DIR-F or UTD Essentials?

[Rainer]

The card definitely says 32%. I do know people who have used this very card to get non-32 nitrox fills. I assume it comes down to shop policy. Probably the same reason I've never had anyone not give me 25/25 even though my T1 card doesn't list that gas.

 

[ligersandtions]

As a new diver, either Essentials or Fundies will be a good choice. You do, however, need to figure out where you want to do it. Often, schedules aren't posted until someone contacts an instructor and says they want to take the class....then the instructor will see if anyone else is interested, when works for everyone involved, get you all to sign up for the class, THEN post that the class is happening during this time (but it's full and not accepting other students...).

Essentials teaches all of the same skills that Fundies teaches (including shooting a bag and a toxing diver rescue). What Essentials doesn't focus on that Fundies does (if I've read correctly) is dealing with failures. For example, in Essentials, it is specifically stated before the dive that each student will go OOA and have the instructor or another student donate air....in Fundies, the instructor can just call you OOA.

The one thing I would caution you about is that if you are planning to travel for a UTD/GUE class, do you have a buddy back home who is interested in diving this way or already dives this way? I have a buddy on the Big Island who trained this way before he moved there....and now has no other like-minded buddies to dive with. Honestly, I can't imagine that....I am very lucky because I have my choice of many buddies who are all similarly trained. It would be very hard to keep up the skills and mindset if you don't have anyone else to do it with. Just something to consider...

 

[Rainer]

Essentials teaches all of the same skills that Fundies teaches (including shooting a bag and a toxing diver rescue).

I think that might be a bit too strongly worded. While I know you got to do a bag shoot in your Essentials class, it isn't included in the standards. Furthermore, due to the higher student-instructor ratio and fewer dive days, I don't think Essentials offers the amount of practice for each skill that Fundies does. How many bag shoots did you do in your class? Toxing diver rescues? In our Fundies class, we each got to shoot the bag about six times over the four days (including having to ascend with it), and got to bring someone "unconscious" off the bottom three times each.

Since Fundamentals can also cover divers in doubles, there are manifold skills that Fundies teaches that are not covered in Essentials.

There weren't any true "failures" in my Fundamentals class (other than OOG), so I don't think that's much of a difference between the two.

In the end, for a new diver (and especially one new to DIR), I still think either Essentials or Fundamentals would be an excellent choice. For me, it'd come down to the experience of the instructor, "clicking" with the instructor, cost, schedule, future plans with either agency, and whether I needed a nitrox class.

 

[Blackwood]

Mine says, "Trained in skill refinement and the use of 32% Nitrox." I guess it would depend on how loosely your shop/fill station interprets that.

The card definitely says 32%. I do know people who have used this very card to get non-32 nitrox fills. I assume it comes down to shop policy. Probably the same reason I've never had anyone not give me 25/25 even though my T1 card doesn't list that gas.

Yah.

I wouldn't really expect someone to say "hey now, this says 32%, so I can't give you 36%" or whatever unless they interpret it as meaning that the card holder can't figure MOD or something silly like that. But hey, ya never know. There are a lot of... special people out there.

 

[ligersandtions]

I think that might be a bit too strongly worded. While I know you got to do a bag shoot in your Essentials class, it isn't included in the standards. Furthermore, due to the higher student-instructor ratio and fewer dive days, I don't think Essentials offers the amount of practice for each skill that Fundies does. How many bag shoots did you do in your class? Toxing diver rescues? In our Fundies class, we each got to shoot the bag about six times over the four days (including having to ascend with it), and got to bring someone "unconscious" off the bottom three times each.

I would fully agree with the bolded statement. While we did do all the skills, we didn't practice them until they were second nature. That's not a huge issue for some people who regularly dive with like-minded/trained buddies and do these things on a regular basis, but for those who just got their introduction to DIR diving and maybe don't have a huge group of buddies to choose from, it definitely wasn't enough.

I don't have any other Essentials classes to compare mine too (so I didn't know that not every one of them did the bag shoot), and I don't have a Fundies class to compare to, but the one thing I felt was somewhat missing from Essentials that I assume is not missing from Fundies was a strong emphasis on team. In Essentials, the instructor demonstrates something, then you do it....but your "team" are people behind you waiting to demonstrate themselves. Until 3/4 of the way through, we had very little interaction with anyone other than the instructor (only when we got to s-drills with the whole team did we do anything with the other students).

That, I think, is one of the short comings of Essentials....and it might not be like that in all Essentials classes. Also, it would be nice to do more dives and get a lot more practice in....but honestly, I'm not sure anyone else in my class felt that way (as it seemed everyone was pretty burned out by the end of the last day of diving).

 

[Rainer]

I've said it before, but TEAM was absolutely hammered in my Fundamentals class (to a greater degree than the skills). That really resonated with me. The number one thing I learned / took away from Fundies was the importance and primacy of "team". Now, having talked to others who took the class (with different instructors), I'm not sure every class is covering this to the same degree. It might very well have to do with the students as well. If you're having a tough time keeping yourself still, it's a bit hard to focus on your teammates. Having smaller (3-4) person classes, with everyone roughly of equal experience might go a long way to allowing all students to get as much from the class as possible. Personally, I don't like the 6-8 person classes that both GUE and UTD allow (with two instructors). For many reasons, they don't allow the same amount of instructor to student time (even if the ratio of instructors to students stays the same).

In any case, neither Fundies nor Essentials is going to allow you enough time to practice the skills until they're second nature. What you want is enough practice in the class setting so that you can up your chances of continuing to practice correctly after the class.

 

[kathydee]

The decision does not have to be either/or. I plan to take both.

Taking Essentials in a few weeks, to ease into the skills without pass/fail. Will practice/dive for a while, then it's on to Fundies.

Maybe not the most cost effective trajectory, but I've talked to several who have taken this gradual path and it worked out great for them.

Might be well suited for a less experienced diver? I am pretty new to drysuit diving, so it feels right for me.

 

[Rainer]

That's a great point, Kathy. For those willing to invest the time and money (which is perfect for some, less ideal for others; no right/wrong here), doing both might be very productive (especially if one takes Fundies at the tech level, where you'd be exposed to new issues not present in Essentials).

The decision does not have to be either/or. I plan to take both.

Taking Essentials in a few weeks, to ease into the skills without pass/fail. Will practice/dive for a while, then it's on to Fundies.

Maybe not the most cost effective trajectory, but I've talked to several who have taken this gradual path in and it worked out great for them.

 

[ScubaSam]

I've said it before, but TEAM was absolutely hammered in my Fundamentals class (to a greater degree than the skills). That really resonated with me. The number one thing I learned / took away from Fundies was the importance and primacy of "team". Now, having talked to others who took the class (with different instructors), I'm not sure every class is covering this to the same degree. It might very well have to do with the students as well. If you're having a tough time keeping yourself still, it's a bit hard to focus on your teammates. Having smaller (3-4) person classes, with everyone roughly of equal experience might go a long way to allowing all students to get as much from the class as possible. Personally, I don't like the 6-8 person classes that both GUE and UTD allow (with two instructors). For many reasons, they don't allow the same amount of instructor to student time (even if the ratio of instructors to students stays the same).

In any case, neither Fundies nor Essentials is going to allow you enough time to practice the skills until they're second nature. What you want is enough practice in the class setting so that you can up your chances of continuing to practice correctly after the class.

Rainer - In the fundies class I took last month, it was absolutely drilled into us that the team was the priority. Bob Sherwood stressed repeatedly that in order of priority it was team, buoyancy, trim, and skills as the distant fourth.

 

[rjack321]

That, I think, is one of the short comings of Essentials....and it might not be like that in all Essentials classes. Also, it would be nice to do more dives and get a lot more practice in....but honestly, I'm not sure anyone else in my class felt that way (as it seemed everyone was pretty burned out by the end of the last day of diving).

"Team" is not really a part of Essentials by design. The assumption being that if you don't yet have the basic personal skills worked out its not really possible to have a well functioning team. Essentials focuses on these basic skills in a smaller "chunk" of time that is designed to give students enough information to work on outside of class afterwards, but not overwhelm them.

Team is an intergral part of UTD Rec2 and Rec3 which are designed to follow Essentials (assuming you don't do Intro to Tech etc).

Some people are fine with a more intense 5 day GUE-F kind of class. The majority have requested or desire smaller more accessible chunks and Essentials was created to fill one of those slots in the development of a diver.

I would still recommend contacting instructors directly and discussing course opportunities in the timeframe the OP has available (which is fairly tight).