Is GUE Fundies right for me?

[BluewaterSail]

He dared to stray from The Mantra? Oh my...

It is a misconception that all GUE instructors have the same thing to say about everything. I have now had various types of learning experiences with 4 of them. While they clearly all very much believe in the same general system and philosophy, each one has given me different advice concerning equipment details, sometimes actually contradictory. And each has different styles and priorities in teaching, and I have even seen cases where they did something different than the GUE SOP.

In general for Primer, they seem to be very open about the gear that a student uses. Probably because this does not result in a certification. For fundies, less lenient, though I have seen theoretical infractions be permitted. The best thing is to talk to the intended instructor beforehand to get his personal take on the specific situation. He may also have some equipment that he could loan the student for the course, which is an opportunity for the student to feel the difference that the different gear can make.

Rumor has it that the GUE instructors are actually human!

 

[Gombessa]

Unsubstantiated Rumor has it that the GUE instructors are actually human!

......

 

[eelnoraa]

If getting quality training, becoming a better and safer diver if your goal, then GUE fundie is as good as it get for diving class. The orginal concern about equipment requirement and certification renewal should definitely NOT be the obstical. Even if you will never venture into tech or cave diving, or even if you end up not liking the DIR concept, what you learn in fundie will benefit your future diving career. Remeber, you are not only safer yourself, you are safer to your buddy/dive team and the environment.

Now have the above said, let me list a few shortcoming of GUE training I felt: 1)the recognition of the fundie certificate is not as widely accepted. 2)it can get expansive. chances are you will love the DIR style and you will start to upgrade your bc, reg, looking to buy canister light, drysuit .... it just gets addictive. But it is mainly because I started diving more and more. And it is because diving is just more enjoyable.

 

[BluewaterSail]

If getting quality training, becoming a better and safer diver if your goal, then GUE fundie is as good as it get for diving class. The orginal concern about equipment requirement and certification renewal should definitely NOT be the obstical. Even if you will never venture into tech or cave diving, or even if you end up not liking the DIR concept, what you learn in fundie will benefit your future diving career. Remeber, you are not only safer yourself, you are safer to your buddy/dive team and the environment.

Now have the above said, let me list a few shortcoming of GUE training I felt: 1)the recognition of the fundie certificate is not as widely accepted. 2)it can get expansive. chances are you will love the DIR style and you will start to upgrade your bc, reg, looking to buy canister light, drysuit .... it just gets addictive. But it is mainly because I started diving more and more. And it is because diving is just more enjoyable.

The Fundies cert isn't widely accepted, because it actually does not qualify you for anything that you weren't already qualified for as long as you have already taken OW and Nitrox. And even if this is your first Nitrox course, it only qualifies you for 32%, so it really shouldn't replace a full nitrox course if you ever may want to dive another Nitrox blend.

Don't take this course for a C card, take it to improve your diving. What a strange concept!:confused6:

 

[Griffo]

I will say that the recognition of the GUE card has been mixed for me. One one hand it's never been refused as a OW / Nitrox equivalent. On the other, when trying to use it as an entry for other advanced courses I have had the two opposites of the spectrum, from "never heard of them" through to being offered courses I was in no way qualified to enter simply because i had passed fundies.

On the topic of the general attitude of GUE people, I had an interesting experience just yesterday. I was talking to an industry professional about GUE and he had an opinion that the old-school GUE people were righteous and outspoken, and the newer people were much more relaxed and easy going. But he couldn't actually name any of these old-school people he was talking about, he admitted that every GUE person he knew was easy going. Another example of the Internet reputation I wonder?

Anyway, to the OP, i've vote yes! Even if you don't go any further with GUE, consider it a massive accelerator course that give you both solid basic in-water skills and dive planning skills that would normally take years to learn otherwise. And don't worry about finding other GUE divers, I did fundies then went and spent the next 40 dives diving with a whole bunch of randoms in Thailand doing shallow warm water reef dives. The skills were still of great use and I enjoyed my diving more because of it.

 

[fnfalman]

We have been over this before. You CAN do all the non-silting kicks in splits, including backing up. You CANNOT control the vortices that come off the split portion of the fins as well as you can control water flow off blades. If you are four feet off the bottom, it doesn't matter very much. If your belly is two inches above a silty bottom, it matters a lot.

I've hovered or swam inches off bottoms of swimming pools and sandy patches in the Channel Islands on purposes just to see if my split fins would kick up any silt. Lo and behold, they didn't and don't. I guess those split fins must be like magic or something.

it's because split fins are line traps, and everything in the GUE system is built to permit easy scaling to more advanced diving.

OK, I'll buy that reasoning since that GUE divers tend to be cave or wreck penetration divers.

---------- Post added January 10th, 2013 at 07:11 AM ----------

Don't take this course for a C card, take it to improve your diving. What a strange concept!:confused6:

The most astute post yet. By this time you'd already have at least one or two C-card, so who cares about another card? Take the class if you think that it'd improve your diving skills. Don't take it if you don't think that you'd gain anything from it.

 

[mdax]

fwiw I'm not gue trained and dive every month with gue trained folks and have never experienced the elitism reported in this thread.
To the very top of the organization all the instructors that I've interacted with are approachable, unbelievable in the water and have no problem explaining specific reasons why they do things a certain way. Their logical explanations have caused me to modify my procedures and equipment because it just makes sense.
I'll cave dive with someone I don't know who is gue certified and will not do the same with others until I can confirm for myself they are ok.

 

[Adobo]

It seems to me, as a group, there isn't anything different about people who take GUE training vs people who decide to do something else. I would think that just like any other group of people, there are those who are super nice and there are those who are jerks. And most are somewhere in between.

If you get a big enough group of GUE divers together, I am sure you will find a few who are every bit the elitist, ego maniacs that you read about in the internet. Heck, if you get a big enough group of GUE divers together, I bet you can find an example of every kind of person you like and dislike.

I always found it odd to try to characterize a group of people (either in a good way or a bad way) based on their choice of training agency. There is nothing in GUE training that fundamentally changes the nature of the people who take the training. If they are conservatives when they start fundies, they are still conservatives when they finish. If they are liberals when they walk in, they are still liberals when they walk out. If they are atheists when they start, they don't magically find God during class. (Although I guess some in Souther California would argue that their instructor is a god.)

Contrary to what some in the internet would say, these are just diving classes.

 

[PfcAJ]

I've hovered or swam inches off bottoms of swimming pools and sandy patches in the Channel Islands on purposes just to see if my split fins would kick up any silt. Lo and behold, they didn't and don't. I guess those split fins must be like magic or something.

Silty swimmin' pools? Orly?

 

[Peter Guy]

Actually my home swimming pool seems to be a bit silty at times! :-(

I would like to see the poster dive in Cove 2, a few inches off the bottom, with split fins and NOT kick up silt. I just don't think it is possible. Sand is one thing, real silt is a totally different situation.