Unified Team Diving

[MXGratefulDiver]

UTD is the brainchild of Andrew Georgitsis ... formerly the Director of Training for GUE. It's a fairly new organization and as such limited in instructor resources at this point. I have a couple of friends who are UTD instructors, and if they are anything to judge by, Andrew did a fantastic job of choosing his initial instructor corps.

I expect to see this organization grow ... and without the "baggage" some associate with the DIR of the past ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Blackwood]

Rupert -

Why not join (free) at Unified Team Diving and ask any questions there, where all the UTD instructors, as well as students (myself included) can answer first hand.

 

[TSandM]

As Bob says, UTD is the brainchild of Andrew Georgitsis, with whom I have done some training. The agency is only about a year old, which is why the instructor cadre is currently small. I'm sure it will both grow and slowly, as the process for crossing over an instructor is much easier than GUE's (you don't have to start at the Fundies level), but the intent is very strong to keep quality high.

As said, it is very DIR-flavored training, with the same basic concepts of standardized gases, standardized equipment, strong emphasis on team, and high standards for skills. Andrew heavily emphasizes "thinking divers" -- small, non-repeated errors in technique aren't penalized as heavily as failure to analyze problems and take appropriate steps to solve them. (In other words, you aren't going to fail UTD classes if you're briefly 20 degrees out of trim in midwater.) There are some small differences in equipment configuration, but UTD is also more tolerant of small deviations (long hose under or over, for example). 25/25 is the deep recreational gas, and decompression is pure Ratio Deco.

There are a number of things I think Andrew is doing VERY right with the new agency. Many of the online classrooms are excellent, and giving students the ability to work through them before class makes the academic time much more efficient. There is also a strong emphasis on community (which is one of the delights of DIR diving for me, anyway). I like the way the curriculum is broken up, even if some of the divisions have some odd consequences. I just finished UTD Technical Diver 1, which is like the first half of GUE T1, and was perfect for me. I think a lot of people find the jump from Fundies to T1 daunting (I did, and I've talked to others) and UTD T1 is a great halfway measure, introducing some small amounts of decompression and all the ideas that go along with diving under a virtual overhead.

The recreational curriculum is also excellent (and I did Rec 2 and Rec 3 with Joe Talavera and Andrew, respectively, before UTD was formed). If you want high quality training to become a self-sufficient and skilled member of a diving team for any recreational diving, through recreational helium use, it's a superb pathway. GUE's recent release of their recreational sequence is almost identical, which I suspect is no coincidence

It is my personal opinion that GUE is still a better route to cave diving. But Andrew's primary love and strength, to me, is technical diving, and it shows.

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

UTD is the brainchild of Andrew Georgitsis ... formerly the Director of Training for GUE.

I thought he was the Director of Training for Naui Tech... am I wrong?

 

[Gombessa]

I thought he was the Director of Training for Naui Tech... am I wrong?

I believe that after AG left GUE, he started 5thD-X and became an instructor with NAUI. I never heard anything about him getting really involved in a high level with shaping the agency's tech training though (which is part of the reason he eventually went with his own agency).

 

[Anti-Hero]

Is there any sport that uses more acronyms than diving?

 

[rjack321]

I thought he was the Director of Training for Naui Tech... am I wrong?

Andrew was never a course director with NAUI or NAUI-tech. His new agency is nice, thorough, and comprehensive - my only beef is with some of the wacky new mCCR rebreather stuff. But any hybrid RB-DIR thing is going to go through growing pains and so I am reserving judgement on that whole avenue as it matures.

(disclaimer: my primary tech buddies are 2 of his instructors. Considering I introduced them to Andrew back when all three of them were with NAUI, they seemed to have turned out alright I have been tech diving with 2 more of UTD's instructors and was quite pleased with them too. All in all I have probably 150 dives with 5 different UTD instructors, either in classes or as buddies.)

 

[Rupert Vidion]

Well thanks guys, very useful information.

Cheers,

Rupert

 

[rjack321]

I believe that after AG left GUE, he started 5thD-X and became an instructor with NAUI.

Andrew started the shop "Fifth Dimension" (5thD) in Kent, WA. It eventually expanded to Issaquah, WA as well - all while he was a GUE instructor. 5thD-X was created in ~1999 as the online version of that. As you can see from the online powerpoints and lectures etc at UTD, Andrew has always been pushing the online learning/technology envelope.

When he moved to San Jose he sold the physical shop in ~2003. Andrew supposedly kept the name and 5thD-X lived on as an internet shop/training business for awhile. While in San Jose, he left GUE for NAUI. The new owner renamed the physical shop "Pacific Rim Aquatics". But the sale and name changes weren't very clean and there was alot of confusion. So eventually 5thD-X was dropped as a business and the physical shop remains known as 5thD Pacific Rim Aquatics.

So last year Andrew created UTD as his own agency. He had written RTSC compliant standards for all of his classes anyway. He's had DIR demo videos (on DVD) for years as well along with course specific powerpoints. All of this material was rolled into the online classrooms at UTD. These serve as the course book. The "new" instructors are all his former students, he didn't/doesn't take cross over instructors unless they were his student in the past.

I'm generally happy with how the courses work and how their graduates fit into my diving, in addition to the 5 instructors I have buddied with at one point or another I have been diving with ~6 different students as well. I don't know much about the rebreather or cave curriculums.

 

[liuk3]

As said, it is very DIR-flavored training, with the same basic concepts of standardized gases, standardized equipment, strong emphasis on team, and high standards for skills. Andrew heavily emphasizes "thinking divers" -- small, non-repeated errors in technique aren't penalized as heavily as failure to analyze problems and take appropriate steps to solve them. (In other words, you aren't going to fail UTD classes if you're briefly 20 degrees out of trim in midwater.)

What classes or agencies would fail you for being briefly 20 degrees out of trim in midwater? :shocked2: