I guess I should just have posted my report here:
First of a *Huge* thank you to Cal at Village Divers for setting this up, opening up his shop for the class and for providing pool facilities in NYC (ain't easy to come by at any price ). And of course *Huge* thanks to Ed, Gary, Gina and Carol who made the trek to Gotham to provide us with a thought provoking seminar and some outstanding pool training.
I know you've all been dying to ask, so let me get this out of the way first: No Cool-Aid was served and no small animals were sacrificed during the event
(please note smilies and winkies and if there were an emoticon for "tongue firmly planted in cheek" it'd be there as well)
We met at the shop at noon where Ed went through and adjusted the harness on everyone's back plates. He then gave a seminar explaining how GUE came about, their goals and mission statement, and went into the GUE gear and training philosophy as well. All very interesting and thought provoking stuff. The buoyancy segment alone gave me a better insight into this crucial skill than my OW, AOW and Buoyancy Specialty together - not even in the same league.
After the seminar we went to the pool and spent a couple of hours practicing buoyancy via breath control, body position and propulsion techniques. Everything was taught in an easy to follow, step-by-step manner with a logical progression from individual elements of a skill to the final skill itself (well, we tried at least
).
In the 2 hours (or so) in the pool we covered several buoyancy skills, flutter kicks, frog kicks, turns and back kicks. I'm not saying I "mastered" any of those, but felt I made huge progress compared to where I was before, and even managed to get some reverse propulsion on back kicks. Very cool stuff. Of course, this morning I realize back kicks require muscles I haven't used in years - at least it feels that way.
Oh, and I got to try paddle fins. I now realize what people mean about the "torque" and control of paddles.
After the pool we went back to the shop and reviewed the video that Gary shot during the pool session and we didn't look as good as we'd hoped, but also not as bad as we'd feared. The video is an excellent learning tool, once you get over the initial shock.
In conclusion; it was more than worth the 10 hours - heck I'd have paid for training like this. It was an eye-opener to see for myself what good training can be like, and what level of watermanship (is that a word) can be accomplished with the right training ... and hours and hours of practice.
Thanks again to everyone involved in making this happen. I have a strong feeling Fundies is in my future.
Henrik
