Question How to improve dive skills as a rec diver - alternatives to GUE fundamentals course

[Blackcrusader]

All these members suggesting GUE when the OP who dives one or twice a year wrote

"alternatives to GUE fundamentals course"​

 

[travisfull]

All these members suggesting GUE when the OP who dives one or twice a year wrote

"alternatives to GUE fundamentals course"​

Actually the Op said also:

“The GUE Fundies (Rec) training could be exactly what we need, and is absolutely an option (although probably split in 1 & 2).”

 

[ofg-1]

To the OP. I am a old man, I started diving before any of this silliness came about. If you want your skills to get better, you have to practice. You can take a course from GUE, IUD, UTD, LSMFT, doesn't matter, if you don't go and practice but one, maybe two, dive trips a year, you are not going to get the results you want.

I worked in the Keys for awhile. If you are a once a year tourist, I think you would get more benefit from going on your trip one day early, finding an instructor, and taking a one day refresher using the equipment and skills you are already familiar with.

I have no objection to tec diving, none to GUE, UTD, PADI, TDI, IANTD, there are fine instructors with all of them. Learning a dozen new skills on equipment you are unfamiliar with, and then not diving for months at a time, I just can't see an upside to it.

 

[Wagiman]

@ofg-1 You are right. The intent is to first train the right skills, and then to practice and dive more. I am envious of all who can dive every weekend in great locations, but for us and for now, that is just not possible/practical.

Over the last months, using the advice I received, I have found a very experienced instructor, with a course that exactly fits our requirements, and the ability to do the training in my home country over the winter period. We also purchased all our DIR based gear (SB was here also a great resource), so we will train in our own setup. Immediately after, we will book a shore diving trip where we can plan all our time independently and train while diving as much as we want.

And then we'll take from there, and see what's next on the training wish list, depending on what next type of dive challenge we want to go for.

I think my original post was clear, and while GUE Fundamentals Rec was my reference point of what I was looking for, I really wanted to understand what the other agencies were offering. And I found something that fits my practical and scheduling requirements.

I might follow up later to give my feedback on which training I chose, with which agency/instructor, and how the training went (but for now I do not want to restart the discussion without having done it yet).

So thanks again to all. Be kind to each other whatever agency you are enthousiastic about, and I wish you a great and safe 2023 diving year...

 

[boulderjohn]

We also purchased all our DIR based gear

Eleven years ago, I was thoroughly a DIR diver (through UTD), but for several reasons I switched to TDI for my trimix certification in Florida when I was there for a month. That month featured excellent weather, and I did scads of diving, finishing my Trimix and Advanced Trimix certifications and doing a lot of additional technical dives. I became friends and a dive buddy with my instructor, and I met a lot of other technical divers on the dive boats we used.

When we talked, I would eventually mention that my background was from UTD. Some people corrected me--they thought I meant UDT, a local certification agency featuring only a handful of divers. No one had ever heard of UTD. I would explain that UTD was an agency that came from GUE and was very much like it. I met exactly one person who had heard of GUE. I explained that their training was DIR. Only the one person who had heard of GUE knew the term DIR.

That included my instructor. I was amused to find a couple of thinly veiled criticisms of DIR in the TDI materials (put there no doubt by Brett Gilliam, who hated the DIR people with a passion), and I pointed them out to my instructor. He had never heard of DIR and did not understand the references.

What's my point?

You would have had to really know your DIR stuff to find anything in the gear usage by anyone else that month that was any different from mine. Our equipment was pretty much all the same. The dive techniques were pretty much all the same. There is nothing exclusively DIR in standard technical diving gear and technique.

 

[Wagiman]

@boulderjohn See your point. When I say DIR based, it is basically a BPW setup and a longhose regulator set. It is my interpretation of what I need. It was not a statement of adherence to a certain agency philosophy. But the concept of tried and stress tested configurations, with the flexibility to grow into whatever I want next, was appealing to me. It was a fun journey to find out what I really want/need. The pre-buying phase of researching is half the fun... And that included reading 'the book' (not done yet) and reading a lot on SB. And then I just make my own choices (hopefully well enough informed).

 

[Lorenzoid]

There is nothing exclusively DIR in standard technical diving gear and technique.

You're right.

For those who may not know:

A more accurate term for that general gear configuration may be "Hogarthian." (There is even a SB sub-forum for Hogarthian diving, alongside the DIR sub-forum.) Many tech divers, whether they adhere to the DIR system or dive some other way, use a more-or-less Hogarthian configuration. Some rec divers, whether they adhere to the DIR system or dive some other way, also use a configuration like that.

The term "DIR" was coined to refer to a system of diving, and one of the constituent parts of the system is the use of a streamlined configuration that some refer to as Hogarthian (rightly or wrongly, per Bill Hogarth Main). I always felt the term "Hogarthian" was unwieldy. I, too, might slip up and characterize my gear configuration as "DIR."

GUE no longer uses the term "DIR," and I think it's been falling out of favor with the dive community for years. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that if you asked GUE what is the proper term for their gear configuration, they would say "GUE gear configuration."

 

[Cthippo]

I'm another one who wouldn't mind getting some of the skills, but fundamentally reject some of the philosophies of GUE. I guess if i want to learn those skills i would be best off to hire a private instructor and not try for a certification.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I'm another one who wouldn't mind getting some of the skills, but fundamentally reject some of the philosophies of GUE. I guess if i want to learn those skills i would be best off to hire a private instructor and not try for a certification.

I dive air, solo, sidemount in open water, etc.. So I haven't adopted all of GUE's philosophy. As someone told me before I took fundies, "you don't have to drink the Kool Aid, just go for the skills." I don't see any issues with hiring either a GUE instructor for a private workshop on just the skills, or an instructor of another agency that has had that level of rigorous training.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm another one who wouldn't mind getting some of the skills, but fundamentally reject some of the philosophies of GUE. I guess if i want to learn those skills i would be best off to hire a private instructor and not try for a certification.

Further to what Kosta said, I'm sure plenty of people take Fundies and then after the course is done, and they either passed or didn't, continue to "reject some of the philosophies of GUE." If it's easier for you to hire an instructor for a private workshop or through another agency, by all means go for it. If it's easier for you to sign up for a Fundies class, just bear with the philosophies you find objectionable for the duration of the course, and then do whatever you want afterwards.