuba education in the beginning by organizing training. GUE has redefined our sport.
If all organizations strive for the same sort of quality no matter what their philosophies instructors and the education offered will have both educational and financial value for the consumer much like the best tennis and golf pros.
To answer the OP, you can learn anything on your own, but the best training in the world is available when you have the right instructors. My personal goal is to help the agencies through which I teach to join GUE and UTD in redefining what both instructors and students should be able to do.
In my history, I learned on my own, I was mentored, and I took courses. Navigation I learned on my own, for example, and became quite good at it. For tech and cave diving I sought training. If I had access to what we can provide students today as a kid ... Wow!
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