DIR- GUE Finding teammates after failing fundamentals

[steinbil]

Yes, that's exactly right! I think my main failure was not being mentally prepared for 5 days of being pushed to the limit and I crumbled emotionally from the rollercoaster - I'll fail, oh, no one fails, I'll pass, I'll fail. I do overthink things, hence the name I picked

I know the feeling. It's very easy to overthink things underwater, and I also think it's very unnatural for human beings to communicate without being able to read facial expressions. I remember being nervous/overthinking during my first OW class because I couldn't read my instructors face, and I was worried that they were frustrated with me. I find that the challenge of Scuba diving is 80% mental, which is also what makes it so interesting - you have to find inner peace, and how much I enjoy a dive is directly correlated with how confident and comfortable I feel. It has also been eye opening how different a dive can seem to very similar people on the same dive - it's all about what you bring to the dive mentally.

BTW, I'm going to NY for a few weeks june/july. Don't know how much time I have for diving, since I'm there with family, but I'm hoping to at least get wet. Wouldn't mind seeing some shallow wrecks in the New Jersey area, and I'm always up for doing some drills while I'm in the water.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I have just one question: why did you swap your excellent Nova fins with outdated, crap jet fins?
Was it suggested by the instructor, or you just did think that they were the "do it right" thing?

 

[KevinNM]

I failed doubles, I literally couldn’t reach one of the valves due to an old shoulder injury. I just stretched and worked on it until I felt I could usually do a valve drill correctly, it took a while.

It’s unusual but unless you failed because the instructor or students refused to be in the water with you it’s not a huge deal.

 

[overthinking_diver]

If it happened as explained here, I am not very impressed. Sorry. The instructor is meant to teach you and instruct you, not simply be there to evaluate your skills and let you spiral out of control if you're unable to do it well enough on your own.
I highly suggest that once you've had a chance to practice and sorted out the issues that have been identified, and worked on your weaknesses, that you try again with another instructor. It doesn't sound like this one works well for you.

I don't know, I've been going through the 5 stages of grief after failing. I hit anger a few times and couldn't blame this on the instructor no matter how hard my emotionally exhausted brain tried. He got me to go from 1 to 6, it's not his fault I couldn't go to 10 on my first try. There's only so much an instructor can do.

I definitely don't want to make it sound like the instructor wasn't 10/10, because he was.

I would definitely dive/train with him again if given the chance. But this is all a moot point, I'll need at least a year or two of training with teammates before I can get to a point I can go through this again.

 

[overthinking_diver]

If it happened as explained here, I am not very impressed. Sorry. The instructor is meant to teach you and instruct you, not simply be there to evaluate your skills and let you spiral out of control if you're unable to do it well enough on your own.
I highly suggest that once you've had a chance to practice and sorted out the issues that have been identified, and worked on your weaknesses, that you try again with another instructor. It doesn't sound like this one works well for you.

I think my reply didn't post. Does this forum usually experience this many database errors? Does it accept donations for more robust aws servers?

I was saying, I don't think I can blame the instructor. He get me from 1 to 6, it's not his fault I couldn't get to 10. There's only so much an instructor can do. It's a process and I took a big step towards my end goal.

I don't want to imply instructor wasn't 10/10, because he was. Great vibe, great instruction, great knowledge, awesome stories from personal diving.

I would definitely dive/train with him again given the chance. This is all a moot point because I'll need 1-2 years of practice before I can get myself to go through this again.

 

[Aura]

I think my reply didn't post.

It did And that's fine, as I said in my first post, I wasn't in your class and my impression is based entirely off a few things in your posts. I just don't think it does you any good to acknowledge that you're struggling, and do nothing to correct it. And it seems like a disservice to simply say you won't dive anymore, rather than give you advice on how to improve, and then a chance to do so. It sounds very different from my Fundies instructor.

 

[rddvet]

Thanks everyone! This actually makes me feel a lot better!

Technically, I was cut off the class early and didn't splash for the last dive on the last day. The class was 5 days and on day 1 we were told we have two more dives than normal. My near panic moment described above was dive 1 on day 4. After we surfaced, instructor and other student went back down to finish some skills. Then somehow I finished the entire second dive on day 4, we did another valve drill, s-drills and I did my first smb deployment ever - which was a super cool feeling

Oh, I forgot to mention that on day 1 the instructor told us verbatim that no one will "fail" the class. So after day 4 ended the realization that I'm about to fail a class that "no one fails" hit me pretty head on. After not sleeping at all that night (also, had to deal with mice in the hotel, not making excuses, but it did affect me) waking up for day 5 was tough. I didn't want to be in the water at all. I did a pretty poor valve drill, I almost took the backup out of my mouth with my right hand with my primary still clipped. Pretty bad stuff, my teammate signaled and was like wtf are you doing . I finished the valve drill but I felt that was about to lose it again. So during the next skill which was helicopter turn practice (my left turn was worse than my right so I imagine instructor wanted to sneak one more full isolated practice) I decided to call it before it got to a really bad state again. Teammate deployed an smb, we surfaced and I was told I failed and won't be diving anymore. At this point, I was glad to be out of the water and there was no way I was diving again that day.

So having two extra dives, I skipped one full and two half dives so I imagine I got close to the full experience so I don't feel too bad about not technically completing the class. I didn't do the no mask swim but this sounds like an easy skill compared to others. It's a swim, so trim, balance and stability is a lot easier.

Oh, also a really cool tidbit. Instructor told me he knew all the way during my valve drill that I was about to lose it again. He could see my diaphragm twitching so he knew my breathing was fast, shallow and bad. The situational awareness of GUE instructors is out of this world - they can see your internal organs moving.

I don't think you "failed". In the GUE world, I think you "fail" if you are asked not to come back or go do alot of remedial diving before coming back (not working on skills diving). I think in essence you were told go get more experience. So if that's the case, I think you'll have plenty of people willing to dive with you.

 

[MB NZ]

You are clearly not made of the right material and should prostrate yourself to a class of PADI OW divers and beg their acceptance*.





*Joke. Seriously though, if someone didn't want to dive with you because of this, do you really want to go diving with them?

 

[overthinking_diver]

I will say though, "rigid, non split fins" does not exclusively mean ScubaPro Jet fins. Jets, or something like Hollis F1s would be way too heavy for me, even in a drysuit. It sounds like the first thing you need to sort out is your trim, and possibly getting some lighter fins (I personally use the Fourth Element Tech fins).

Buy these:

Fins

www.deep6gear.com

Trying to use skills to make up for the wrong equipment is a waste of time.

Thanks for the fin suggestions. I'll definitely play with different fins. I'll make sure to give these a try. Thanks!

I have just one question: why did you swap your excellent Nova fins with outdated, crap jet fins?
Was it suggested by the instructor, or you just did think that they were the "do it right" thing?

I've watched a *lot* of hours of gue.tv and GUE youtube channel videos. (Almost?) all divers in them use scubapro jet fins. That was my reason to pick them. Not saying it was a great reason. All divers in them also dive drysuits.

Buying and preparing equipment for fundies is a pretty overwhelming process. You need to make so many decisions with no information. So for fins, I was happy to just use what everyone else was using.

I have done 10-15 dives with the jet fins now and I like them more for actual kicking than the Novas. I was never able to back kick with the Novas, although I've seen people do it with ease on youtube so this was definitely a technique issue. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to keep them up in trim with the right body tension after ~20-50 more dives. Especially with a thicker wetsuit and eventually with a drysuit.

The attitude from GUE instructors towards the Novas was ... not too positive . I don't want to speak for instructors but I got the feeling that if someone shows up with Novas they will be strongly encouraged to switch fins.

 

[KevinNM]

The attitude from GUE instructors towards the Novas was ... not too positive . I don't want to speak for instructors but I got the feeling that if someone shows up with Novas they will be strongly encouraged to switch fins.

As long as you have a solid backkick you can use split fins. Getting a solid backick with splits is time that might be better spent on something else.