GUE FundamentalsBy Carl Johnson
As a keen diver and new Open Water Instructor I've completed my fair share of courses, I've been challenged like the rest of you and learnt a lot in the process; but my last course, GUE Fundamentals, was quite different.
Since first starting out diving, I have wanted to improve and refine my diving skills, and I completed course after course in quick succession early on, hoping to get some more practice and feedback from more knowledgeable divers. Going down this route I did acquire a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time, but I now feel that if I’d completed the GUE Fundamentals course earlier on, I probably would have gotten more from those other courses and been able to relax and have more fun at the same time.
My motivation for completing another course was learning good twin tank diving habits, and improving my buoyancy and trim. This would hopefully result in me being more self reliant, safer, with more refined diving skills, and with some knowledge I could pass on to students and friends.
The first week was theory and was great, we learned the GUE procedures, team philosophy, standard equipment and drills, stopping regularly to compare and contrast what we had just learnt with our own experiences. By the weekend our team had most of the theory completed, our gear sorted out, had practiced and memorised our skills, and we were ready to hit the water.
We practiced in the pool what we had learned in the class, getting feedback as we went. The pressure of having to perform does show your weaknesses, and together as a team we helped each other improve; there was a lot of constructive criticism, and I found the feedback from my peers and the instructor immensely helpful. Our instructor was taking video during this session, and reviewing this afterwards gave us clear objectives for the next day.
On the Sunday we made our way down to Mornington, had a nice breakfast, finished off the theory, and practiced some more land drills before hitting the water. Each of us were rotated through different roles, as the dive leader, and as the deco and SMB divers. As a team we demonstrated what we had learned the previous week, getting some feedback between dives, and improving our skills. After a few hours in the water we had completed our skills, and it was time for some food, reviewing the videos, and the exam.
Overall I learned a lot from my team about my strengths and weaknesses, I’ve opened my eyes to other philosophy’s of diving that I hadn’t considered, and I think I’ve improved as a diver. This is a course that you should definitely consider.