DIR/GUE OW class

[Jasonmh]

Saw some info recently that I'm sure many others on here have seen about a GUE OW class. The email was long, but i'll post the parts I thought was interesting:

"The most important thing to note is that it's a long and very
comprehensive program. It covers "everything you need to be a very
competent, confident OW diver...

Class format:
- 8 lectures
- 8 confined-water dives
- 8 open-water dives

The curriculum will effectively cover all of these topics:
- everything that's normally in an OW class
- everything that's normally in an advanced OW class
- nitrox
- scuba rescue
- skin diving
- everything in the DIRF class
- basic decompression theory and practice
- for those that choose, drysuit training


And of course all skills are performed "as you would expect them to be"
- i.e., proper trim and buoyancy, with a strong focus on team and situational awareness.""

I was surprised to see just how much is covered. It seems to me to be an afwul lot to cover in 8 lectures and 8 dives (even with the pool dives).
I don't profess to be a great diver, and maybe I am slower to pick things up than most, but I know I couldn't have handled that much in that timeframe. For people who have never dove before, put on a BC, or seen a scuba tank, that seems like a stretch. I have done seperately the OW, AOW, Nitrox, and rescue, (still working on taking the DIR-F), and it took quite a bit for me to digest all that, and I needed practice in between. I waited until I had almost 40 dives to take the AOW and was glad I did. I needed the time to get my bouancy under control and get more comfortable with basic skills. Otherwise I would have spent the dives fighting my bouancy instead of focusing on the NAV, etc. My aow included equipment, night diving, nav, and deep. When I was taking these classes the confined dives were not actually counted as dives, only the open water dives were, not sure if it is different here. But, people are always getting on Padi for being able to be OW, AOW, rescue, nitrox, etc. and only have 10 dives.. now it looks like they are doing all that and much more in 8.
When I heard they planned to start an OW program, I assumed it would be just that, and then the next step would be DIR-F, not that it would be included in the OW. I wonder what the cost will be.
I have alot of respect for any first-timer that can learn all that in one combined course.
Any thoughts?

 

[Halthron]

Holy *%#$ that's a lot to cover in 8 classes/dives. That's taking someone from "know-nothing" to competent open water rescue diver with perfect trim who understands compressed oxygen/nitrogen use at depth.

At least with PADI, you knew their standards were low enough that someone could make it through at 10 dives and build on the knowledge they retained. People also normally didn't take OW, AOW, Rescue & Nitrox back-to-back so they could actually digest a bit before moving on to the next. GUE has a reputation for setting the bar higher, I'm not sure how that would survive this type of class.

 

[Ben_ca]

I don't think that's really alot...I think it'll be a more intense mental and physical exercise with students giving 110% ala DIR-F.

And just like DIR-F don't expect that many to pass... We often whine about C-Card mills and how we thought some ot our classmates from OW are just acidents waiting to happen well I'm pretty sure we'll see the same quality come out of this class.

GUE isn't into quantity but more for quality. As long as you have a quality product those who desire that same standard will keep on coming.....

 

[headhunter]

We've been hearing about this class for a while and I look forward to the day that they actually start teaching it.

Aside from the dry suit option and the variety of kicks taught in the DIR-F class, this reminds me more of the way classes were taught in the "good old days" when certification for diving was still a new thing.

You would work on your lectures and confined water dives a couple of days per week for about 8 weeks and then do some open water dives to round out your education with some real world experience. This would allow you to digest the information over a period of time.

You would cover all of the applicable laws of physics and understand how they relate to you in the dive environment.

I won't bother to speculate about the reasons why the standards were lowered to the point that we see today, since that is a topic for another thread and we've already got plenty of threads on that topic.

In my opinion, it would be doing the dive community a valuable service to return to properly preparing new divers with adequate information to continue their dive education.

The proposed course outline that you shared in the first post should be a bare minimum for any agency to provide someone with a basic dive certification.

Along with the information listed, I would imagine that part of the education would be to teach new divers about the issues that may be unique to their own local dive environment. I believe that this type of curriculum is still taught in the Los Angeles County Certification program and L.A. County is credited with being the world's first certification agency. So, type of training isn't something new.

I think that this will appeal to people who want to take a class to "become divers" as opposed to people who want to get a certification "just to do a couple of dives on a vacation" and then forget about it until they take another vacation where they might be able to dive again.

Just my two cents.

Christian

 

[headhunter]

Holy *%#$ that's a lot to cover in 8 classes/dives. That's taking someone from "know-nothing" to competent open water rescue diver with perfect trim who understands compressed oxygen/nitrogen use at depth.

At least with PADI, you knew their standards were low enough that someone could make it through at 10 dives and build on the knowledge they retained. People also normally didn't take OW, AOW, Rescue & Nitrox back-to-back so they could actually digest a bit before moving on to the next. GUE has a reputation for setting the bar higher, I'm not sure how that would survive this type of class.

I'm reading that first post to say that there will be 16 total dives, not 8. It looks like there will be 8 confined water dives and 8 open water dives.

Christian

 

[Kim]

If this is really what is planned it will be interesting to see how well, or not, it is received.
I have seen the argument many times that people who want to learn to dive want to do so in a reasonable amount of time and cost, and that's why the agencies make their courses the way that they are. This one seems like it's going to take a lot longer, and therefore probably cost more as well. It will be interesting to see how many takers it gets.
Actually I believe that the European agencies, CMAS and BSAC, have always had training that looks more like this than a resort OW course. I know for instance that they train from the beginning using tables to 60 meters and inclusive of deco theory. It also takes a lot longer to be an independant diver - I believe you have to be a CMAS 3 star diver before you can dive on your own with a buddy. In Europe they tend to wrap this all up with clubs as well - so that you get the training within a club environment, and with the support of all the other club members.
In the end though I would guess it will end up like most things these days - market forces will determine the outcome.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Saw some info recently that I'm sure many others on here have seen about a GUE OW class. The email was long, but i'll post the parts I thought was interesting:

"The most important thing to note is that it's a long and very
comprehensive program. It covers "everything you need to be a very
competent, confident OW diver...

Class format:
- 8 lectures
- 8 confined-water dives
- 8 open-water dives

The curriculum will effectively cover all of these topics:
- everything that's normally in an OW class
- everything that's normally in an advanced OW class
- nitrox
- scuba rescue
- skin diving
- everything in the DIRF class
- basic decompression theory and practice
- for those that choose, drysuit training


And of course all skills are performed "as you would expect them to be"
- i.e., proper trim and buoyancy, with a strong focus on team and situational awareness.""

I was surprised to see just how much is covered. It seems to me to be an afwul lot to cover in 8 lectures and 8 dives (even with the pool dives).
I don't profess to be a great diver, and maybe I am slower to pick things up than most, but I know I couldn't have handled that much in that timeframe. For people who have never dove before, put on a BC, or seen a scuba tank, that seems like a stretch. I have done seperately the OW, AOW, Nitrox, and rescue, (still working on taking the DIR-F), and it took quite a bit for me to digest all that, and I needed practice in between. I waited until I had almost 40 dives to take the AOW and was glad I did. I needed the time to get my bouancy under control and get more comfortable with basic skills. Otherwise I would have spent the dives fighting my bouancy instead of focusing on the NAV, etc. My aow included equipment, night diving, nav, and deep. When I was taking these classes the confined dives were not actually counted as dives, only the open water dives were, not sure if it is different here. But, people are always getting on Padi for being able to be OW, AOW, rescue, nitrox, etc. and only have 10 dives.. now it looks like they are doing all that and much more in 8.
When I heard they planned to start an OW program, I assumed it would be just that, and then the next step would be DIR-F, not that it would be included in the OW. I wonder what the cost will be.
I have alot of respect for any first-timer that can learn all that in one combined course.
Any thoughts?

Thoughts?

Can it be done? Certainly ... it'll take a really good instructor, but GUE has those.

Also set's keep in mind that GUE's approach to scuba instruction varies from the other agencies in one important aspect ... you aren't guaranteed to pass simply by taking the class. I'm not sure how they'd work a "provisional" OW certification, but I'd be willing to bet that "covering" DIR-F skills isn't saying that they expect these students to come out of OW with those skills perfected ... rather that they expect these students to come out of OW with adequate skills and knowledge to have identified what they will need to work on in order to become DIR-F "certified".

Did they mention what the class will cost? That will, do a great degree, determine how much in demand the class will be.

Total non-divers will be much more difficult to convince to pay more for quality instruction than DIR-F students ... who know enough (usually thtough exposure to other DIR-trained divers) to be motivated to seek out that type of training. Without this motivation, the "sales" pitch to get people to take this class should prove to be the determining factor to its success.

As someone already mentioned ... they used to teach classes in a similar fashion. There's a purely business reason why the training model changed, and that one-by-one the agencies lowered their standards to remain "competitive" ... it proved to be the case that the vast majority of potential divers preferred to buy "quick and easy" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[angryguy777]

I'm curious as to what type of sales pitch they will give to non-divers. I would imagine that if you were to say "this course is challenging and you may not pass, but you will be a very competent diver if you do" may appeal to a lot of people. Perhaps this challenge, the "are you good enough?" may attract a lot of people to this course. It's like asking a guy if he's man enough. I know a challenging OW course would appeal to me, but that is my personality. Also, it would keep people on their tows instead of just sitting through some class time and pool sessions without worrying whether or not you'll even make it.

Also, many people associate a higher cost with a higher quality product, so this might help as well. I'm very interested to see if this works. However, I think this approach would really work best with those seriously interested in diving, rather than the people who go to the Bahamas once a year to see a few pretty fish at 40'.

I think many simple skills need to be addressed more (like BOUYANCY) in OW classes. I'm no diving pro but I saw so much bad bouyancy on my last trip that it made me cringe. People were kicking coral (and my face) left and right and I really couldn't believe these were "advanced divers." I think an agency like GUE would be good for new divers to fix these problems immediately.

-Zak

 

[Bob Sherwood]

Students completing the GUE ow course will not be required to complete the fundamentals program, as all content in fundamentals will be covered in the ow curriculum, plus some added content. Look for some of this added content to be added into the fundamentals course as well. Increasing the length to four days.
There will be a smaller class size, with a max in water of 4 people, but more likely 2 or three as the instructors are spending quality time with the team. This ow course will be 8 full days, minimum. The structure will vary to accommodate the students.
Like the fundamentals class that grew slowly in the beginning and now has big demand, the OW program will likely follow that path.
There will always be some willing to pay for quality education with smaller class size and comprehensive material and in water time. The vast majority will not subscribe to this model, but that is not GUE's target market.
For those that have been through other curriculums and still found yourself wanting; purchased equipment that you also found less than satisfying, then took a fundamentals course; you re-purchased both education and equipment. what would it have been worth to skip that process and start on day one with what you have now come to chose as the way you dive?
A lot of people have already taken GUE philosophy and implemented some of it into other training programs. This answers that demand. Best, Bob

Thoughts?

but I'd be willing to bet that "covering" DIR-F skills isn't saying that they expect these students to come out of OW with those skills perfected ... rather that they expect these students to come out of OW with adequate skills and knowledge to have identified what they will need to work on in order to become DIR-F "certified".

Did they mention what the class will cost? That will, do a great degree, determine how much in demand the class will be.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Derek S]

Nail on the head, Bob.

You know all too well my diving history, so I would have gladly forked over the money to start this way from the beginning. I could have saved myself untold aggrivation and quite a bit of money.

I look forward to seeing this program come to fruition. As with everything else GUE has done, I look for it to be top-notch and worth every penny.

Students completing the GUE ow course will not be required to complete the fundamentals program, as all content in fundamentals will be covered in the ow curriculum, plus some added content. Look for some of this added content to be added into the fundamentals course as well. Increasing the length to four days.
There will be a smaller class size, with a max in water of 4 people, but more likely 2 or three as the instructors are spending quality time with the team. This ow course will be 8 full days, minimum. The structure will vary to accommodate the students.
Like the fundamentals class that grew slowly in the beginning and now has big demand, the OW program will likely follow that path.
There will always be some willing to pay for quality education with smaller class size and comprehensive material and in water time. The vast majority will not subscribe to this model, but that is not GUE's target market.
For those that have been through other curriculums and still found yourself wanting; purchased equipment that you also found less than satisfying, then took a fundamentals course; you re-purchased both education and equipment. what would it have been worth to skip that process and start on day one with what you have now come to chose as the way you dive?
A lot of people have already taken GUE philosophy and implemented some of it into other training programs. This answers that demand. Best, Bob