Last weekend I had the opportunity to take a full day class about ratio deco from Andrew Georgitsis.
Let me start by saying that Andrew is a gifted educator and I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation. I think it was probably the most informative classroom work I have participated in with regard to diving, since I took a full semester class on diving in the mid-80's at Cal State University Northridge.
I was a bit concerned that I might not understanding the material, since I do not have any experience with extended deco dives and always stay within minimum deco limits. I have to say that the subject was well covered and did not assume that I already understood the material. I think that this is a great follow up to a DIR-F class in that it spent a whole day expanding on the concepts that were taught by Michael Kane in my DIR-F class.
Before I go any further, I want to clearly state that I do not intend to take what I learned in the class and start doing dives with extended deco. I do not believe that this is what this class is for. In my opinion, it is intended to give someone an academic overview of decompression and the proper way to conduct ratio deco aka "deco on the fly" via a thorough discussion of the subject. It was clearly stated that no one should dive beyond their current level of training or experience and that proper in water instruction was necessary to develop the skills necessary beyond the purely academic knowledge.
The class starts with an overview discussion of decompression, strategies, dive computers and risks associated with diving in general.
Gas laws and a presentation of the history of decompression theories followed by an evaluation of today's competing theories come next.
Finally, the mechanics of ratio deco are presented with a discussion of standard gases, gas planning and minimum deco. Practical examples help round out one's understanding of this system by showing first hand how this works on dives from recreational levels to Tech 3 depths.
Time was spent at the end of the class actually doing practical problems to make sure that everyone understood how to properly perform the calculations. Everyone tried their hand at computing dives using ratio deco and Andrew (assisted by Joe Talavera) would come around to each person and look at the answers to these questions and the methodology used to arrive at our conclusions. If we made mistakes, care was taken to explain where we went wrong to ensure that we all had a correct understanding of the process.
Nothing that I could write in a single post here could come close to explaining how beneficial I felt that this class was to my understanding of an often mysterious subject. It really helped to dispell many myths and misconceptions that are often propagated on the Internet.
I highly recommend this class to anyone who does not understand what ratio deco is all about.
Christian
Let me start by saying that Andrew is a gifted educator and I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation. I think it was probably the most informative classroom work I have participated in with regard to diving, since I took a full semester class on diving in the mid-80's at Cal State University Northridge.
I was a bit concerned that I might not understanding the material, since I do not have any experience with extended deco dives and always stay within minimum deco limits. I have to say that the subject was well covered and did not assume that I already understood the material. I think that this is a great follow up to a DIR-F class in that it spent a whole day expanding on the concepts that were taught by Michael Kane in my DIR-F class.
Before I go any further, I want to clearly state that I do not intend to take what I learned in the class and start doing dives with extended deco. I do not believe that this is what this class is for. In my opinion, it is intended to give someone an academic overview of decompression and the proper way to conduct ratio deco aka "deco on the fly" via a thorough discussion of the subject. It was clearly stated that no one should dive beyond their current level of training or experience and that proper in water instruction was necessary to develop the skills necessary beyond the purely academic knowledge.
The class starts with an overview discussion of decompression, strategies, dive computers and risks associated with diving in general.
Gas laws and a presentation of the history of decompression theories followed by an evaluation of today's competing theories come next.
Finally, the mechanics of ratio deco are presented with a discussion of standard gases, gas planning and minimum deco. Practical examples help round out one's understanding of this system by showing first hand how this works on dives from recreational levels to Tech 3 depths.
Time was spent at the end of the class actually doing practical problems to make sure that everyone understood how to properly perform the calculations. Everyone tried their hand at computing dives using ratio deco and Andrew (assisted by Joe Talavera) would come around to each person and look at the answers to these questions and the methodology used to arrive at our conclusions. If we made mistakes, care was taken to explain where we went wrong to ensure that we all had a correct understanding of the process.
Nothing that I could write in a single post here could come close to explaining how beneficial I felt that this class was to my understanding of an often mysterious subject. It really helped to dispell many myths and misconceptions that are often propagated on the Internet.
I highly recommend this class to anyone who does not understand what ratio deco is all about.
Christian
In all reality, that's the conclusion that I came to after reading the pdf a couple times. Beyond recreational depths, it's still the same concept as minimum deco, except some extra rules to know, such as how to work the curve, calculating deco times, etc. It's a good read and I'm sure that the class is even better. One of these days....
