Dr. Jay once bubbled...
what would you say to someone who has around 10 dives past their OW certification (and just having soo much fun w/scuba ) who was thinking about eventually going down the DIRF/GUE path?
Maybe a step-by-step suggestion to a young, potential DIRF/GUE Padawan learner, like:
1. Look at the website and try to practice techniques.
2. Buy the gear and get used to it.
3. Get some more certifications from your OW agency.
4. ....or.....just shut up and take the class. You're going to fail the first time anyway.
Are any of these accurate? Care to ellaborate?
Thanks
Jay,
I like to use the example all the time citing my girlfriend. In the case of the student with 9 dives that I used in the earlier post, the student happened to be my girlfriend. I refused to teach her OW, and I didn't want to teach her for the DIR-F class either, in fact I don't ever want her as my student ;-)
But seriously, she realized that if she ever wanted to see me that she better learn to dive, so I had a buddy of mine certify her, and then we were in NYC and I had been on the road for about 8 consecutive weekends so I flew her into NYC to hang out, I told her to bring her ger in case we had time for a fun dive.. Well she was too scared of Andrew, I didn't want to teach her so we put her in Sonya's group and in 9 dives she was nuetrally buoyant, good trim and did the skills better then some of teh diver''s who had 5000+ dives. You can go to Andrew's site and see the pic's on
www.fifthd.com
But the obvious point is that these skills aren't rocket science, most excepting for the backward kick, helicopter turn and maybe the bag shooting should all be learned before you even get out of OW in my view. So the class isn't anything to be afriad of. We keep you in 20', we put you on video tape so you can see for yourself what we as instructors see. Then we break down step by step the skill, then how you did it, and how you can improve by giving you practice techniques based on your own video de-brief...
Most of the rumors you've heard about us ripping masks off, or shuting down valves are greatly exagerrated, or are excerpts from the tech 1, tech 2 or cave or rebreather training. This class is all about helping you get to fundamental level of basics that will make you more comfortable, competent, and confident underwater. That is our only goal, not to harras you, but to make you a better and more confident diver..
Let me know if that explains it, or if you need any more help..
Later