GUE or IANTD
- Thread starter Tobias24
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No experience with GUE, but I did all my trimix training with two excellent instructors under IANTD.
I have not reviewed any GUE materials, but the IANTD manuals are terrible. My experience and the training received with IANTD instructors has been excellent, but the material they are provided to work with and provide to their students is the worst I have seen from any of the agencies I have been certified under. (PADI, IANTD, SDI, TDI).
Did you get a Tech pass? Did you enjoy what you learned in the GUE Fundamentals class?
I've only taken tech training with GUE, which I recommend highly, so I can't compare them. If you like what you were taught with GUE, I'd stick with it if possible, as you're pretty much guaranteed good instruction and a continuation of what you were taught in your last class. Several GUE instructors travel to teach, so it's not unlikely you can organize a GUE class locally if you have a team of 2 or 3 interested in participating.
I'm sure you can find good IANTD instructors that will teach you most of the same skills, but you will miss out on further GUE training or participating in GUE projects, and you might miss out on some of the team focus and philosophy of diving that GUE brings. If that's not interesting to you, then I guess it makes sense to go for the local instructor if you trust they are excellent.
DiveLikeAMuppet
Contributor
Choose your instructor, not agency 
. However, agency does impact what you can and cannot do, so choose wisely.
Not sure about trimix but I did a single tec IANTD course and the materials are ridiculously bad. "Meme level" bad. So bad you will send some of the quotes to your mates as a joke. TDI/GUE is way ahead, IANTD feels like a dying agency.
However, if you are on a CCR at the moment and need mod2, you can do mod2 with IANTD that gives you a 70 meter ticket so you can dive some pretty sweet wrecks and still be insured. Most other agencies only allow 60 meters for mod2.
If you want a GUE CCR1 course, you need to do T1 (the requirement might be waived eventually, once enough instructors go bancrupt), dive OC trimix for experience, then buy & butcher a JJ and then you can do CCR1. So if you are already on a CCR, a better path might be to just take mod2 - unless you are part of a specific group of GUE divers who require you to dive the same configuration.
. However, agency does impact what you can and cannot do, so choose wisely.Not sure about trimix but I did a single tec IANTD course and the materials are ridiculously bad. "Meme level" bad. So bad you will send some of the quotes to your mates as a joke. TDI/GUE is way ahead, IANTD feels like a dying agency.
However, if you are on a CCR at the moment and need mod2, you can do mod2 with IANTD that gives you a 70 meter ticket so you can dive some pretty sweet wrecks and still be insured. Most other agencies only allow 60 meters for mod2.
If you want a GUE CCR1 course, you need to do T1 (the requirement might be waived eventually, once enough instructors go bancrupt), dive OC trimix for experience, then buy & butcher a JJ and then you can do CCR1. So if you are already on a CCR, a better path might be to just take mod2 - unless you are part of a specific group of GUE divers who require you to dive the same configuration.
They are about as far apart as possible. You can learn the same thing with either agency, but it 100% comes down to instructors. GUE has strict standards that are adhered to. IANTD has a few standards, but they don't actually exist to enforce them. As far as the few standards that do exist, nobody in the world is following them.
DiveLikeAMuppet
Contributor
That's a bit harsh - it depends on the franchise. IANTD UK had some of the best instructors in Europe/world in the past 10 years. On the other hand, IANTD CE (which bought out the UK franchise a couple months ago) had multiple scandals involving students killed by instructors who did not follow even common sense...
By the way GUE does occasionally slip too. I know a GUE diver with a Fundies Tech pass who could not breath or swim underwater without a mask less than a month after the course.
I am not tech trained myself but is their deco viewpoint/approach not quite different. Following the computer/multideco plan versus 'simple' formulas/calculations in your head? That would be something to take in consideration i think.
What you're describing sounds more like UTD than GUE, so I just wanted to clarify so it doesn't give a wrong impression. I just finished GUE T1, and we planned all our dives with the DecoPlanner software. It is true that during the class we set our computers to gauge mode to practice keeping track of bottom time, average depth and memorizing our deco shedules (which we also had written down in our wetnotes). We also had plans for shorter/longer, shallower/deeper dives. This was done to increase awareness and mental capacity, and to show we can use the computer as a tool instead of following it blindly. However, we also discussed the benefits of using computers, and how to use them for tech dives. We did not do a lot of calculation in our heads, other than keeping track of bottom time and guesstimating average depth (which we could verify on the computer). By taking time in the planning phase to look at different profiles and their deco, we were taught to look for simple mathematical relationships we could use to adjust the plan in a pinch, but that was not the primary way we planned or executed dives.
In short, I'd say that GUE emphasizes planning and being aware of how changes in the dive plan affects your deco schedule, while using the computer as a tool for added safety. And being more aware of the dive profiles and how they affect deco, helps you maked informed decisions to adjust the exposure to the individual diver and the team. Also standard gases makes planning and executing tech dives a lot easier, and gives familiarity with typical profiles and deco schedules. So: Plan the dive, and dive the plan - BUT know how and when to adjust the plan if needed.
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