Question GUE - Is it much different to traditional agencies like SSI or PADI?

[JoeTPhilly]

But you are right that the Fundies-T1-T2/CCR1 training progression is for w*nkers with current helium prices.

My bad, I meant Fundies -> T1 -> CCR or T2. Still, from what I can tell at least on UK boats, most divers who plan to dive deeper wrecks simply skipped the GUE route completely (including myself). Incredibly few divers can afford to get the trimix experience dives and the rest simply fake it - by calling a 30 meter dive with 10 minutes of deco a "T1" dive.

It looks like GUE is making some changes because of the price of helium:

“For now, GUE has approved the opportunity for waiver of the 25 deep experience dives after Tech 1 training, greatly reducing the cost of gasses needed for progression to the CCR1 program,” Jablonski told InDEPTH, meaning that GUE divers can take their CCR1 course directly after completing Tech 1. “The waiver is case-dependent and not compulsory for a given instructor, but can be a useful stop-gap measure while GUE formalizes an optimal path forward given all the variables involved.”

Linked is the article. The Helium Outlook

 

[grantmac]

It seems to me that requiring a certain number of decompression dives (possibly with a minimum amount of decompression to qualify) without a specific depth requirement could be a path towards cementing skills while avoiding excessive gas costs.

 

[Manchz]

Hello all.

Since I posted here in Feb 2024, I dropped the idea of GUE-F as I was way too new to the sport. Now I am planning to do it in Feb/March 2025, and have found 1 of 3 instructors available in NZ - who I am speaking to end of this month. Would have about 25 or so dives by then.

I tried a fair bit to get private instruction from LDS (and of course pay), but that’s been an impossible task. Here’s the issue - they can’t teach skills privately what they teach in courses (agency restrictions I guess). They are a generally very good/helpful dive shop. This is what I asked:

• I told them I wanted additional support with buoyancy as I was really struggling and it made dives very stressful - if I should do PPB. They said do drysuit and buoyancy is covered in that (also I wanted to dive in winter in NZ, water is 13 degrees). So I did that, that probably helped about 10% more, but I base that more on my own research (I have been ruthlessly learning more about buoyancy from google/youtube/SB etc), rather than anything specific taught by the instructor but the theory material made sense, which i then Youtube’ed to understand more.
• I asked if they can teach me frog kick (because I watched others whilst diving, and from YouTube - and I tried to copy it - and for the few times I think i did it, felt it kept me bit more stable). They said to do Advanced Open Water.
• I asked about backward kick cos when there’s a reef in front of me and a person next to me, I have to contort my body in like a U shape to turn direction and I completely lose control. Well, that’s taught in a tech course.

I feel like the basics are so rubbish, foundations so weak - yet they just want to sell you next course, then the next. My LDS is recommending I do AOW, so I can do liveaboards. It’s a sales pitch, to which I said a sharp no, not until basics are better, which I think can take me a couple of years honestly —- as there’s no feedback, just me trying different things i see on YouTube.

So that brings me to GUE-F, which I have done plenty of research on by now. My little progress in diving has been due to this forum and due to YouTube, and just doing it again and again to get comfortable. I am at 15 dives now (when I posted, I was at 4).

I have read that even if you fail GUE-F, you learn so much. I can religiously follow a good teacher, good feedback and advice is worth its weight in gold (I naturally have no coordination instincts, I suck at most physical-based activities unless I practice heaps). Even the OW - I started in Dec 2023, couldn’t complete, and took a private class or two, then re-did in Jan 2024 privately and finally got it. Didnt come easy.

I do not have any friends/family/or any people I know that dive. So there’s no buddy other than the one LDS assigns, and sometimes they can’t find me a buddy (winter season, reduced demand) so no dives happen.

What is the opinion on doing GUE-F at around 25 dives mark? I know it’s a rigorous course, which is what appeals to me - but given that it’s about 5-6 months away, what can I do to better prepare for it?

• Does it require more physical fitness than OW? If yes, what kind - so i can work on it.
• What should be focussing on over my next 10 dives keeping GUE-F in mind? (A personally set goal is trying to figure out frog kick using YouTube as a guide n just testing that out every time i go in the water)

Any guidance would be greatly helpful. I started my OW theory in December 2023 and now 10 months later, I do think commercial agencies like PADI/SSI, etc kinda suck with how little they focus on foundational principles that are the building blocks of good diving experience, and when you want to learn more - do another course which again falls short of what it promises!
Given that my LDS is one of the best in the city, it’s the agencies I would think are crap.

I still want to continue doing div trips with my LDS, but outside of a course, they are not responsible for what I do, what i learn (or not learn), etc. This is where curiousity for GUE as an organisation kicks in.

PS - Goal is to be a better rec diver. Nothing else for now.

 

[steinbil]

What is the opinion on doing GUE-F at around 25 dives mark?

Sounds like a great idea! The sooner you learn the skills properly, the less you have to unlearn. The sooner you get excellent feedback on how you can improve, the sooner you can start practicing and take your time to get comfortable.

I know it’s a rigorous course, which is what appeals to me - but given that it’s about 5-6 months away, what can I do to better prepare for it?

Get as comfortable as you can in the water. If you have access to a pool, I would go swimming and snorkeling as often as possible. You can also practice swimming techniques in the pool, even without fins. I practiced back kicks in the pool every time I went swimming - it's actually easier without fins, since the recovery phase is more forgiving. Small mistakes won't abruptly stop you in the water or push you forwards. I even practiced modified flutter kicks and mask drills on a breath hold, but that might be taking it a bit far.

Other than that, simply go diving as much as possible.

Does it require more physical fitness than OW? If yes, what kind - so i can work on it.

Not really, as long as you can complete the swim requirement. It will be mentally exhausting, but not physically. Actually you will spend most of the time trying to lie still in the water and not move.

What should be focussing on over my next 10 dives keeping GUE-F in mind? (A personally set goal is trying to figure out frog kick using YouTube as a guide n just testing that out every time i go in the water)

I would focus on two things:
- being comfortable and relaxed
- trying to move less*

*by trying to just hover and glide, and with less kicking and no hand movements, you will be much more in tune with your buoyancy. You will notice if you're slightly heavy or light because it's no longer masked by swimming. Try to make small adjustments to your BC and also just notice how the breathing affects it without trying to control your breathing too much.

Don't worry too much about skills and technique, as that's what your instructor will teach you, and you want to avoid practicing it wrong.

If you want to be really prepared mentally, get a subscription to GUE.tv to watch demonstrations of the basic skills. Not so you can perform them, but just to see what it looks like and get a jump start on visualizing it before the class.

 

[Manchz]

Sounds like a great idea! The sooner you learn the skills properly, the less you have to unlearn. The sooner you get excellent feedback on how you can improve, the sooner you can start practicing and take your time to get comfortable.


Get as comfortable as you can in the water. If you have access to a pool, I would go swimming and snorkeling as often as possible. You can also practice swimming techniques in the pool, even without fins. I practiced back kicks in the pool every time I went swimming - it's actually easier without fins, since the recovery phase is more forgiving. Small mistakes won't abruptly stop you in the water or push you forwards. I even practiced modified flutter kicks and mask drills on a breath hold, but that might be taking it a bit far.

Other than that, simply go diving as much as possible.


Not really, as long as you can complete the swim requirement. It will be mentally exhausting, but not physically. Actually you will spend most of the time trying to lie still in the water and not move.


I would focus on two things:
- being comfortable and relaxed
- trying to move less*

*by trying to just hover and glide, and with less kicking and no hand movements, you will be much more in tune with your buoyancy. You will notice if you're slightly heavy or light because it's no longer masked by swimming. Try to make small adjustments to your BC and also just notice how the breathing affects it without trying to control your breathing too much.

Don't worry too much about skills and technique, as that's what your instructor will teach you, and you want to avoid practicing it wrong.

If you want to be really prepared mentally, get a subscription to GUE.tv to watch demonstrations of the basic skills. Not so you can perform them, but just to see what it looks like and get a jump start on visualizing it before the class.

This is just fantastic advice thank you.

I train with a swimming school once a week and have been doing so for 3+ years so have high swim fitness.

I have small fins (mainly for pool swim) which I can use to practice some different types of kicks like frog (which I think is similar to breast stroke). Backward kicks.. no idea how that's even done (even theoretically). I can always google it.

But very doable suggestion about keeping my goal over next few dives to be as still as possible and see what breathing does, kicking as little as possible (the latter I find is only possible on frog kick as it makes you glide forward).

Thank you for the insightful advice

 

[34109411]

Hello all.

Since I posted here in Feb 2024, I dropped the idea of GUE-F as I was way too new to the sport. Now I am planning to do it in Feb/March 2025, and have found 1 of 3 instructors available in NZ - who I am speaking to end of this month. Would have about 25 or so dives by then.

I tried a fair bit to get private instruction from LDS (and of course pay), but that’s been an impossible task. Here’s the issue - they can’t teach skills privately what they teach in courses (agency restrictions I guess). They are a generally very good/helpful dive shop. This is what I asked:

• I told them I wanted additional support with buoyancy as I was really struggling and it made dives very stressful - if I should do PPB. They said do drysuit and buoyancy is covered in that (also I wanted to dive in winter in NZ, water is 13 degrees). So I did that, that probably helped about 10% more, but I base that more on my own research (I have been ruthlessly learning more about buoyancy from google/youtube/SB etc), rather than anything specific taught by the instructor but the theory material made sense, which i then Youtube’ed to understand more.
• I asked if they can teach me frog kick (because I watched others whilst diving, and from YouTube - and I tried to copy it - and for the few times I think i did it, felt it kept me bit more stable). They said to do Advanced Open Water.
• I asked about backward kick cos when there’s a reef in front of me and a person next to me, I have to contort my body in like a U shape to turn direction and I completely lose control. Well, that’s taught in a tech course.

I feel like the basics are so rubbish, foundations so weak - yet they just want to sell you next course, then the next. My LDS is recommending I do AOW, so I can do liveaboards. It’s a sales pitch, to which I said a sharp no, not until basics are better, which I think can take me a couple of years honestly —- as there’s no feedback, just me trying different things i see on YouTube.

So that brings me to GUE-F, which I have done plenty of research on by now. My little progress in diving has been due to this forum and due to YouTube, and just doing it again and again to get comfortable. I am at 15 dives now (when I posted, I was at 4).

I have read that even if you fail GUE-F, you learn so much. I can religiously follow a good teacher, good feedback and advice is worth its weight in gold (I naturally have no coordination instincts, I suck at most physical-based activities unless I practice heaps). Even the OW - I started in Dec 2023, couldn’t complete, and took a private class or two, then re-did in Jan 2024 privately and finally got it. Didnt come easy.

I do not have any friends/family/or any people I know that dive. So there’s no buddy other than the one LDS assigns, and sometimes they can’t find me a buddy (winter season, reduced demand) so no dives happen.

What is the opinion on doing GUE-F at around 25 dives mark? I know it’s a rigorous course, which is what appeals to me - but given that it’s about 5-6 months away, what can I do to better prepare for it?

• Does it require more physical fitness than OW? If yes, what kind - so i can work on it.
• What should be focussing on over my next 10 dives keeping GUE-F in mind? (A personally set goal is trying to figure out frog kick using YouTube as a guide n just testing that out every time i go in the water)

Any guidance would be greatly helpful. I started my OW theory in December 2023 and now 10 months later, I do think commercial agencies like PADI/SSI, etc kinda suck with how little they focus on foundational principles that are the building blocks of good diving experience, and when you want to learn more - do another course which again falls short of what it promises!
Given that my LDS is one of the best in the city, it’s the agencies I would think are crap.

I still want to continue doing div trips with my LDS, but outside of a course, they are not responsible for what I do, what i learn (or not learn), etc. This is where curiousity for GUE as an organisation kicks in.

PS - Goal is to be a better rec diver. Nothing else for now.

you are pretty new to the sport you don t have much diving experience. you put to much stress on yourself. Just go dive and enjoy the rest will come with experience.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Great post, @Manchz .

25 dives post-OW is probably about the minimum recommended for taking Fundies. The real "prerequisite"--other than to have made it through some other agency's OW course--is to be reasonably comfortable in the GUE gear configuration, meaning a BP/W and the so-called long-hose regulator setup. But even then, "comfortable" doesn't mean you must be using those things fluidly--that will all be taught in class. If you have done 25 dives in a BP/W and long-hose reg, you will be just fine. I had done fewer than that when I entered Fundies. (I received a provisional pass, then went back after some practice on my own and earned the rec pass, which is not an uncommon route.)

Does it require more physical fitness than OW? If yes, what kind - so i can work on it.

No. With the caveat of what @steinbil said about the swim requirement. If you're not a good swimmer, practice in a pool. That said, I suspect most people discover that the swim requirement is easier than it sounds. My wife did the entire thing in breaststroke, and the other woman in our class of four (two couples) did most if not all of it in backstroke. I'm a poor swimmer but carried on in crawl/freestyle, and finished with time to spare.

Other than that, I suppose one could keep in mind that class days may be long, which requires a different kind of stamina. Caffeine was my friend when we would return to the classroom or field for debriefing and such after a long day in the water.

What should be focussing on over my next 10 dives keeping GUE-F in mind? (A personally set goal is trying to figure out frog kick using YouTube as a guide n just testing that out every time i go in the water)

I advise not trying to work on your frog kick or any other specific "skill." Just, as I said, do some diving with the BP/W and long-hose reg setup just to get a feel for it, but don't practice anything you believe is a skill that will be covered in class. The purpose of the course is to teach you, and the curriculum covers everything you need to know. You are not expected to know anything when you begin Fundies other than the absolute rudiments of scuba that any OW diver learned in their course.* It has been said that a downside of practicing what you believe are the "skills" in advance of Fundies is the potential for ingraining bad habits. To what extent that is true I do not know--it has been debated here on SB--but I believe the upside of coming into class with no preconceived notion of how to do a skill outweighs the possible downside of having learned something incorrectly.

edit/added: Having now read @steinbil 's reply more carefully, I would agree that an exception to my general advice not to practice "skills" would be to practice the skill of just staying still in one place. When I went back to the pool to practice after having received a provisional pass, what I worked on most was the skill of staying still, hovering just above the bottom. That requires good horizontal trim, which may be challenging to achieve without some instruction first, which may involve the instructor shifting weight around on your rig to achieve balance, and helping you with your arm and leg position. But if there is anything you could try to practice, staying still just above the bottom would be it. It's hard to ingrain a bad habit in "doing nothing."

--------
* I have read anecdotes leading me to believe that back in the stone age of GUE some instructors may have had different ideas of what a Fundies student should already know, but I have not heard anything like that in at least the decade since I took Fundies. So relax and enjoy your course.

 

[34109411]

i might think dry suit diving is not an easy task for a new diver so much to learn about technique on a simple wetsuit, drysuit add complexity for a brand new diver in my opinion.

 

[Manchz]

Great post, @Manchz .

25 dives post-OW is probably about the minimum recommended for taking Fundies. The real "prerequisite"--other than to have made it through some other agency's OW course--is to be reasonably comfortable in the GUE gear configuration, meaning a BP/W and the so-called long-hose regulator setup. But even then, "comfortable" doesn't mean you must be using those things fluidly--that will all be taught in class. If you have done 25 dives in a BP/W and long-hose reg, you will be just fine. I had done fewer than that when I entered Fundies. (I received a provisional pass, then went back after some practice on my own and earned the rec pass, which is not an uncommon route.)


No. With the caveat of what @steinbil said about the swim requirement. If you're not a good swimmer, practice in a pool. That said, I suspect most people discover that the swim requirement is easier than it sounds. My wife did the entire thing in breaststroke, and the other woman in our class of four (two couples) did most if not all of it in backstroke. I'm a poor swimmer but carried on in crawl/freestyle, and finished with time to spare.

Other than that, I suppose one could keep in mind that class days may be long, which requires a different kind of stamina. Caffeine was my friend when we would return to the classroom or field for debriefing and such after a long day in the water.



I advise not trying to work on your frog kick or any other specific "skill." Just, as I said, do some diving with the BP/W and long-hose reg setup just to get a feel for it, but don't practice anything you believe is a skill that will be covered in class. The purpose of the course is to teach you, and the curriculum covers everything you need to know. You are not expected to know anything when you begin Fundies other than the absolute rudiments of scuba that any OW diver learned in their course.* It has been said that a downside of practicing what you believe are the "skills" in advance of Fundies is the potential for ingraining bad habits. To what extent that is true I do not know--it has been debated here on SB--but I believe the upside of coming into class with no preconceived notion of how to do a skill outweighs the possible downside of having learned something incorrectly.

edit/added: Having now read @steinbil 's reply more carefully, I would agree that an exception to my general advice not to practice "skills" would be to practice the skill of just staying still in one place. When I went back to the pool to practice after having received a provisional pass, what I worked on most was the skill of staying still, hovering just above the bottom. That requires good horizontal trim, which may be challenging to achieve without some instruction first, which may involve the instructor shifting weight around on your rig to achieve balance, and helping you with your arm and leg position. But if there is anything you could try to practice, staying still just above the bottom would be it. It's hard to ingrain a bad habit in "doing nothing."

--------
* I have read anecdotes leading me to believe that back in the stone age of GUE some instructors may have had different ideas of what a Fundies student should already know, but I have not heard anything like that in at least the decade since I took Fundies. So relax and enjoy your course.

That's great advice, thank you.

I have only ever dived in BP/W but my gear is rental and I have never seen the LDS having long hose. This one will remain a curiosity until the Fundies class!

The GUE-F instructor I found here in New Zealand, only just set up his own business and can't provide gear rental so I wonder how he'll sort the equipment. I am speaking to him later this month about it.

 

[Manchz]

i might think dry suit diving is not an easy task for a new diver so much to learn about technique on a simple wetsuit, drysuit add complexity for a brand new diver in my opinion.

It actually wasn't so bad as I could move air around the body (most times unwillingly), I found I had more control than wet suit. Haven't used BCD underwater with Drysuit yet, as Drysuit inflator just does the job!

I had to learn Drysuit as NZ water is very cold and I was having to cut too many dives short due to shiver setting in even in summer, winter would be a complete write off. And as someone so new to the game, I didn't want to go a whole season without diving, I'd forget everything.