My technical diving predates the existence of the fundamentals course. But, I do have two good examples. My wife took the course purely for a rec pass with maybe 20 dives and had no issues passing the class. My son is too young to formally take fundamentals, but dad dives with several GUE instructors so he has been taught the course and easily acheived what is required for a tec pass. It did take him a few more days than a normal fundamentals course since he had to be introduced to a drysuit and doubles, effectively what are the primers courses for those two things. They both had the advantage of having someone experienced with the system do all of their diving with them.
The main factors that made the passess easy were 1) complete familiarity with the proper kit and always diving that way, and 2) every dive having focused on maintaining proper bouyancy. Both of those items are taught but having a basic familiarity does allow you to focus on the finer details and skills they teach you in the class. If you can dive with experienced divers that know these two things that helps. Don't worry aobut trying to learn anything else. That is what the course is designed to teach. A rec pass doesn't take much, if any, diving experience if you are a relatifvely natural diver. Natural talent level with diving varies which is fine and depending on where a person sits on the spectrum they may need a bit more diving to be comfortable enough in the water and with basic bouyancy to learn what is taught for a rec pass. That is no where near 100 dives. A tech pass benefits from more diving experience, closer to 100+ on average, to allow you to focus a bit more on fine tuning the skills that are taught. But, neither requires you to go practice the skills taught before the class.
But, this is scubaboard advice. Go contact a GUE instructor and get their advice. They have the experience to guide prospective students.
The main factors that made the passess easy were 1) complete familiarity with the proper kit and always diving that way, and 2) every dive having focused on maintaining proper bouyancy. Both of those items are taught but having a basic familiarity does allow you to focus on the finer details and skills they teach you in the class. If you can dive with experienced divers that know these two things that helps. Don't worry aobut trying to learn anything else. That is what the course is designed to teach. A rec pass doesn't take much, if any, diving experience if you are a relatifvely natural diver. Natural talent level with diving varies which is fine and depending on where a person sits on the spectrum they may need a bit more diving to be comfortable enough in the water and with basic bouyancy to learn what is taught for a rec pass. That is no where near 100 dives. A tech pass benefits from more diving experience, closer to 100+ on average, to allow you to focus a bit more on fine tuning the skills that are taught. But, neither requires you to go practice the skills taught before the class.
But, this is scubaboard advice. Go contact a GUE instructor and get their advice. They have the experience to guide prospective students.
