Intro to Tech, to make a better Rec?

[Doby45]

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Only if you let it.

"Jarrod Jablonski came out to visit GUE Seattle and glad-hand folks, and give a talk on the Mars exploration project. But most of all, for us, he DOVE with us . . . and I was lucky enough, on our second dive today off the Bandito charter boats, to land Jarrod as my dive buddy, in a team of two.

"The site was Milepost 8, which is a drift dive in the Tacoma Narrows. Currents can be pretty strong there, but the dive was planned to go with them and enjoy them. I was, as you might imagine, INCREDIBLY nervous about diving with Mr. GUE himself; I was sure I had to be absolutely perfect. The first three minutes were miserable, until I turned around and saw Jarrod peering under a rock, stabilizing himself with a couple of fingers, and I thought, "Well, maybe not PERFECT." We went on to drift some nice structure with a lot of colorful sponges, and then, trying to avoid the current's desire to push us up into very shallow water, we ended up flying over an almost featureless bottom composed of uniform, round rocks. Except for the occasional starfish or heavily camouflaged sculpin, it was rather monotonous . . .

"Until I looked at Jarrod, and found him doing barrel rolls without a scooter. I followed suit, and then tried the handspring maneuver Richard Jack did on his Agate Pass drift dive, and discovered you need enough current to push your feet on over when you do that, or you end up feet up and floundering, and looking stupid and trying to shrug your gear back into place without anyone noticing. Jarrod tactfully inspected a single kelp stalk while I shook myself back into order, and then swam over and presented his spread arms, fists clenched. I high-fived him, and then had an inspiration, and grabbed his left hand with my right, and did an elegant dancing spin, coming back to our original position, at which point I found my hands grasped, and myself bent backwards over a strong leading arm, as though we were tangoing and doing a graceful, deep dip. By this time, I was laughing hysterically, and Jarrod was grinning ear to ear.

"We abandoned the dance and went back to flying, and the next thing I knew, Jarrod had removed his fins and had them on his hands and was swimming with them. (I have some video of this which, if I figure out how to process video, I will post.) Then he was upside-down and blowing bubble rings in 15 feet of water . . .

"I can't remember when I have laughed so hard during a dive. This is what we go underwater for . . . for the pure joy of being free in three dimensions, to pursue a diligent and detailed critter hunt if the circumstances warrant it; to gather scientific data if that's the purpose of the dive; to document historical wrecks and answer questions that have lain unsolved for centuries . . . and sometimes, just to dance."

Kevin,

Thank you for illustrating my point. I'm a GUE Tech 2 diver. I've been around the DIR community in the northeast since the late 90's. I've seen hundreds of students show up to become better divers only to be indoctrinated into the community. I have often compared DIR to Christianity. Jarrod is like Jesus. The original WKPP divers were like the original group of disciples gathered around the Sea of Galilee. Andrew G was my example of the Apostle Paul because he did so much to set up little churches around the world, but turns out he became more like Judas. GI3 was like John the Baptist, the voice crying out on the Internet, instead of in the wilderness. If we look at the spread of Christianity, it is obvious that the religion began to bind people up rather than set them free as Jesus intended. If we look at the WKPP, the whole point was to make diving easier for that group of explorers. The project would have failed if not for the standardization that made it easier to go cave diving. If you watch the original videos, many WKPP divers would not pass the current standards of many GUE and UTD instructors. Heck, some wouldn't pass my cave class. But, that's because I started tech diving with GUE and the bar was set higher. Nothing wrong with that either.

But, for many divers who just want to get better or challenge themselves, they find themselves entering a community that often has their own take on DIR just like Christian church communities today. One of my friends who was on the WKPP wouldn't bother to worry about hydration unless the dive called for a 250 - 300 foot descent. Compare that to another one of my friends who was at The Diner in High Springs with some of the BAUE divers. He drank a 1/2 diet Coke and 1/2 regular Coke mix to get more taste, but less calories and they wouldn't do a 50 foot dive with him in the Ballroom at Ginnie because he had consumed a diuretic.

DIR group leaders often strive to prove themselves. It seems the farther we get from the original source, the more we find DIR group leaders and instructors setting standards of diving that are much higher and often allow less fun and freedom than the original WKPP enjoyed. I have more fun diving with Casey McKinlay and John Rose of the WKPP than with most of the NEUE GUE divers in my area. Even my friend, Bob Sherwood, is much more fun and different away from the group he leads. I've told GUE-F students that I've seen Jarrod deco on his knees and they look at me like I'm the anti-Christ. As a Tech 2 diver, I've tried to help the divers be safer, think more, pray towards High Springs several times a day less, but it falls on deaf ears.

That's probably because I solo dive and solo cave dive. The community might brand me as an unsafe diver. I also use air to 130 in caves and to 150 in open water. With GUE divers I will use 21/35, 18/45, 15/55. On my own, I'll normally use 18/45, top off with nitrox to get 25/25, then top off with air to get 23/12 then use tanks for air or nitrox diving until I need helium again. But, even if I was a High Springs praying Tech 2 diver, the northeast community wouldn't listen to anything because I'm not a GUE instructor, and even if I was a GUE instructor, I wouldn't be Bob Sherwood. He's got them eating out of his hand. Which is great for his business model.

But, what is funny is that when I want to dive DIR, I do it better than the people who are totally entrenched in it. I will be right where you need me and want me to be as a buddy. You get a dive buddy with over 7500 lifetime dives, over 1000 cave dives, and who has taken 3 GUE-F courses, 2 GUE Tech 1 courses, 1 Tech 2 course to be familiar with SOP's. While I might be branded as "unsafe" for being a certified solo diver, solo instructor, and the only instructor to my knowledge that managed to get approved to teach solo cave diving, I also subscribe to the 6 Rules more throughly than most of the community members I've met. Including, staying physically fit, so much so, that at my age of 48 (49 next month), I just passed the USLA ocean lifeguard 200 run - 400 swim - 200 run yesterday with a time of 8 minutes 20 seconds out of a maximum allowed 10 minutes.

My own journey with all of the BS started when my boss at a science diving company paid for me to attend a GUE-F course conducted by AG to learn the "fundamentals" of diving when I was already a certified freediving and scuba diving instructor and had been for a decade. I went from living the dream as a dive bum to struggling with a community where the FUN DIES rather than keeping the FUN in fundamentals. Your PNW community might be different. Or, you might find it fun. But, whereas you had to worry about diving with Mr. GUE himself, do you think diving with Jacques Cousteau contained that sort of pressure?

Neither Jesus nor Jarrod would want to take the fun out of life. Jesus said He came so people could have life more abundantly. Training should allow us the same. It would be great if a student could show up for a buoyancy class to stay off the reef and be a good gas delivery platform for an OOG buddy and avoid having diving become anything less than "pure child-like joy and play." Religion, philosophy, politics, and education tend to kill that. Yes, it can happen in any agency even PADI.

I am trying to figure out how to insulate my students from all that and keep their dreams alive and keep diving pure unadulterated fun.

That's what it was for me before I became certified when snorkeling as a kid. Freediving was an escape from all this in scuba. Now, we need freaking freediving C-cards and the freediving community is now more prima donna-ish than my girlfriend's figure skating community and more snobbish than the tech/cave diving world. Too bad they ever made a C-card or a freediving training agency.

I apologize for the long lament. The older I get, the more hungry I become for less structure and more freedom in the dive industry. Life is too short to forget why we wanted to be divers and to get caught up in feeding the dive industry when we should be feeding our souls with the beauty of the underwater world.

 

[EricTheDood]

I will never dive caves, or serious wreck penetrations. Chances are I'll never use a CCR.

"Never" is a strong word. I'll counter by saying you never know...

Tech diving doesn't have to mean 300' deep caves and any wreck penetration at all. There are shallower caves and 200FSW wrecks that you can enjoy from the outside on a DPV.

 

[Birddog1911]

"Never" is a strong word. I'll counter by saying you never know...

Tech diving doesn't have to mean 300' deep caves and any wreck penetration at all. There are shallower caves and 200FSW wrecks that you can enjoy from the outside on a DPV.

I may consider learning the tech side to make deeper dives, but trust me Eric, when I say I will never dive caves. Just one of those things that I know in life that I'll never try. I'm not a 180 diver, but I much prefer the life I can observe on reefs. My wife would also be too worried about me if I dove caves, and I wouldn't put her through that. I'd much rather take her along to see sea turtles and rays.

 

[KevinNM]

I apologize for the long lament. The older I get, the more hungry I become for less structure and more freedom in the dive industry. Life is too short to forget why we wanted to be divers and to get caught up in feeding the dive industry when we should be feeding our souls with the beauty of the underwater world.

That wasn't me diving with Jarrod, that was Lynne Flaherty. But I remember Doug Mundy telling me has has seen most everyone, no matter how famous they are, eventually pinned to the top of a cave passage after a bouyancy oopsie. Stuff happens and you deal with and drive on.

I can see how your experience happens and it's less than ideal. The primary instructor I've worked with often caves dives with someone who had no GUE training at all until she talked him into a fundies course. I've also seen people dive old scuapro jacket BCDs who were just amazing in the water too.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Thanks for the follow-up reply and the correction. You make a great point about the primary instructor you worked with diving in caves with a non-GUE diver. I believe Casey's only 2 C-cards that got him to set world records as the WKPP Project director were NSS-CDS or NACD cave and IANTD trimix. I think that's why I am so passionate and in love with cave diving. I never took a GUE cave class. You can make DIR dives without having an organization follow you like big brother. The DIR 3 video gives props to the Caribbean divemasters for their buoyancy, minimal dive system, and correct weighting to prove your point about seeing other divers who are amazing outside DIR circles.

 

[PfcAJ]

Compare that to another one of my friends who was at The Diner in High Springs with some of the BAUE divers. He drank a 1/2 diet Coke and 1/2 regular Coke mix to get more taste, but less calories and they wouldn't do a 50 foot dive with him in the Ballroom at Ginnie because he had consumed a diuretic.

The worst part about this story is that I bet it's true.

Goons.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I realize that most of the 20+ posts since the OP said he would contact me have been dedicated to stopping him from making such a dreadful decision. I promise that in working with him I will try not to kill him, and if I do well enough with him, perhaps someday he will be able to swim close enough to a GUE diver to reach out, touch the hem of his dry suit, and be healed.

LOL. I agreed with whoever first recommended Fundies, but then agreed with whoever recommended you when I realized the OP was located in CO. When I was in the OP's position a few years ago, I took the Fundies recommendation, but I am located close enough to GUE HQ that it was an easy decision. There's no need for the OP to travel halfway across the country or have an instructor do so to address his stated goals.

 

[KevinNM]

LOL. I agreed with whoever first recommended Fundies, but then agreed with whoever recommended you when I realized the OP was located in CO. When I was in the OP's position a few years ago, I took the Fundies recommendation, but I am located close enough to GUE HQ that it was an easy decision. There's no need for the OP to travel halfway across the country or have an instructor do so to address his stated goals.

There actually is a GUE instructor in the Denver region, Rob Calkins, He doesn't seem to schedule a lot of classes but a lot of instructors schedule classes when they get students. Kelly Colwell is a more active GUE instructor in the Las Vegas region with a couple of scheduled classes over the next few months.

But the core stuff is mindset and skills, not who you teach for.

 

[lv2dive]

I bet I could guess who it was!

The worst part about this story is that I bet it's true.

Goons.