DIR- GUE Why are non-GUE divers so interested in what GUE does?

[tursiops]

I don't think pedantic means what you think it means. All I asked was for you to do more than just assert that certs are sold. In my experience, I've never seen anything remotely like a cert being sold. I just asked if you had seen that?

By the way, I HAVE seen people fearful of not "passing" a scuba course, at ALL levels, from OW through full cave. It is not just GUE Fundamentals that is scary to folks. Oh, and one of the introductory statements in many (most?) non-GUE classes, especially beyond OW, is that the student is paying for the training, not the cert. How could that be any clearer? When I took SDI Solo many years ago I paid for the class, and afterwards the instructor called me and asked if I wanted a cert card, in which case I owed him more money.

 

[jadairiii]

Do you know anyone who bought a cert?

I believe the issue is the term buy should be "buy". If you have been around long enough, as you have, you have seen those instructors teaching classes that you know for a fact no one was going to fail. From open water to full cave. We've all seen it. heck, I have a IANTD Tech Deep Air card that was basically "bought", after finishing Tech Nitrox my instructor told me all I needed was one more dive below 200' on air and I could "earn" my Tech Deep Air....and next weekend there I was, solo, on air below 200', when I surfaced (survived) I "earned" my new card.....I'm proud of that card!

I witnessed, a few years back, an instructor teaching a tech class while the student was using only one fin (the other had gone over the side of the boat), dont think that student was sweating a provisional.....

To this day there are still cave instructors teaching "zero to hero" full cave classes.

 

[Esprise Me]

You can see this by just the number of people scared about taking fundamentals because they might fail. You don’t see that same hand ringing over tdi intro to tech, Tec40 or ssi extended range foundations.

You seem quite sure you know the reason many people choose not to take a GUE course, despite the fact that not one person who belongs to the group you're asking about has given that reason. I wonder, then, why you asked.

 

[Cthippo]

Two thoughts on this...

One is I like to see what everyone is doing and take the bits that make sense and incorporate then into how I do things.

The second thing is that the GUI philosophy is diametrically opposed to mine on certain things (team diving and gear conformity) and there is a certain fascination with staring into the abyss of the other.

 

[boulderjohn]

those instructors teaching classes that you know for a fact no one was going to fail.

With courses taught using the mastery learning concept, as is done by almost all agencies, in the overwhelming majority of classes, no one should fail, because the student who is not up to standards at the normal end of the course should continue to receive instruction until the standards are met. For almost all scuba instruction, students never actually fail--they just quit working to succeed.

The idea that a certain percentage of students should fail a class is an antiquated custom based on antiquated thinking. In old instructional concepts, time is the constant and performance is the variable. In modern thinking, performance is the standard and time is the variable.

I was a lifetime educator, finishing as the Executive Director of Curriculum for a major national education company. In that role, I had to be very concerned with the theory of good curricular development. In a properly designed curriculum, you would expect success for every student who was qualified to take a course and who put in the expected effort to pass the class, with almost all doing it within the standard time frame. In standard education, student failure is primarily the result of the student not putting in the expected amount of time and effort.

If a class has a high failure rate, an analysis will reveal a combination of the following problems:

• Poorly motivated and engaged students
• Poor student screening (a student cannot go from Algebra I to Calculus and succeed).
• Poor curricular design
• Unrealistic time frame to complete the standard level of performance (you cannot compete Calculus I in a month)
• Poor instructional quality

Notice that if you have motivated and engaged students, the fault for failure lies with curriculum and instruction.

I am amazed when I hear people claim that a high failure rate is a sign of good instruction. To me, it makes as much sense as a plumber bragging about the number of times the leaks he repaired have continued to leak.

 

[lermontov]

i don't think Non GUE divers are so interested in what GUE does as much as are a mixture of curious, puzzled, amused.
I personally think the standardisation of gear configuration has some benefits and from what ive seen the training and standards are excellent. Unfortunately for GUE it seem we have a better memory for GUE proponents that have allowed their philosophy to exclude and be critical of non GUE divers than have left us with fond memories of inclusion and acceptance.

Id be surprised if the original intent was to establish an elitist and were right attitude but looking from the outside and in my few interactions with GUE divers it comes across as dogmatic. ANY group regardless of its diving or theology that hold a benchmark and claim their way is right is going to attract a personality type that given the right conditions will become more and more entrenched and exclusive. What I struggle with is when the philosophy becomes bigger than the practice to the point of restricting other options that are reasonable.

I may have had the misfortune of meeting a disproportionate number of these people but nothing makes me recoil more than disapproval from those who consider themselves to be " enlightened "

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

I am not a GUE , DIR, diver. Just a diver. But I will say that this past Friday while diving the Mukilteo, WA Dock dive site, after exiting from my solo dive to 80ft....... I met a super nice guy who was also exiting and I could see he was diving doubles with two side mounts. One was clearly marked at 40% and the other was 100%. I asked him about his equipment, his plan, etc and he told me he was GUE and he was totally happy to explain everything about his solo dive to 160ft. Just a super nice guy. Very humble and very happy to answer all of my questions. Anyway, this guy was a great advocate that promoted his philosophy without ever being judgmental in any way of others. I was happy to have met him and if other GUE divers are like him then I can say that I have no problems with GUE divers.

 

[mariosx]

But somehow the impression has gone beyond that, to the point GUE might be perceived as considering solo wrong and shameful, and if someone who does some solo diving signs up for a GUE Fundies course, he'd better keep his mouth shut about solo. One wonders what happens when a diver with GUE cert.s engages in recreational solo diving of a non-demanding nature (let's say in accordance with solo practices and certified for it), and his old GUE instructor learns of it. What's the response likely to be? Ignore it? Indifferent? Amusement? Critical? Shaming?

Pretty accurate. The equivalent of taking driving classes and stating to the instructor that you plan to pass red every now and then, and speed beyond the speed limits. The instructor will (best case) have to have a very serious discussion with you explaining that this goes against the entire spirit of the class, and potentially refuse to teach you. Which to me seems perfectly reasonable since certiftying you might be a form of endorsement for practices they consider dangerous.

GUE, to the best of my limited knowledge, actively discourages solo diving, and instructors will discuss very seriously with you, or even report you in some cases, if they see that you don't follow the methodologies and activelty endager yourself or other from a GUE perspective. To me this is resonable, and as basic quality control is a justified "sacrifice" for maintaining the GUE community as awesome as it is, since each GUE diver could be trusted on their skills and participate in fun or project dives with no questions asked. I cannot see why the life of other divers should be at risk in some hard exploration dives, because the X GUE member, instead of practicing team skills and maintaining their motor-skills, was solo diving the past N years.

The GUE certs certify you to be a blindly trusted diver able at any moment to assist and participate in a GUE dive. If you do not keep up with the standards you, best case, cannot be trusted blindly by others.

P/S: I have heard of GUE instructors being a bit over attentive on schooling GUE divers for details or participation on non-GUE dives that were reasonably safe. But I have not heard yet certs being revoked unreasonably.

 

[tursiops]

I met a super nice guy who was also exiting and I could see he was diving doubles with two side mounts. One was clearly marked at 40% and the other was 100%. I asked him about his equipment, his plan, etc and he told me he was GUE and he was totally happy to explain everything about his solo dive to 160ft. Just a super nice guy. Very humble and very happy to answer all of my questions. Anyway, this guy was a great advocate that promoted his philosophy without ever being judgmental in any way of others. I was happy to have met him and if other GUE divers are like him then I can say that I have no problems with GUE divers.

GUE, to the best of my limited knowledge, actively discourages solo diving, and instructors will discuss very seriously with you, or even report you in some cases, if they see that you don't follow the methodologies and activelty endager yourself or other from a GUE perspective. To me this is resonable, and as basic quality control is a justified "sacrifice" for maintaining the GUE community as awesome as it is, since each GUE diver could be trusted on their skills and participate in fun or project dives with no questions asked. I cannot see why the life of other divers should be at risk in some hard exploration dives, because the X GUE member, instead of practicing team skills and maintaining their motor-skills, was solo diving the past N years.

It is hard to see how to reconcile these two consecutive posts.

 

[mariosx]

The challenge with GUE diving as far as I am concerned is the dogma. You must do this, you must do that, you must follow the standards.

You obviously have not taken a single GUE class, or at least a GUE class done properly. There is no dogma. Everything could be justified. You might disagree on a choise of skill/equipment from GUE and have a different opinion, but GUE has already an at least equally reasonable, though different, opinion.

There is no "you must do this", etc... there is only "in GUE we do this" with a very long and thorough "because", if you ask why. I am extremely analytical by nature and my GUE-F instructor and any other GUE instructor I have discuss with had no problem answering ALL my why's.

It's one thing believing that GUE is too rigid, and another thing to consider it dogmatic. The latter is rather offensive, and, most importantly, highly inaccurate. I would dare to say that the 95% of the rec instructors out there are actually far more dogmatic, since I can hardly believe that they can justify to a reasonable degree their configuration.

Diving isn't like that. You're frequently alone and, to be honest, it's great to be able to bimble around a dive site to enjoy the flora, fauna and wreck for what it is without the hassle of looking after someone else.

There is no reason to be alone without a buddy, unless if are living in a very remote place. And for sure you don't have to look after your GUE buddy, because sometimes you even trust them more than yourself. You have in your mind insta-buddies that have no basic skills and require baby-sitting, which is inaccurate for every GUE diver I have seen in the water.

There's some great things that came out of the DIR philosophy; sorted skills and a great starting point for kit configuration. However it's not always the right kit configuration for the dive and circumstances.

It would be interesting to open a new thread and ask your questions. You might not agree with the answers, which is OK, but I would be extremely surprised if they are unreasonable. To my short experience in the interwebs, such arguments do not hold more than 2 replies, but I hope that you indeed you have some valuable insights. Indeed GUE might be a bit more slow to adjust to new technologies than others, which might be annoying for some, but at least for me it's a very big advantage since when a new technology is adopted you know that a lot of thought was put and experimentation beforehand, which enforces the arguments supporting the change.

I could go on with examples, but the DIR community are famously deaf to any form of dissent from the one and only true way to dive. GUE and suchlike can seem more cult-like than pragmatic -- found this in my dalliance with GUE fundies where 'why' questions weren't encouraged as far more experienced divers decided that's the way to do it. It is interesting that many of the GUE people I know are far more flexible in their diving, especially in terms of kit choice.

If you know of a single Fundies class that "why" questions were not encouraged, then it would be awesome if you could report your experience with this instructor at GUE. Practically asking "why's" during the class is expected to pass the class, not discouraged. Creating thinking divers is a priority for GUE and accepting everything without questions is a red flag. This goes to an extend that the instructors will ask you "why GUE does X?", if you seem to uncritically accept it.