I have taken:
OC Cave 1 and Cave with GUE, over 10 yrs ago. 120 intro cave dives 150 full cave dives since then. I now dive CCR...
OW 5 day MOD1 from a cave diver but he was a tourist cave diver in MX and local wreck diver. I knew more about the planning and logistics of CCR cave exploration than he did in this course. The BO approach was "if you aren't sure what the problem is BO". Zero SCR training which I was told was (as of 2014) because Leon prohibited it in MOD1 Meg courses. At the time I appreciated binary "loop good yes? if no then BO" approach here. There was a huge focus in adv nitrox math and that's what I feel was most valuable about this course since being a standard gas diver I was not at all used to variable advanced nitrox math.
NSS-CDS cave CCR cross-over 3 days. I had a bit over 100 CCR hrs when I took this which was because I thought I might learn something and I needed a card for Ginnie. Got some tips and pointers on buoyancy doing sawtoothy loop dives along Lins Lines and the Bettle tunnel etc. Not a big focus on "staying on the loop" still, seems to not be a focus of Meg courses. Since I was already diving the Meg in caves we discussed how I plan BO for exploration dives and he was happy with that so gas planning was a very short discussion. This ended up being a CCR buoyancy specialty for me (probably my weak spot at the time I took it). Tweaked the way I run my backmount Meg a lot though this year into "wreck" and "cave" configurations.
Kiss sidewinder crossover 3 days: Just under 200 CCR hours when I took this. Ridiculous amount of messing around on SCR at constant depth, I got really sick of counting breaths and it seemed rather pointless since the weak spot on the sidewinder is not losing cells/monitoring. I have a petrel and a hud on mine. Besides building the unit and tweaking its fit on me SCR was 90% of what we did. Plus just put in the required number of crossover hours. The whole class was in an overhead environment. Partially flooded the unit in the back end of King's Canyon at JB, that was the most interesting part of the course as it was my first "real" CCR problem. This ended up being an "build a SM mCCR" and an SCR course for me. Again those were the areas I was probably weakest so its not surprising that's what I got out of it.
I credit my old OC GUE courses and over 250 cave dives, in both backmount, sidemount and a couple dozen original exploration dives as the best preparation. For someone with perhaps only OC intro cave or only a handful of cave dives in similar systems their experience and takeaways would probably be different.
OC Cave 1 and Cave with GUE, over 10 yrs ago. 120 intro cave dives 150 full cave dives since then. I now dive CCR...
OW 5 day MOD1 from a cave diver but he was a tourist cave diver in MX and local wreck diver. I knew more about the planning and logistics of CCR cave exploration than he did in this course. The BO approach was "if you aren't sure what the problem is BO". Zero SCR training which I was told was (as of 2014) because Leon prohibited it in MOD1 Meg courses. At the time I appreciated binary "loop good yes? if no then BO" approach here. There was a huge focus in adv nitrox math and that's what I feel was most valuable about this course since being a standard gas diver I was not at all used to variable advanced nitrox math.
NSS-CDS cave CCR cross-over 3 days. I had a bit over 100 CCR hrs when I took this which was because I thought I might learn something and I needed a card for Ginnie. Got some tips and pointers on buoyancy doing sawtoothy loop dives along Lins Lines and the Bettle tunnel etc. Not a big focus on "staying on the loop" still, seems to not be a focus of Meg courses. Since I was already diving the Meg in caves we discussed how I plan BO for exploration dives and he was happy with that so gas planning was a very short discussion. This ended up being a CCR buoyancy specialty for me (probably my weak spot at the time I took it). Tweaked the way I run my backmount Meg a lot though this year into "wreck" and "cave" configurations.
Kiss sidewinder crossover 3 days: Just under 200 CCR hours when I took this. Ridiculous amount of messing around on SCR at constant depth, I got really sick of counting breaths and it seemed rather pointless since the weak spot on the sidewinder is not losing cells/monitoring. I have a petrel and a hud on mine. Besides building the unit and tweaking its fit on me SCR was 90% of what we did. Plus just put in the required number of crossover hours. The whole class was in an overhead environment. Partially flooded the unit in the back end of King's Canyon at JB, that was the most interesting part of the course as it was my first "real" CCR problem. This ended up being an "build a SM mCCR" and an SCR course for me. Again those were the areas I was probably weakest so its not surprising that's what I got out of it.
I credit my old OC GUE courses and over 250 cave dives, in both backmount, sidemount and a couple dozen original exploration dives as the best preparation. For someone with perhaps only OC intro cave or only a handful of cave dives in similar systems their experience and takeaways would probably be different.