My Venture into GUE - Another view

[Gareth]

Pick your instructor. Although everybody who teaches for GUE has passed standards for a high degree of skill in diving, they are not all equally good teachers, and they all have different personalities. Being in a class with someone whose approach just doesn't work for you is not a recipe for a good learning experience. (This is another place in which traveling a long way for a class can work against you -- but if you are going to do it, really try to talk to some other students of that instructor to find out what his style is.)

And just pick up the phone and talk to us. I can yak about diving happily all day long and will do so if not reigned in

 

[rjack321]

better: every T2/C2 instructor *must* release their fundies footage.

'cept none of them did fundies

 

[DiverLaura]

'cept none of them did fundies

"Fundamentals" (although it was a workshop, not a pass/fail) has been around since the early 90's, there was even a study at home VHS tape that GI3 would send out to interested parties who couldn't make it down to florida starting ~1995ish.

It is my understanding that, to a degree, it was a requirement to dive with the WKPP. So although perhaps they don't have the almighty piece of plastic, the likelyhood is they have experienced something in their diving education that resembled "Fundamentals" education.

but, FWIW, i think perhaps Lamont was kidding

 

[lamont]

'cept none of them did fundies

well, it was a joke, and that's definitely not going to be true in the future, and i suspect that is probably not true now.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

It's my understanding that the first GUE instructor to jump through all the hoops as we know them today was Achim Schoeffel around 1999.

 

[Gareth]

well, it was a joke, and that's definitely not going to be true in the future, and i suspect that is probably not true now.

It's not true now.

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

Pick your instructor. Although everybody who teaches for GUE has passed standards for a high degree of skill in diving, they are not all equally good teachers

How would you suggest doing this? This is sort of a classic problem since before the class you do not know what questions to ask. Certainly I thought my instructor was highly skilled and had high exceptions, all good things. But he pretty ineffective at conveying the "how to's" to improve. We were told to "go practice" without a lot of detail. One question I wish I had asked was how long the class was. I read fundies reports here and realize that many of the classes are almost twice as long as the one I went through.

 

[TSandM]

When did you take the class, Mr. Cacharodon? The format of the class was changed about three years ago or so, to include Nitrox and Rescue skills, and it went from three days to five.

I think Gareth's idea of actually chatting with the instructor is a good one -- you still may not know how good a teacher he is, but you'll know after a while whether you like him or not. If you can find former students, I think they're good people of whom to ask whether he is good at teaching the "how". (BTW, that was my one disappointment in my Fundies instructor, and was the reason why I eventually went on to work with other people. I couldn't solve all my own problems, and I wasn't getting enough ideas on what else I could do.)

 

[Lobzilla]

<Snip>

So here's my advice on how to pass any GUE course, at least the ones i have done.

Fundamentals
Get your equipment compliant, and then get very comfortable in it, so that you know where everything is. Practice hovering in the equipment. Do a proper weight check. Turn up for the course with no baggage. Don't try and learn the course before doing the course. Then relax and go and have fun on the course

I was told that, did that, and had one hell of a time in the class covered in this thread. Not because I am a spaz or a moron but because some instructors insist on hovering in perfect trim while staying within 1-2 feet of your teammate(s) vertically and horizontally on the second day of class (The first day was propulsion techniques done mostly individually).

Perfect trim means tank(s) level, head pinned against the isolator knob, and your arms forward and up so that the top of your hands are the horizon line. While this is already much more challenging than what was suggested as preparation you should also be able to do this while distracted.

To prepare for that you could write notes to your buddy for example. This way you are not learning the skills the wrong way but you simulate the task loading and team coherence (e.g. must be within arms reach to exchange notes). Also practice to push off each other while doing other things with your hands as you are expected to stay in close formation when you still do not have a backwards-kick.

I heard people joking that certain instructors teach classes they could not pass themselves. Not true. The ones that busted our balls could ace all these requirements and then some. (Maybe I was a little slicker on the unconscious diver recovery than one(!) of the instructors but only because I have the ape arms that make this exercise easier

But few, if any, students are able to walk 'from the street' into a Fundies course like ours and get to the expected level in less than a week.

PS: We saw videos form a previous class (with their permission) that passed their checkout dive on our last class day. This team had some time to practice between their class and the checkout due to bad weather during their class. The video was a pleasure to look at. Aside from great individual performance, their recipe for success was a very aggressive team stance. This went so far (and probably too far) that the two 'reference' members were pulling the task-loaded and slowly disappearing teammate back into position.

 

[Gareth]

I never said it was easy.

Fundamentals is the very beginning of a journey, not the end. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's true. If I could I would teach fundies as a ten day course and pass everyone, but you have to draw the line somewhere.