I just had a very interesting two days of diving -- "My Weekend With Andrew" had many ups and downs.
Mr. Georgitis was kind enough to agree to watch/critique/molest(?) me and my two teammates (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) for two days. The goal of the dives was to help make all of us safer to do deeper, more tech-reational, diving.
The dives had multiple failures (valve/manifold; lost mask; OOG; broken wings/inflators) most of which occurred one after the other. (I think the "best" one was #1 had a left post failure; #2 then had no wing AND lost mask; #3 then was OOG.)
His goals were to see how well we knew our gear, how well we could manage it and how well we understood our teammates and their foibles.
I could say it was very humbling, but it really wasn't. I never got the sense that he was trying to show us how much he knew and how little we did -- BUT, to the contrary, he was trying to show us that if we gather the data, create a plan and then act on the plan we could be very safe divers. However, if we didn't gather the data and create a plan but just acted we could get into trouble.
While doing all these "malicious" things to us, he also videoed the mayhem. At the end of the dives, we then retreated to a warm cafe and went over the video seemingly frame-by-frame. What were we thinking -- what could have been a different response. In fact, most of the time we made the appropriate responses AND, over the two days, we all got better. Which is NOT to say I did very well. (Yes, he gave me my homework!!!)
Was this a class? No (I think, although he did mention I might get my NAUI OW cert in a year if I continue to get better). We had several people ask "What class are you taking?" But we were just taking diving lessons, not a class, no card in sight. It was just the chance to get some instructional insight from a very talented instructor.
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PS I'm posting this here -- I hope it is appropriate. If not, please move the thread.
Mr. Georgitis was kind enough to agree to watch/critique/molest(?) me and my two teammates (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) for two days. The goal of the dives was to help make all of us safer to do deeper, more tech-reational, diving.
The dives had multiple failures (valve/manifold; lost mask; OOG; broken wings/inflators) most of which occurred one after the other. (I think the "best" one was #1 had a left post failure; #2 then had no wing AND lost mask; #3 then was OOG.)
His goals were to see how well we knew our gear, how well we could manage it and how well we understood our teammates and their foibles.
I could say it was very humbling, but it really wasn't. I never got the sense that he was trying to show us how much he knew and how little we did -- BUT, to the contrary, he was trying to show us that if we gather the data, create a plan and then act on the plan we could be very safe divers. However, if we didn't gather the data and create a plan but just acted we could get into trouble.
While doing all these "malicious" things to us, he also videoed the mayhem. At the end of the dives, we then retreated to a warm cafe and went over the video seemingly frame-by-frame. What were we thinking -- what could have been a different response. In fact, most of the time we made the appropriate responses AND, over the two days, we all got better. Which is NOT to say I did very well. (Yes, he gave me my homework!!!)
Was this a class? No (I think, although he did mention I might get my NAUI OW cert in a year if I continue to get better). We had several people ask "What class are you taking?" But we were just taking diving lessons, not a class, no card in sight. It was just the chance to get some instructional insight from a very talented instructor.
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PS I'm posting this here -- I hope it is appropriate. If not, please move the thread.
