My Venture into GUE - Another view

[Lobzilla]

In response to Trace's and Garf's comments:

Stress is rarely beneficial but it is even more destructive if the subsequent "flight or fight" response is not possible.

An example would be to go in the water with a great deal of performance anxiety and then be expected to hover motionlessly, in perfect trim, with the head against the isolator knob, and the arms up and forward, close to the point of a shoulder dislocation

The good news about having survived this "torture" seems to be that the static trim and arm position requirements may become a little more negotiable later - as evidenced in the last two photos of this post.

The class Jax described was an unfortunate combination of a high anxiety and low activity (few hours in the water) environment. With about twice the in-water time the stress would have worn off at some point but we seldomly got there.

Two exceptions were the first day covering propulsion and later the unconscious diver recovery. Both required some physical activity and therefore a chance to burn-off the tension. Also, these skills did not require to hold a team together while none of the team members had yet developed the skills to stay in place.

 

[LiteHedded]

trim was probably the least emphasized thing in my fundamentals class. much more stressed on scubaboard than in the class IMO.

understanding what the neutral platform with regards to trim feels like is the important thing. that, and when things go sideways you need to be automatically returning to that position. it needs to be your default position in the water.

divers worrying about a few degrees out of trim is a scubaboard thing more than anything

 

[Gombessa]

Thanks for the review, Jax. It's always good to get different points of view, and it's good for people getting into Fundies to know that good or bad, it tends not to be the typical "adventure dive" class they may have experienced before.

I do want to echo the sentiment that almost all "GUE dives" and "GUE divers" I've known focus predominantly on having fun and enjoying the dive. Immediately post-fundies, my buddies and I have definitely taken extra time with the whole pre-dive check process, mainly as a way of committing it to memory. Nowadays, in addition to the whole head-to-toe gear check, a lot of our pre-dive planning is just, "Goal: fun dive at x structure. I'm leader. Time, depth, deco, min gas: all standard. Ramp looks a bit slippery today. Let's go!" Takes about 10 seconds. For unfamiliar sites or new buddies, it takes a little longer, but doesn't detract from the fun of the dive, or put any regimented process above common sense.

 

[Lobzilla]

trim was probably the least emphasized thing in my fundamentals class. much more stressed on scubaboard than in the class IMO.

understanding what the neutral platform with regards to trim feels like is the important thing. that, and when things go sideways you need to be automatically returning to that position. it needs to be your default position in the water.

divers worrying about a few degrees out of trim is a scubaboard thing more than anything

I can assure you that it was not SB holding the camera and correcting us in the class mentioned by Jax

 

[ScubaFeenD]

trim was probably the least emphasized thing in my fundamentals class. much more stressed on scubaboard than in the class IMO.

understanding what the neutral platform with regards to trim feels like is the important thing. that, and when things go sideways you need to be automatically returning to that position. it needs to be your default position in the water.

divers worrying about a few degrees out of trim is a scubaboard thing more than anything

Having the ability to naturally acquire trim is pretty nice. It helps in control underwater, and can make entire dives much more comfortable. Being able to break trim and go back is also important though, because sometimes the dive objective is better completed if you can control your movement, leave 0 degrees, and then easily slip back into it.

My trim is ok, and use to be a lot worse. But despite the ultra focus on always practicing and perfecting trim I have found that the best thing for my trim was actually going out and diving and not worrying about it so intently. It became much better that way and also much more automatic than if I always needed to think about my trim.

 

[lamont]

I'd certainly not argue that the requirement to dump gas and halt an ascent is far more important than maintaining trim, and a diver shouldn't be afraid of breaking trim to dump gas. However, equally it shouldn't become a habit. you can dump gas from a wing without changing trim, and you only need to straighten and drop your legs a little to dump from a suit. as for angling down or up to change depth, I'm not fussed about details like that tbh, as long as the diver is in control. However, if they drop completely out of trim to "swim up" they are going to get picked up by me for that. a diver should be able to change depth either up or down by initiating a change with breath control anyway, and should be able to stop a change of only a metre or two with the same, even in the shallows. However, that debate aside, I completely agree with your priorities.

yeah, most of that is what i was referring to with "minimize ... and refine their motions"

i'd just much rather see a diver break trim and roll and effectively dump, and *then* work on making that motion more refined...

i've watched divers try to figure out how to have perfect trim *all* the time, because someone told them to do that and wrap themselves into knots. i've had to point out that i break trim a little bit almost 3 or 4 times every 10 foot ascent every time i dump gas. for real newbies, they should be breaking trim as often, and probably to a large degree than i do. then when they're neutral and at a stop by all means they should try to look nice and flat and trim. then they should try to reduce the amount they need to break trim when they're dumping.

also for divers with a dump valve forwards of the centerline they're going to need to break trim and roll a little more. its better to get the valve closer to directly on the centerline of the suit, but often it isn't (mine isn't and its just not the biggest thing i'm worried about gear-wise right now). still i'm talking about maybe 10 degrees extra here, tops, not some 45-degree flail...

for propulsion, also, you can go head up about 20 degrees, frog kick forward and up then back kick back and drop back into trim position (typically while dumping) and you'll efficiently and assertively make a 5 foot change in position. doing it all with breath control is good for style points, but if the problem is that the team is already out of position i'd prefer to just assertively fix the team separation problem and not worry about style points, and not wait for the lag caused by breath control (which also I know gets impossible later with counterlungs). fins can also be added to breath control to avoid fiddling with the drysuit + wing all the time.

 

[Lobzilla]

Dosis facit venenum - The dose determines the poison.

What Paracelsus concluded for Pharmacology seems also to apply to DIR techniques and procedures; judiciously applied in the right dose by a skilled practitioner will yield health and happiness. Incompetent zeal on the other hand will result in 'side effects' mentioned in this thread.

During the week in Florida I have seen the same philosophy succeed (ScubaFeenD, HenrikBP, KathyDee, etc. on their later dives) as well as fail (our class and some interesting events on the warm-up boat dives). The break downs of a well conceived but ill applied philosophy would have given the DIR bashers a valid reason to chuckle.

In DIR as everywhere else in life: Sometimes, less is more. The hard part is to figure out how much when and where.

 

[boulderjohn]

divers worrying about a few degrees out of trim is a scubaboard thing more than anything

In your experience.

Last year I volunteered to film a class. This was a tech 1 class, not a fundies class, but I digress.

In trying to get the best camera angles as the students struggled with their various instructor-induced failures, I did all kinds of contortions. I twisted this way and that, trying to get the camera in the best possible place for the best possible angle.

When we debriefed that evening, I felt pretty good about the results--we could really see what was happening for the most part. The instructor was critical, though. He noticed that on a number of occasions while I was filming I had broken trim, and I was essentially reprimanded in front of the students for doing so.

I don't think I will be doing any volunteer camera work in the near future.

 

[Rainer]

Lol, then he'd have hated my body positioning while trying to film these sea lions this past Sunday.

[vimeo]20507429[/vimeo]

Seriously, in open water, trim is just a tool. It's *definitely* important to know what zero degrees looks and feels like, but there are *many* reasons you might want to (knowingly) come out of it. Depending on the dive, that can be done perfectly safely.

I really don't know why you were given a hard time about this while volunteering and going to the effort to get good shots.

In your experience.

Last year I volunteered to film a class. This was a tech 1 class, not a fundies class, but I digress.

In trying to get the best camera angles as the students struggled with their various instructor-induced failures, I did all kinds of contortions. I twisted this way and that, trying to get the camera in the best possible place for the best possible angle.

When we debriefed that evening, I felt pretty good about the results--we could really see what was happening for the most part. The instructor was critical, though. He noticed that on a number of occasions while I was filming I had broken trim, and I was essentially reprimanded in front of the students for doing so.

I don't think I will be doing any volunteer camera work in the near future.

 

[rjack321]

In your experience.

Last year I volunteered to film a class. This was a tech 1 class, not a fundies class, but I digress.

In trying to get the best camera angles as the students struggled with their various instructor-induced failures, I did all kinds of contortions. I twisted this way and that, trying to get the camera in the best possible place for the best possible angle.

When we debriefed that evening, I felt pretty good about the results--we could really see what was happening for the most part. The instructor was critical, though. He noticed that on a number of occasions while I was filming I had broken trim, and I was essentially reprimanded in front of the students for doing so.

I don't think I will be doing any volunteer camera work in the near future.

Was this George? Tell him to piss off, you were the volunteer with a job to do (get good video) not a demo diver.