Spg01
Contributor
Hey Floridakid,
I was going to PM this, but decided against my better judgement to post it in your thread.
I guess I can't be considered a GUE practioner , but here is the story of my GUE Fundamentals class.
I took my OW and AOW from the same NAUI instructor and was wondering what else was out there. I had been to a DIR day that was held at a local beach that had a few different agencies attend. I then went to an actual GUE day at a local pool to try a back plate and see what else they had to say.
During the GUE day it was said that were going to hold a class that was going to have two instructors for the price of one instructor. You will learn most things with GUE are about money. If you want to take a class there is the course fee from GUE, there is an instructor fee for the teacher and there is also another somewhat surprise fee at the end of the class that includes anything else they can think of, more on the last one later. You also have to pay the instructors cost for travel/food/lodging. So either you go to them or pay for them to come to you.
I was somewhat luck in that one instructor was local and the other actually flew in on his own expense. Basically they are trying to grow the local community of GUE divers. I asked up front the total cost of the class and was given a magic number and told it would go down if the class filled up and that I was ok with. So I signed up for the Fundamentals Class and figured I would give it a try and see what happened.
The first day of class felt more like a time share sales pitch to me and a few other people. It was not horrible, just a lot about GUE history and what they are trying to do. But it just felt like a big sales pitch. I figured no big deal; let’s get to the fun stuff. The class room portion of the training was ok for the most part. There is a training pack to download and do before the class so you are not going into the class wondering what was going on. So everything was explained and gone over and they helped anyone with problems.
The material had some typos and mistakes and was in no particular order when I downloaded it from GUE. When questioning the typos/mistakes they said we could make corrections and send them into GUE if we wanted to. I thought I was paying them for good training material, guess not. One of the big problems was that even though they showed us training videos during the class, you did not actually get a copy of the videos. It would have been very nice to have a copy of the videos during the class and even after the class for reference. So at least for my class you could not have access to the videos unless you paid even more money to GUE to access them from their website. I know there are videos on the internet that I could get the same info from. But GUE says you should not do that because they might be doing it wrong and then you would have to relearn how to do it the GUE way. So I asked for a copies of the videos and they said NO.
The pool sessions were pretty bad for my class also. One instructor was having back problems and was constantly complaining how it hurt or he was on the phone talking with someone about something. When he was in the water "watching" us he was mostly looking at the bottom of the pool in pain looking up every now and then. The pool itself was another issue. It was a nice pool at a country club type place 3' to about 10' deep. But we were only allowed to use half of it, the other half was reserved for members who wanted to swim. So now we have 6 students, 2 instructors and 2 camera guys in half of a pool. Yeah 10 people in half a pool trying to do drills and kicks while not going past our side of the pool. If felt and probably looked like a circus going on in the pool. Try doing drills in 3' of water with your fins breaking the surface of the water, it does not really help at all.
And the whole time the two instructor never really worked well together. They would demonstrate a handful of drills and then jump into the pool and expect you to remember them all the 1st time. I was expecting them to show us a drill and have teams work it out once or twice on the surface before trying it underwater. Nope, one demo and into the pool. Also if someone was asking questions about anything they would go ahead and answer the question for them, but they would not include anyone else in the conversation. We all survived and figured it out, so that was not the end of the world either. We were also told that we got more pool time than regular classes and we should be considered lucky. But I think all the students agreed we could have used more pool time.
The boat dives went reasonably well for the most part. After the 2nd dive everyone decided that the last dive would be a fun dive instead of an evaluation dive. The class was 4 days straight, so no real time between classes to practice anything. So one of the instructors felt bad because of the back problems and offered to let us dive with him when he came back out our way in a few months and do an evaluation dive. After that was mentioned the other instructor was saying we had to take more trips out to Catalina so he could show us some other drills. A couple of us mentioned doing a beach dive instead of Catalina. He said no, he would not do classes anywhere but Catalina and that was it. But when I talked to the other instructor he said I did not have to go to Catalina if I did not want to? Maybe they could have gotten together and talked about it first instead of having different stories?
I then brought up the final fee at the end of the class and how much they wanted. It was more than what I was told it was going to be and why was it more? They could not really come up with a good reason except that it is expensive to rent pools. You mean the 1/2 of a pool we got to use? Not to mention the extra expense of a few more trips to Catalina, because we could not do any dives at a local beach. They asked what would make me happy and I said to refund the last fee at the end of the class.
I was told I would not get any money back and that if I could not handle the extra money maybe diving was not for me. I then had to listen to the instructor tell me how much he spend $500 or more on gas for a weekend of diving. I also heard about how much gear he has in his garage and how much it cost. I am sure he threw in a few other examples of how much diving costs, but I don't remember them. And the best story was that he could go out and spend hundreds of dollars on sushi every now and then and not even think about it!
After spending around $2,000 on the class and new gear for the class, I decide he must be right. Diving is just too expensive for me and I better stop because it would just not be fair to my teammates if I could not handle the extra money.
It might have just been the "perfect storm" of crap for my class, but that has been my only GUE class to base anything on. Nobody even did a usual class report at the end of the class. I don't think everyone was completely happy with the overall class for whatever reason. I do dive every now and then with about half the class and we do get a few chuckles about what went on during the class.
I will say my buoyancy did improve and there were some good topics in the classroom. But even though the class material was ok, it came down to the instructors and pool training that was no good for me. After my little money pep talk I pretty much decided GUE and I were not a good fit at the moment. Looking at this message I guess it counts as a class report, although one that will not go over well.
I was going to PM this, but decided against my better judgement to post it in your thread.
I guess I can't be considered a GUE practioner , but here is the story of my GUE Fundamentals class.
I took my OW and AOW from the same NAUI instructor and was wondering what else was out there. I had been to a DIR day that was held at a local beach that had a few different agencies attend. I then went to an actual GUE day at a local pool to try a back plate and see what else they had to say.
During the GUE day it was said that were going to hold a class that was going to have two instructors for the price of one instructor. You will learn most things with GUE are about money. If you want to take a class there is the course fee from GUE, there is an instructor fee for the teacher and there is also another somewhat surprise fee at the end of the class that includes anything else they can think of, more on the last one later. You also have to pay the instructors cost for travel/food/lodging. So either you go to them or pay for them to come to you.
I was somewhat luck in that one instructor was local and the other actually flew in on his own expense. Basically they are trying to grow the local community of GUE divers. I asked up front the total cost of the class and was given a magic number and told it would go down if the class filled up and that I was ok with. So I signed up for the Fundamentals Class and figured I would give it a try and see what happened.
The first day of class felt more like a time share sales pitch to me and a few other people. It was not horrible, just a lot about GUE history and what they are trying to do. But it just felt like a big sales pitch. I figured no big deal; let’s get to the fun stuff. The class room portion of the training was ok for the most part. There is a training pack to download and do before the class so you are not going into the class wondering what was going on. So everything was explained and gone over and they helped anyone with problems.
The material had some typos and mistakes and was in no particular order when I downloaded it from GUE. When questioning the typos/mistakes they said we could make corrections and send them into GUE if we wanted to. I thought I was paying them for good training material, guess not. One of the big problems was that even though they showed us training videos during the class, you did not actually get a copy of the videos. It would have been very nice to have a copy of the videos during the class and even after the class for reference. So at least for my class you could not have access to the videos unless you paid even more money to GUE to access them from their website. I know there are videos on the internet that I could get the same info from. But GUE says you should not do that because they might be doing it wrong and then you would have to relearn how to do it the GUE way. So I asked for a copies of the videos and they said NO.
The pool sessions were pretty bad for my class also. One instructor was having back problems and was constantly complaining how it hurt or he was on the phone talking with someone about something. When he was in the water "watching" us he was mostly looking at the bottom of the pool in pain looking up every now and then. The pool itself was another issue. It was a nice pool at a country club type place 3' to about 10' deep. But we were only allowed to use half of it, the other half was reserved for members who wanted to swim. So now we have 6 students, 2 instructors and 2 camera guys in half of a pool. Yeah 10 people in half a pool trying to do drills and kicks while not going past our side of the pool. If felt and probably looked like a circus going on in the pool. Try doing drills in 3' of water with your fins breaking the surface of the water, it does not really help at all.
And the whole time the two instructor never really worked well together. They would demonstrate a handful of drills and then jump into the pool and expect you to remember them all the 1st time. I was expecting them to show us a drill and have teams work it out once or twice on the surface before trying it underwater. Nope, one demo and into the pool. Also if someone was asking questions about anything they would go ahead and answer the question for them, but they would not include anyone else in the conversation. We all survived and figured it out, so that was not the end of the world either. We were also told that we got more pool time than regular classes and we should be considered lucky. But I think all the students agreed we could have used more pool time.
The boat dives went reasonably well for the most part. After the 2nd dive everyone decided that the last dive would be a fun dive instead of an evaluation dive. The class was 4 days straight, so no real time between classes to practice anything. So one of the instructors felt bad because of the back problems and offered to let us dive with him when he came back out our way in a few months and do an evaluation dive. After that was mentioned the other instructor was saying we had to take more trips out to Catalina so he could show us some other drills. A couple of us mentioned doing a beach dive instead of Catalina. He said no, he would not do classes anywhere but Catalina and that was it. But when I talked to the other instructor he said I did not have to go to Catalina if I did not want to? Maybe they could have gotten together and talked about it first instead of having different stories?
I then brought up the final fee at the end of the class and how much they wanted. It was more than what I was told it was going to be and why was it more? They could not really come up with a good reason except that it is expensive to rent pools. You mean the 1/2 of a pool we got to use? Not to mention the extra expense of a few more trips to Catalina, because we could not do any dives at a local beach. They asked what would make me happy and I said to refund the last fee at the end of the class.
I was told I would not get any money back and that if I could not handle the extra money maybe diving was not for me. I then had to listen to the instructor tell me how much he spend $500 or more on gas for a weekend of diving. I also heard about how much gear he has in his garage and how much it cost. I am sure he threw in a few other examples of how much diving costs, but I don't remember them. And the best story was that he could go out and spend hundreds of dollars on sushi every now and then and not even think about it!
After spending around $2,000 on the class and new gear for the class, I decide he must be right. Diving is just too expensive for me and I better stop because it would just not be fair to my teammates if I could not handle the extra money.
It might have just been the "perfect storm" of crap for my class, but that has been my only GUE class to base anything on. Nobody even did a usual class report at the end of the class. I don't think everyone was completely happy with the overall class for whatever reason. I do dive every now and then with about half the class and we do get a few chuckles about what went on during the class.
I will say my buoyancy did improve and there were some good topics in the classroom. But even though the class material was ok, it came down to the instructors and pool training that was no good for me. After my little money pep talk I pretty much decided GUE and I were not a good fit at the moment. Looking at this message I guess it counts as a class report, although one that will not go over well.
