DIR/GUE OW class

[Bob Sherwood]

WOW. you people can really type fast. As someone who hunts and pecks on the keyboard, I will try to respond quick enough that all questions have not been answered before I finish typing<VBG> I'm glad there is so much interest.
FWIW, the disappointment by some here is actually expected. if GUE were to come out with the standard ow class that many are teaching now just using DIR type equipment, the world would see that as GUE just cashing in/lowering standards. Please remember that a lot of changes that have been brought about have been cause by GUE offering what was considered to be "TOO HIGH A STANDARD", however, it has caused many people to step up and improve what they were teaching. This course will be no different.
Granted, many might teach a class that is close to or even as good. There are some great instructors out there. Most likely they will do it for little or less money. There is a reason the industry is in such a bad position. Offering discounted education is NOT going to fix that.
There are several issues to address.
First, current standards(fundamentals) hold all candidates to a standard that is not necessarily representative of their diving interest. example, a single tank reef diver vs. a double tank/transitional Tec diver both in the same class measured by the same standards. Clearly the skill sets and level of ability for these two divers are not the same, nor do they need to be.
There are two different types of people that seek out fundamentals training. One very recreational, one more technically motivated/transitioning.This needs to be addressed, and has. Look for the formal announcement the first of the year<G> This alone will have a big impact on the number of people that are successful during the initial training. Adding more time to the course will also effect more success. ( four full days, minimum)
Having done the beta testing of the OW program, I can testify to the effectiveness of taking someone with no bad habits and building them up as divers. It is MUCH easier to build new than re-model. There will be no provisional open water diver. The goal is to create a solid competent diver from the start. 17 hours of confined water followed by 8-12 ? openwater dives, plus all the academic sessions(16 hours).( THESE ARE MINIMUMS) Instructors are encouraged to exceed standards when doing so it promotes the best interest of the student.
there will be two paths. One, people who have trusted family or friends that tell them of their struggles to get what they needed and advise them to save themselves of the trouble and pony up. up front. this will be a smaller number of people in the beginning, but going against the traditional model usually is not the easiest path<G>. Course fee will be in the $1200 ballpark. (this might actually help those out there suffering with lower cost classes the opportunity to raise their fees a bit)
Second will be those that choose not to spend the money up front, but eventually spend it anyway. they still will have the path that currently exist by transition through the fundamentals program. ( compare average OW program $250- $350, AOW $250 Nitrox $150, then add Fundamentals $400(last years fee, this year after changes, more like $5-600)) Not to mention equipment referb<ARRRRRGH> And the frustration along the way. It will be easier for people if the original teaching facility sets them up with more philosophy compliant equipment from the start.
The hardest thing for people to wrap their heads around is that GUE understands they are not training the majority of the masses, but a smaller more dedicated group of people committed to higher standards and requirements. This is not judging others path, just recognizing that there are differences.
Selling the benefits of this approach to the new person walking in the door I agree will not be the easiest sale......for the non committed, or those dependant on survival of cash flow created by a shrinking diving market. Again.....not the target market for GUE. Fair enough it might be the dive centers market, but this is a separate issue. ( we can adress this is a seperte post if you like)
Only fundamentals instructors will be able to offer this class after they complete the OW workshop, so again smaller community, but with a commitment to quality.
Certainly some good people will be initially lost, but in the end, they will come back or were never our clients to begin with.
10 years ago there were a lot of people that thought GUE would not last a year. That the equipment required was too much and would stop the movement dead in its tracks. Now almost all major manufactures are marketing some form of similar equipment. Even some major training organizations are trying to offer DIR-like programs.
Possibly some will take OW from elsewhere and then move into fundamentals.
Only time will tell, but we are still very exited about the new opportunity. Already many have contacted me asking when they can schedule classes. The concerns so far addressed here do not seem to be an issue.
If I have forgotten to answer anything, I'm sure someone will bring it up.Thanks, Best,Bob

 

[JeffG]

Yikes! I thought I was high on my guess...

Okay, new contest. Let's guess on how many students (collectively) they'll have in one year's time.

My guess is 20.

That may be 20 too high.

 

[MHK]

What I was hoping would be an O/W class that was accessible for the mass of recreational students completed within 4-6 O/W dives, home study of the basic academics supplemented with no more than three hours of class lecture and confined water session of about 5 hours. In short a class that could be completed in time frame competitive with industry standards.

Tollie, and others,

Given GUE's historical track record I can't imagine why you were hoping that the class would be "accessible for the mass of recreational students". That is exactly opposite of what those of us in GUE would expect. JJ steadfastly refuses any temptation to reach out to the "masses", and those of us that have come along for the ride have no desire to play in that arena either. Heretofore, when an agency desired to distinguish itself from the rest, they'd take a tiny baby step and put their toe in the water, ideas like "requiring" -v- "recomending" a couple of dives in the Nitrox class spring to mind. Never mind that this is a distinction without a difference since in all likliehood the 2 "required" dives have no skills associated with them, so what is the difference? It allows one agency to lay claim to the mantle of "higher standard", but it's in appearance only. In the instant case, those of us in the GUE camp believe firmly that the industry is in dire need of radical changes, and that the status of dive training has been completely watered down to a marketing scheme. In order to make the fundamental, and necessary changes as we see them, we couldn't just put a band aid on the problem, we needed to take a fresh look at the issue and start from scratch. Rather then trying to tweak existing courses why not start with a blank slate and ask the question:

"If you wanted to create a dive program that turns out the kind of diver that you desire, how would you do it?"

I think when you view the issue from that prism, you'll see why GUE did what they did.. We're not interested in following the lead of other agencies inasmuch as we are desirous of creating an alternative path. Certainly we recognize that there are qualified instructors outside the scope of GUE that are capable of teaching a good class within existing parameters and certainly we recognize that the "masses" may not choose our path, but anyone that knows anything about the core GUE instructor corp, and the GUE leadership committee should appreciate that we aren't too concerned what the "masses" do. Our goal is to offer a true alternative approach, and we tend to err on the side of more, not less ;-)

I remember about 4 or 5 years ago when there were only one or two of us traveling the country shaping and creating a program called "Fundamentals". We were offering a 2 1/2 day workshop to already certified divers, and we were charging $300+ and "certifying" these divers to do absolutely nothing. When we started this approach, most in the industry thought we were nuts, and were saying many of the same things I see in this thread; it's too expensive; it's too radical; it's too long; it's too restrictive for the masses; etc. etc. The results, as they say, are manifest.

Our entire existence is predicated on being the alternative path, and the fact that some are surprised that we took a radically different path, is actually surprising to me ;-)

We cater to a very small and very specific target market, anyone that applies a mass marketing mind set to our approach will constantly find themselves disappointed ;-)

Hope that helps.

 

[Jasonmh]

GUE has a substantial amount to offer the recreational diving community and the course as described will fail to make the kind of impact that it should.

That (along with some of the other posts) really sums up what I am thinking.
My initial post was not meant to bash GUE or anybody else. Requiring more is a great idea, and I really like and support GUE(member). Thanks for also putting in your thoughts Bob S.

Like many I was excited about GUE offering an OW course, and think it is a great idea. But I was surprised at the course description. I have no doubt that people who come out of this course will be well educated and good divers, and that taken in total the cost of the class is a fair price for what is offered. But we often here about what GUE is not, more sometimes than what they are. We know that GUE does not cater to everyone, and does not try to. There is nothing wrong with that.
So then I have to wonder, what is the goal for creating a course like this, and who is it for? Obviously it is targeted toward someone, or it wouldn't have been created.
Bob's statement "Selling the benefits of this approach to the new person walking in the door I agree will not be the easiest sale......for the non committed" is true, but isn't almost everyone non-commited at the beginning? When I first learned how to ski when I was young.. my dad didn't buy me expensive equipment or pay $1200 for a course on how to ski. I started with a little half-day course with an instructor and learned some basics, then progressed from there. This course to me is like taking someone who has never been in a car before and telling them that in 8 weeks they are going to be a nascar driver. And if someone says that they are not sure if they want to be a nascar driver, since they have never been in a car before, and all their other friends are driving and they are not nascar drivers and they can drive just fine?
So the reponse seems to be, that the person in this senario is labeled as "not commited", and we don't cater to people who are not commited.
I hope that the course is successful, but if I take a step back and look at it from a purely marketing perspective, it doesn't look good, IMO. This course screams to me that it is designed with the group of experts that created the course in mind, instead of the beginning diver in mind. In other words, this seems like the kind of course that someone who is an expert technical diver and cave diver would design if they were to go back and take OW over again, given what they know NOW. The problem is that beginners don't know what they don't know, myself included.
If GUE's measure of success is to have the course create better divers, well, I am sure the course will do that. But how many? Is the course considered a success if they are only producing 20 divers a year? When I think about the commitment required for the course, costs, and the likely failure rate, there is a very small pool of people who are going to be interested anyway. And then you add on the people who are interested but drop out because of the intensity, or can't afford it, or because they discovery they don't really like diving anyway, and because they are pisssed that they spent 1200 bucks and didn't pass.. well, that leaves an even smaller number of people actually finishing the course. Also, the course seems to defy alittle bit of what I thought was a core component of most other GUE training, that is a certain number of practice dives between courses is required before moving on. By combining so many items (IMO) in to one course, you deny the time to build up more practice dives in between.
I had thought that when the OW GUE course came out that it would be broken down more like this:
Ow- inculdes regular OW, resuce, skin diving, etc.
AOW- includes AOW, nitrox and DIR-F
or AOW and then DIR-f, with all the training from the beginning being oriented to DIR-F as far as teaching proper trim from the beginning.
Or some combination thereof.

For those talking about needing to expect more from people and they will be cabable of more, I completely agree. There is nothing wrong with expecting more, but there is a limit of what people are capable of absorbing in a given time, regardless of expectations.
You can have the best message in the world, but that message is wasted if you can't get people to listen. Additionally, what good is creating the best OW class that almost no one will take?

It will be interesting to see how the course plays out. I don't think there will be much interest, but hopefully either I will be wrong, or GUE will adjust the course to attract more people. There is a line between not catering to the masses, and catering to almost no one.
Maybe some instructors like Bob, MHK, etc. will be willing to keep us informed of the class developments and interest level?

 

[lamont]

Course fee will be in the $1200 ballpark.

I know this wouldn't have worked for me. I didn't know any divers when I took my OW class, buddied up with a friend who was a non-diver who suggested we do it, and did a 2 weekend PADI OW course. I had no clue what I was getting into and did it more out of boredom since I was sitting around waiting for snowboarding season to start.

 

[Tollie]

Bob, MHK

Many thanks for the thoughtful replies.

I do understand that GUE is not an agency that is oriented towards the mass recreational diving market and that it is not about equipment.

My disappointment comes from my own wish for the gifted instructors and the GUE leadership to have produced a genuine basic o/w course. Such a class takes non-divers to a higher level of diving skill, situational awareness and a strong knowledge base which helps keep divers safer than is commonly taught within a time and cost structure that many students can benefit from. From a very initial look, this has not been done.

One other point. The current cadre of GUE instructors is exceptionally skilled and have devoted time to developing what might be considered &#8220;pioneer grade&#8221; capabilities in environments that very few other instructors world wide posses. I wonder if skill levels of this type are really absolutely, positively necessary to teach a really sound basic o/w class.

OK my vision for GUE is not JJ&#8217;s. I think I see so much value in how GUE goes about teaching that I fear that someone will adapt the approach for a wider market. If that someone is not GUE I think the industry, as a whole will be the poorer. GUE is the vital growing edge of the industry and it would be a shame to see the edge blurred by a weak imitation.

 

[detroit diver]

That may be 20 too high.

You might very well be right. I just think that there will be some folks where money is not an issue, and are looking for the very best. Granted, that number is small, especially because of advertised competition, and the fact that a diver-to-be 1. Doesn't usually frequent these boards to know about DIR, and 2. Would have no reason to even ask for a course like this, ie you don't know to ask what you don't know.

 

[JeffG]

ie you don't know to ask what you don't know.

Yep...and by the time they realize that it (the class) would of been a good thing to have taken, it will be too late. (They will have already been certified)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

OK my vision for GUE is not JJ’s. I think I see so much value in how GUE goes about teaching that I fear that someone will adapt the approach for a wider market. If that someone is not GUE I think the industry, as a whole will be the poorer. GUE is the vital growing edge of the industry and it would be a shame to see the edge blurred by a weak imitation.

I dunno ... I think that if GUE's approach to OW instruction causes other agencies/instructors to re-evaluate how they teach their own classes, the diving community as a whole will benefit. Of course, it won't be GUE instruction ... but if the end result is that it encourages some instructors to offer a more thorough curriculum, I think that's a good thing.

Call it a "weak imitation" ... it is ... but if it's better than the current offering, how could that be a shame?

As MHK stated, GUE neither attempts nor wants to appeal to a broad audience. And in this case, their model probably won't appeal to very many (unfortunately) ... but if some of their ideas are recognized as advantageous by others, they will be integrated into more mainstream classes.

Personally, I think it would be great to see the bar for mainstream recreational dive instruction going up instead of down for a change.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[JeffG]

As MHK stated, GUE neither attempts nor wants to appeal to a broad audience. And in this case, their model probably won't appeal to very many (unfortunately) ... but if some of their ideas are recognized as advantageous by others, they will be integrated into more mainstream classes.

Personally, I think it would be great to see the bar for mainstream recreational dive instruction going up instead of down for a change.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

But if nobody takes the course, it will "prove" that there in no room/need for a higher standard course.

I hope to be proven wrong. Only time will tell though.