What a disappointment

[rainman_02]

What is idiotic about the *plainly spelled out in the course standards* rule that you must be a non-smoker?

Do you also think other agencies' medical stipulations should be lied about?


Honestly, wanting to take GUE-F as a smoker is akin to wanting to take it in a jacket style BC. Sure, you can dive just fine in it...but it is a violation of course standards...so, it's not gonna happen.

And to say anything else (including "lie on your course application") is not DIR.

 

[pennypue]

Dear Ivan,

I agree with you that it is not my place to comment on your personal choices in your life. I am not a GUE expert by any means but I would like to offer the following thoughts. The concept of the "team" as introduced in GUE-F is a very interesting concept and one that anyone with military training of any kind will recognize. If I understand it correctly, the resources you or your teammates bring to the dive are shared team resources that are to be used in safely and enjoyably conducting your dive. It is very similar to the "buddy system" advocated by other agencies, but carried a lot further. You have three times the resources you may need to solve a problem or deal with an emergency encountered at depth. This goes further than just the equipment you may carry, (ie: the gas in your tanks, the long hose I am breathing., etc.) and includes the three brains you are carrying. My Fundies instructor brought up an interesting point when he said that when one team member has a problem and another team member is helping him (eg: donating gas or whatever) you still have one extra brain to monitor the environment etc. Now, if one accepts the notion that team resources include the members themselves, and not just the equipment they are carrying, the physical and mental abilities of the members becomes just as important as the state of the equipment the members are carrying. In other words, you wouldn't dive with a team member who had a malfunctioning back up regulator or some other piece of kit, so the same applys to the team members. We don't have the time here to get into the impacts smoking can have on divers but you might want to read "The impacts of Smoking on Diving" by Art Ranz, DDS, for a pretty good overview. In essence, smoking has serious short term and long term impacts on your diving. Again, not for me to comment on your personal life choices here, however, if your personal life choice means you will be less able to help me in an emergency at depth, I will have to factor that in to whether I want to dive with you or not. Again, I can make my choices just like you are free to make yours. I don't know this for gospel, but it would make sense to me that this is the heart of the matter in regards to smoking and GUE membership. In my view, you are absolutely free to make the decisions you want to in regards to smoking or not smoking. I know many divers who smoke and on occasion, I will dive with them in simple shallow warm water dives. However, I won' dive with them in any deeper, cold water, or more challenging dives for my safety. Just my decision here.

I hope I am not going to start a serious war here and I don't mean to offend you or anyone else. Maybe someone with more GUE experience can chime in and present some thoughts. I can just imagine I am going to get flamed but I wanted to give you a few thoughts Ivan without wanting to offend you.

Excellent answer, can you sign my name to it too?

I'd also like to add, that I'm not a fan of tasty nicotine when I'm doing an OOA drill. It's really for your benefit as I might yak in your reg. :11:

 

[TSandM]

This is where the whole thing about DIR being a holistic approach to diving comes in. And this is why I started a thread a while back about, "How DIR are we?" It is EASY to make equipment changes -- that just takes money. It is FUN to improve your skills -- That just takes time and diving (and we all hate doing that, right?) It is HARD to improve your situational awareness and team skills, but again, it comes with diving, and none of us minds doing that.

On the other hand, it is not fun, not easy, and not diving to improve your fitness or the healthiness of your lifestyle. GUE really believes that divers should work to make their central piece of equipment -- the body -- as finely tuned and high quality as the expensive equipment they buy, or the skills they work so hard to acquire. It really IS part of the philosophy, even though the internet gives it very little time.

I'm really sorry that you're so angry about the class. It's pretty well known that GUE won't train smokers, and it is on the website as far as prerequisites go.

And as a physician, I could go on at length about what advantages there would be for you to quit smoking, whether you take a GUE class or not. But I won't.

GUE is about training DIR divers, and DIR divers don't smoke.

 

[spectrum]

ivan73

Okay, so they made some rules and didn't let you in the club. That hurts and I feel for you. We went to the animal shelter once for a dog and after I mentioned building a doghouse they treated me like dirt. I remember driving home wondering if I had just been told that I wasn't good enough to own own a dog that was within 3 meals of euthanasia. The dog was going to be welcome in the house but we figured a dog of size should enjoy some fresh air time too.

Fundies is not the keys to heaven. Dive with a spirit of continuous improvement and you can dive with the best of them.

Pete

 

[SkullDeformity]

What the hell? What's wrong with a dog house? If you have a big back yard, and you let the dog be outside for the day, where do you want him to go?

I do empathize about being descriminated against because of seemingly personal decisions. I've been motivated to get off my lazy butt and lose weight because of it, diver friends all heckling me. While may be offensive, they do have your best interests at heart. It's like my number one internet crush TsandM says, it's easy to change somethings like gear, but to get your mindset in the right place is harder.

 

[Bismark]

As an aside, you may find it hard doing the underwater breathold swim which is a prerequisite for doing the course anyways. 50' with a single breathhold might be difficult for a smoker. Don't know this for fact but it might be.

 

[H2Andy]

i'm not sure you can qualify this as a dissapointment

the course standards are clear that you have to be a non-smoker. if you show up for the class not having read the standards and otherwise not being aware of the requirements, you really can't blame anybody for that

hey, if someone doesn't want my money, i'll go to someone else who does

 

[mrjimboalaska]

and how many of the "fundies" instructors have passed a p-test?
yes, I would like to take a fundies course as well, but have had the "sorry. you smoke" tossed back at me. Makes me wonder......
I dive with several divers that have 5000+ dives and have a SAC rate of nil, who make me look like a non smoker.
As far as OOG, by the time my reg goes in your mouth, the only thing you will taste is salt water, and you will REALL DIG the gas it is supplying you!
Yes, smoking is bad, so is driving too fast....and it is the worst thing I've ever done.

 

[ivan73]

Thanks everybody for response. Well some were instructive, some less.

Some comments:

Bismark - I agree with you in everything you say (I’m not so army oriented, so no war in perspective) and respect it completely. The only thing I want to add is that I'm diving in warm waters and I'm never intending to dive cold ones. Now I don't want to show how much I don't know about diving, but my limits are never under 40m/130ft. and already when hitting 30m/100ft. is considered to me as deep dive. No intension to go below these depths, for the moment. And I agree if I want to go below probably I would quit smoking. Swimming underwater (15m/50 ft.) no problem, can do 20-25 with a bit of practice.

TSandM - your thread "How DIR we are" is exactly what inspired me to post this one. Imagine a guy, not in good condition, a bit oversized, still managing 300m in 14 min (if I'm not wrong that was one of skills, which is not so difficult btw.), well in summary not at all DIR diver, he will have the opportunity to learn the GUE tricks. Me - smoker, no. So what is the difference, he chooses to eat, me to smoke. Can you trust him more then me? Who knows? I don't want to start any discussion about overweight vs. smoke, it's just an example. In other words, my intension is not to join the club (just to remove misunderstanding, the club i highly respect), but why don't you want to share your methods, knowledge with people that do not satisfy your club membership. It's about diving at the end of the story, feeling good, being as much prepared as possible for bad situation (I know you'll say well smoking is not the best preparation, I agree). DIR divers have that knowledge why don't you share it with other people (without giving GUE-F certificate = club membership)?

 

[LG Diver]

and how many of the "fundies" instructors have passed a p-test?

Are you making a specific accusation with the facts to back it up, or are you just talking out of your ***?