What should I have done?

[sunnyboy]

How so? What's your experience with drills? Do you do drills?

In Fundies they pound situational awareness into you... this goes with the drills you do.

Bull****. Fundies isn't long enough to pound anything into anyone. It's not a course - it's a *freakin'* FINAL EXAM for hell's sake.

-S

 

[Diver0001]

Bull****. Fundies isn't long enough to pound anything into anyone. It's not a course - it's a *freakin'* FINAL EXAM for hell's sake.

-S

Easy man....

I think what he meant by that is that fundies is a course where a lot of people come face to face with their own shortcomings. For the diver who is open to learning from that, being confronted with what is essentially a game of diving Tetris (a game that involves delaying an envitable loss) can be a significant learning experience. Even for divers with big egos and a big card collection....

It's a natural thing to have happen given that most diver training involves nothing more than copying what the other guy did and thinking about what *you* are doing. This model extends even into much of tek training.

In the PADI system, for example, you're not intended to look at the other diver until Rescue level. At DM level you're intended to look at the other diver and do something about what you see..... in the GUE system, you're intended to do that at the level of Fundies. That's not such a bad idea, if you ask me. Most divers won't be ready for it because GUE doesn't play on a level playing field.... but it does explain why we have threads like this and why we have Divemasters and even instructors who aren't ready for "watching the game from helicopter level".

You can say what you want about it.... but the divers who become aware of looking further than their own nose has, at some level, to be the right thing to do.

R..

 

[rjack321]

Bull****. Fundies isn't long enough to pound anything into anyone. It's not a course - it's a *freakin'* FINAL EXAM for hell's sake.

-S

Chill out dude. Fundies is not a final exam at all. I have no idea who your instructor was, but it sounds like you didn't mesh with him/her, the class, nor GUE very well. If you felt treated badly, its a shame.

Really its all just a path. The next steps on the path are either rec-triox or Tech1 or Cave1. Yes, its a gateway to further GUE training. Some people step through that gate immediately, some take a long time, some might never be ready or capable. But everyone in fundies should recognize that situation awareness is one component of a "complet" diver.

I stepped through fundies first try, for Tech1 I was provisional, for Cave1 I passed first time. There are no final exams in GUE training and there aren't any in life either.

RJ

PS. I parallel park a couple times a week.

 

[sunnyboy]

Sorry about the rant, but some Gue-ites get pretty obsessive as well.

I teach for a living. I would not classify DIR-F as a course in a conventional sense. Rather, I would classify it as a workshop, which is exactly how it began. The makeup of the dives is what I would classify as "final exam" in that you are thrown into situations and scenarios, which are videotaped, and then afterward you are evaluated and critiqued. If you do well enough, you pass. If not, you get to try again later.

As the skills/scenarios are not really repeated from dive to dive, it takes on more of the "final exam" approach that a training approach. But - they don't pound anything into you. There simply isn't enough time/repetition to do much more than expose you to the concepts and skills. You are then expected to take the material and practice.

I'm not being critical of GUE here. I think this is exactly what they intended. But I am being critical of the idea that DIR-F is something more than a workshop. DIR-F shows you how bad you are, then you go out and practice to get better. However, I do actually wish GUE would return to running DIR-F as a workshop.

-S

p.s. I do know the skills, and I do practice them. Not everyone who took GUE got GUE-ified. AND - just because they emphasize team awareness means that everyone who passes actually "gets it". AND... even then... just because you "got it" on the "course" doesn't mean you actually "do it" after the course.

 

[Ben_ca]

Thanks for calming down... we can be a lot more productive with civil tones.

I don't think the OP's party needs reminding on what broke down...

 

[TSandM]

AND... even then... just because you "got it" on the "course" doesn't mean you actually "do it" after the course.

And you know what? None of us is a genius, and even people who did "get it" can fall short under the right circumstances.

One of the reasons I truly love the kind of diving I'm doing is because we all recognize that we can all improve to some degree in virtually EVERY aspect of diving, and we go out and try to practice. That doesn't mean every practice session is elegant and perfect, and sometimes we find weaknesses we hadn't recognized that come out like they did this time.

But we're out there working on it. You gotta say that for us.

 

[rjack321]

When I took fundies in '04 it was inbetween the workshop it began as and the current style class. We got shown skills on dry land, we tried them underwater, we got videotaped.

There were no "scenarios", OOA, no mask, etc etc. We just gave each other the drill sign (finger rotating in opposite palm) and then the OOA sign, then shared gas and swam off. We also shut off our single tank valves, breathed down the reg, and had to reopen them

There were no tech vs. rec passes. Doubles were optional. No canister light required.

Situational awareness was mostly just discussed, although sometimes pointed out in video debrief.

I believe the issue was people taking fundies in a single tank as a gateway to Tech1 and then showing up for Tech1 in doubles for the first time, new canister light, etc. I.e. they were still unprepared. I sorta was, despite ~40 dives in doubles. Hence my initial provisional in Tech1 which took me 4-5 months to convert to a pass.

My DIRF instructor was Joe Talavera. Sunnyboy, when did you take fundies and who was your instructor? Did you take a workshop, class or the current 4day "expanded class"?

 

[sunnyboy]

And you know what? None of us is a genius, and even people who did "get it" can fall short under the right circumstances.

One of the reasons I truly love the kind of diving I'm doing is because we all recognize that we can all improve to some degree in virtually EVERY aspect of diving, and we go out and try to practice. That doesn't mean every practice session is elegant and perfect, and sometimes we find weaknesses we hadn't recognized that come out like they did this time.

But we're out there working on it. You gotta say that for us.

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you practicing FOR? I don't mean why? (you already answered - to improve). I mean for what specific goal? 200ft dives with long deco? Tech 1-2-3? Cave 1-2? Wreck penetrations?

Practice is nice, but I think there should still be a reason beyond getting wet. I spent two summers diving every weekend mostly doing practice. I was just trying to get better, but many on the team were preparing for a long/deep expedition. (a great way to learn - team dive with people better than you).

-S

 

[rjack321]

I'll answer for TS&M since she's in MX. She is trying to finish rec-triox for local deeper diving. And take Cave1 next year.

BTW
I'm still curious about your GUE training Sunnyboy. What classes, when, and with whom? Your opinions are unique.

 

[sunnyboy]

I believe the issue was people taking fundies in a single tank as a gateway to Tech1 and then showing up for Tech1 in doubles for the first time, new canister light, etc. I.e. they were still unprepared. I sorta was, despite ~40 dives in doubles. Hence my initial provisional in Tech1 which took me 4-5 months to convert to a pass.

My DIRF instructor was Joe Talavera. Sunnyboy, when did you take fundies and who was your instructor? Did you take a workshop, class or the current 4day "expanded class"?

Yes, the "divers unprepared for Tech 1" was the reason I heard for making it a cert card as well. It happened within a year or so of my fundies, if I remember correctly.

I took fundies a couple of years ago. Won't name the instructors. Lots of other stuff was happening that may have contributed to the way things went. The instructors were fully GUE certified, and the course was taught to all GUE standards of the time, according to all sources. I just don't think the format was all that suitable to the goals of the course, but that is simply my opinion.

AND - I will freely admit that my own diving skills were HORRIBLE. I got a provisional and certainly deserved it. I have kept up my practice, but did not bother to re-take fundies as I have no immediate interest in Cave or Tech. My dives involve taking pictures of octopus and wolf eels at 100ft or less. I'm having too much fun diving these days.

-S