Question How to improve dive skills as a rec diver - alternatives to GUE fundamentals course
- Thread starter Wagiman
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@Wagiman
Provided below is one way to approach matters in a prioritized way:
1) Get your own gear and get it fitted to your body by somebody who takes a detailed, hands-on approach to adjusting your kit.
2) Pick enjoyable fitness activities that make you sweat and get in shape.
3) Find a reputable instructor to conduct a confined or open water skills inventory as a mentor. The following general categories may be helpful:
NOTE: Big bonus if he/she is an active and proficient technical diver. The instructor's technical experience will imbue the skills inventory in ways that demystify "recreational versus technical" diving. Some people dramatize the differences and this isn't helpful (IMO). A good instructor will communicate about the progression of skill objectives as simply waypoints along the path of diving proficiency.
4) Based on the skills inventory, develop a personal training progression that addresses any discovered shortcomings in the aforementioned categories.
5) Pick some dates for the next dive vacation and lay your training progression over the calendar such that you've gone through essential training before the next vacation.
6) Go crush that dive vacation. Chest bump with the divemaster. Casually brag about how much air you have left at the end of the dive. Buy drinks at the bar like Dean Martin. Toast everyone like Ricardo Montalban. Own that sh*t like a boss.
Provided below is one way to approach matters in a prioritized way:
1) Get your own gear and get it fitted to your body by somebody who takes a detailed, hands-on approach to adjusting your kit.
2) Pick enjoyable fitness activities that make you sweat and get in shape.
3) Find a reputable instructor to conduct a confined or open water skills inventory as a mentor. The following general categories may be helpful:
a) dive planning
b) buoyancy control
c) trim and streamlined equipment configuration
d) propulsion (different finning techniques)
e) ideal breathing
f) awareness
g) navigation
h) DSMB deployment
NOTE: Big bonus if he/she is an active and proficient technical diver. The instructor's technical experience will imbue the skills inventory in ways that demystify "recreational versus technical" diving. Some people dramatize the differences and this isn't helpful (IMO). A good instructor will communicate about the progression of skill objectives as simply waypoints along the path of diving proficiency.
4) Based on the skills inventory, develop a personal training progression that addresses any discovered shortcomings in the aforementioned categories.
5) Pick some dates for the next dive vacation and lay your training progression over the calendar such that you've gone through essential training before the next vacation.
6) Go crush that dive vacation. Chest bump with the divemaster. Casually brag about how much air you have left at the end of the dive. Buy drinks at the bar like Dean Martin. Toast everyone like Ricardo Montalban. Own that sh*t like a boss.
I do not believe that there is a training course that will solve the "we dive on one trip a year" skills issues. There is no training substitue for time in the water. Having said that, my recommendation is that you buy your own gear and find some kind of local diving that you can do multiple times a year. If you have local diving, you can practice skills on your own or find a local instructor. Diving is a physical skill and like all physical skills, it takes practice.
Why not think about just hiring a private instructor for some one on one work? This whole need for certification this or that doesn't much matter above AOW and Nitrox for the vacation diver unless you want caverns, caves, wrecks or tech.....
You just want to dive good, feel comfortable underwater, have very specific questions answered or worries worked on? A good instructor should be able and willing to do that.
You just want to dive good, feel comfortable underwater, have very specific questions answered or worries worked on? A good instructor should be able and willing to do that.
OP
Wagiman
Registered
Thanks for all the relevant and interesting input. I am really grateful for such a constructive community on SB.
To be clear, I am planning to buy my own gear - but I also want to try it first. And I do intend to dive more often (I have 90 dives of which 25 were in the last 3 months - COVID revenge diving). But it will probably still be on vacation, and infrequent.
Also : my skills are not that bad. When I dive Cozumel with a random group of rec divers - I am probably part of the better percentile of the group. My navigation is pretty adequate (in not too difficult circumstances). I am quite comfortable doing night dives, wreck dives (without deep penetration) and my buoyancy control is very adequate for cavern or wreck dives.
It is just when I compare myself to really well trained, experienced, disciplined divers, I realize there is so much more to learn. But more importantly, for me it is about safety, risk mitigation and resulting comfort in more difficult situations. In our learning process, it's when you realize your limitations, it's also the right time to focus again on training.
Diving & training in my area would likely involve getting into Drysuit diving (except maybe in full summer where 7 mm could be OK), and accepting less attractive dive sites (quarry dives, low vis, zero marine life, ...). This doesn't really float my boat.
We do seem to have a training pool in the area (33 m deep) which I should check out once I have bought my own gear. It could indeed be my training ground where I can get familiar with my new gear and train new skills.
Watching good examples while you dive or on youtube, and training on your own is indeed a good strategy, and one I will probably follow (thank you @bubblemonkey2 ).
But I certainly want to take training, because it will force me to learn and do it right (and maybe unlearn what I do wrong). My plan is still to find this training during a vacation, whether via finding an great instructor that can identify what I need or via a 'predefined course' that will meet my needs (such as GUE fundies would).
Doing a training with rental gear (eg DIR BP/W setup) is possible. Upon suggestion from @Marie13 I looked into Portofino Divers in Genova, and they offer GUE training in rental equipment.
Her suggestion regarding Malta is also very good, where you seem to have a lot of technical instructors that offer Intro to Tech types of training from different agencies (and I think even a GUE training), but also Cavern and Wreck training.
Dahab may indeed be another option. Thanks @Sebs for the suggestion of an instructor.
So back to my original question, I guess the closest to getting the skills covered by fundies are the ones that were suggested by you (TDI intro to Tech, Cavern & Wreck, or the more focused ones like Peak Buoyancy, Navigation, ...). Alternative is the instructor route and ask for the skillset training as described by @NothingClever.
Thanks for the help. Instructor recommendations or course suggestions are still very welcome.
To be clear, I am planning to buy my own gear - but I also want to try it first. And I do intend to dive more often (I have 90 dives of which 25 were in the last 3 months - COVID revenge diving). But it will probably still be on vacation, and infrequent.
Also : my skills are not that bad. When I dive Cozumel with a random group of rec divers - I am probably part of the better percentile of the group. My navigation is pretty adequate (in not too difficult circumstances). I am quite comfortable doing night dives, wreck dives (without deep penetration) and my buoyancy control is very adequate for cavern or wreck dives.
It is just when I compare myself to really well trained, experienced, disciplined divers, I realize there is so much more to learn. But more importantly, for me it is about safety, risk mitigation and resulting comfort in more difficult situations. In our learning process, it's when you realize your limitations, it's also the right time to focus again on training.
Diving & training in my area would likely involve getting into Drysuit diving (except maybe in full summer where 7 mm could be OK), and accepting less attractive dive sites (quarry dives, low vis, zero marine life, ...). This doesn't really float my boat.
We do seem to have a training pool in the area (33 m deep) which I should check out once I have bought my own gear. It could indeed be my training ground where I can get familiar with my new gear and train new skills.
Watching good examples while you dive or on youtube, and training on your own is indeed a good strategy, and one I will probably follow (thank you @bubblemonkey2 ).
But I certainly want to take training, because it will force me to learn and do it right (and maybe unlearn what I do wrong). My plan is still to find this training during a vacation, whether via finding an great instructor that can identify what I need or via a 'predefined course' that will meet my needs (such as GUE fundies would).
Doing a training with rental gear (eg DIR BP/W setup) is possible. Upon suggestion from @Marie13 I looked into Portofino Divers in Genova, and they offer GUE training in rental equipment.
Her suggestion regarding Malta is also very good, where you seem to have a lot of technical instructors that offer Intro to Tech types of training from different agencies (and I think even a GUE training), but also Cavern and Wreck training.
Dahab may indeed be another option. Thanks @Sebs for the suggestion of an instructor.
So back to my original question, I guess the closest to getting the skills covered by fundies are the ones that were suggested by you (TDI intro to Tech, Cavern & Wreck, or the more focused ones like Peak Buoyancy, Navigation, ...). Alternative is the instructor route and ask for the skillset training as described by @NothingClever.
Thanks for the help. Instructor recommendations or course suggestions are still very welcome.
Yes, as others have apparently mentioned, there are GUE instructors who regularly teach in Malta, Egypt, Croatia, Mexico, Florida, Bonaire, and other warm-water vacation locations. You mentioned Cozumel a couple of times. Why not Fundies in Mexico? There are instructors in Puerto Aventuras, Tulum and maybe elsewhere in the Riviera Maya region, and at least some of your Fundies course would be in the cenotes. Cozumel has better diving than the Yucatan mainland, but it would make a nice vacation if you want to spend some extra time there outside of your course.
An Intro-to-Tech type course would certainly do the trick, but if you're not interested in tech diving, why not take a course geared toward your recreational diving?
Achim Schlöffel founded ISE (Innerspace Explorers) after having been a GUE instructor. ISE has instructors in Belgium, and they even teach recreational workshops on buoyancy control and propulsion -- if you want to get a taste of GUE-F type training before enrolling in a full ISE course that would teach similar information applicable to your needs.
OP
Wagiman
Registered
Thanks, I will look into that as well. Did not know ISE was a an alternative option, they indeed have multiple instructors in Belgium.
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