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

[mariosx]

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

Where is exactly the challenge?

The large majority of GUE divers are awesome people to be around (I have yet to find a counter-example myself), and at the same time the GUE organization has incentives in place to encourage quality control and keep this awesome positive attitude of blind trust between each member in the GUE community.

Does it make sense to you an active GUE-diver that is supposed to be trusted by any other GUE-divers at all times, to remain part of the community if they violate basic standards and potentially threaten the lives of other GUE divers? Of course, nobody will care if a GUE-F graduate continues solo diving and not practicing team skills, while smoking 3 packs a day for the rest of their lives. But if they are actively considerring more advance training and participating in dives with other GUE divers, their GUE buddies should not be forced to accept and accommodate the risks of a dangerous or potentially dangerous buddy.

Doctors can be awesome people, and at the same time doctors, that do not follow the standard procedures and endanger the lives of their patients, might lose their license. Is this also something hard to reconcile? Does that make the majority of the doctors bad or the Medical Union (or whatever) bad? I would suggest that this quality control makes both pretty awesome.

 

[jlcnuke]

It's pretty interesting to me to see many people being super interested in what GUE does. How they set up the equipment, what the standards are, why gue does something, and then never perusing training with GUE.

So if you're not GUE trained and you're constantly trying to figure out what and why GUE does something, why?

Well, I'm still stoked about this weekend, and got home recently, and I saw this topic so I figured I'd read it. One thing I found consistent with other topics was that the question was largely ignored by both respondents and the OP in general. It happens, this is the internet and things evolve and go down a different path.

My answer has been recorded here before, and like @boulderjohn has to do with my background in education/training and how that makes me have a bit of a disdain for how the fundies course is formatted. I'm not going to rehash all that stuff though. Suffice it to say, I have a professional dislike of how the "barrier level course" is structured.

Without that stipulation, however, there are other things that have kept me from taking classes in the first place, knowing that I may become a better diver if I choose to do so (though nothing is guaranteed).

1. The standards for courses are available. This means that for something like fundies, I can literally record myself, get observed by others, etc. and see 90% whether or not I "meet the requirements to pass" (the other 10% being GUE communication that isn't spelled out how to judge very specifically in the published standards).

2. I spent a lot of time choosing good instructors to learn from as I progressed in my diving (some GUE trained and who used some of that philosophy in their training for other agencies). Not every instructor in my diving career, but all of the recent ones for tech training are very well respected. Why "go back" to a fundies course, redo cave training or tech training, etc. just to get a GUE rating for what I've already spent time and money learning and getting certified to do?? Sure, if I was diving with people once and then they would never dive with me again, I'd probably think there was a problem with my diving, but that's not been my experience, so I have to think that while I would probably learn "something new" from a different instructor in those areas, what would make me think it's worth paying the cost for a full fundies course, tech 1, and cave 1 and 2 just to have a GUE rating saying I can do what I'm currently certified for? I mean I could redo the classes with a different non-GUE instructor that was highly regarded as well and pick up something probably, but is it worth the time/money to do that either? Doesn't seem to be for me personally.

3. So why look at anything from GUE? I've got a military background in nuclear power. "Lessons learned", other/new techniques, alternate philosophies, etc. are ALL things to learn from. Gathering information from others is a great way to learn, grow, and improve. I'd be dumb to ignore everything GUE just because I haven't yet got a certification from them.

Would I "pass" a fundies course? I think I probably would, but nothing's a guarantee so who knows. Would I learn something? Almost certainly. But I'd also probably also learn something if I went and paid Natalie Gibb to give me another full cave course, or Jim Wyatt, or any number of other people I haven't done training with who are known as excellent instructors. That to get to that point with a GUE instructor through GUE means I'd have to pay for even more courses is just an obstacle that makes me think there are more cost efficient ways to continue to improve as a diver, whether I had an issue with how fundies is designed as a course or not. Since I'm not currently interested in doing "exploration level dives with GUE projects" that would necessitate that training and certification, I can't see a reason to do such training right now.

 

[Manatee Diver]

1. The standards for courses are available. This means that for something like fundies, I can literally record myself, get observed by others, etc. and see 90% whether or not I "meet the requirements to pass" (the other 10% being GUE communication that isn't spelled out how to judge very specifically in the published standards).

You can test out of courses, but few accomplish it.

 

[jlcnuke]

You can test out of courses, but few accomplish it.

I didn't know that. Not that I think I'm that good at caves at this point.....
Speaking of which, we need to dive again sometime. Hit me up, I'll be down in cave country a bunch of times this summer.

 

[Manatee Diver]

I didn't know that. Not that I think I'm that good at caves at this point.....
Speaking of which, we need to dive again sometime. Hit me up, I'll be down in cave country a bunch of times this summer.

I get the impression that it was mostly meant to give the pre-GUE DIR exploration divers like WKPP people the ability to get GUE certs without it being actually against the rules.

Yes we do, probably easiest to let me know when you are down in CC during the week. Pretty hard for me to take weekends off for the next few months.

 

[jlcnuke]

I get the impression that it was mostly meant to give the pre-GUE DIR exploration divers like WKPP people the ability to get GUE certs without it being actually against the rules.

Yes we do, probably easiest to let me know when you are down in CC during the week. Pretty hard for me to take weekends off for the next few months.

That sucks, I'm almost always on down on the weekends

Let me know when you have a weekend free and we can arrange something..

 

[Wibble]

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 on each of my why's.

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

There is no reaosn to be alone, unless if are 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 are having 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.


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.


If you know of a 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.

I took a Fundies class early on in my diving career. I was barely out of short trousers and had — note had — appalling core skills typical of a PADI recreational diver that had not been exposed to the standards of core skills expected and required of a technical diver, let alone a GUE diver.

I am very happy to say I failed to meet the standards. As @boulderjohn so eloquently put it I was barely literate and had to spend a lot of time putting the hours in to achieve the required standard. No excuses, was not good enough for any technical standards; GUE doesn’t have a monopoly on this.

It is hard to practice when there’s few other people around my locality who want to do the same repetitive practice.

It’s also fair to add that myself and my instructor didn’t get on. Am not blaming anyone nor anything. He’s no longer teaching nor diving.

I’ve never responded well to dogma. I do learn by logic, understanding and experience. Being older I will argue (as anyone on here may have noticed).

An example: why must equipment be so standardised even to the extent that it is sub-optimal for the task at hand? General purpose is not specialist and not all dives are the same. Why not use a topped off gas — 80% — rather than demanding 100% or refusing to do the dive? Why not use lean left, rich right and sidemounted back to reduce your frontal profile, streamlining and snag reduction when diving in wrecks? Sidemount may be wholly appropriate for some dives and divers. Why is it that someone on a rebreather cannot learn to use inverted cylinders or a bailout mounted longhose? (Muscle memory, oh please don’t say you’re incapable of learning something different) Why not have two or three dive computers and follow them for the decompression curve? What about using a long reel and self-inflating SMB?

Then there’s the holy writ. All dives are fundamentally solo dives regardless of whom you’re diving with. Only you are responsible for your own standards, kit and circumstances. I’m not a fan of diving with buddies. Of course there are circumstances where team diving is critical, these mostly being extreme dives; deep, long penetrations, even personally extreme dives. General purpose buddy diving means you need to consider the buddy all the time; found this amazing xxxx but you can’t spend the rest of the dive looking at it as the buddy's bored.

Sod that, I’ve paid for the dive and don’t see why I should bother with a buddy. Most people I dive with have a similar attitude. Great to chat on the boat about the mermaids, the anchor, the boilers…


Finally, why shouldn’t I take Fundies again. Aside from the small issues of $€£1k, being taught NDL (is it still using gauge mode and a bottom timer?), and the equipment being backmount, etc. I’d need to dust off the backmount kit and spend some solo time brushing up on the Basic 5 in preparation— still don’t know any gooists! My core skills are as good as anyone and are well within standards.

What exactly would it achieve? Oooh, I got me a teknikal pass tik-it to go wiv de uvvers.

Fundies was a pivotal moment in my diving career. If it weren’t for GUE showing me the way (the truth and the light) maybe I wouldn’t have put the time and effort and, dare I say, personal pride into skills development. I just can’t stand the dogma.

 

[ginti]

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.

This is true, but it doesn't reflect the state of things

(1) about the GUE approach

The GUE fundamental is designed in a way to spot your weaknesses and to teach you how to practice (after the course) to improve these weaknesses.

Then, at the end of the course, there is ALSO an evaluation. Sure, historically this evaluation is the most important thing, and many people do the course just for this evaluation. But when you look at the course itself, you realize it is not what the course teaches ("teaching an evaluation" just doesn't make sense). If you do not pass the evaluation, you can still come later, after you learned to master these techniques, and get your pass. This is exactly the mastery approach, isn't it? Train as much as you need, with the right tools, until you master the skills. Lastly, please notice that you can get the "pass" in many other courses.

This approach actually follows quite well the mastery concept, if I understand this concept correctly.

There are people who get a provisional or a fail at higher courses, but this is usually because they stop training and they loose the skills they previously acquired (I am not an instructor, this is a summary of what I heard from instructors and friends).

Also, please notice that GUE wants divers to dive and practice between courses, exactly to master the skills.

Final point: people are not "scared" of GUE courses because they are not well designed. It's just hard to figure out alone if you already master what you need to master before the course. Fundies is the only exception.

(2) buying a certification from other agencies

I am sure you know what people mean here. While the principle behind scuba classes is the mastery approach, that I totally understand and support, many classes, depending on the instructor, simply don't teach what they should. I have seen CCR tech divers, full tech divers and instructors behaving way worse than me in the water, despite me having way less experience and less training. And I am not an exceptional GUE diver - on the contrary, just an average one, probably in the lower part of the spectrum. The only three reasons why this can happen are: 1) instructors give the certification to students who are not ready yet, or 2) the contents of the classes is poorer than it should be or 3) people who are super good at the end of a course and then stop practicing. In my experience, speaking with other divers, it emerged it is usually option 1) or 2), and only rarely option 3). Maybe I am missing something, or maybe your experience is different (I don't believe your experience is different given your stories and anecdotes, which I usually appreciate a lot)

 

[chillyinCanada]

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.

What about if the student expressed an interest in occasionally doing some underwater dancing? Would the GUE instructor explain why this goes against the entire spirit of the class?

 

[mariosx]

I took a Fundies class early on in my diving career. I was barely out of short trousers and had — note had — appalling core skills typical of a PADI recreational diver that had not been exposed to the standards of core skills expected and required of a technical diver, let alone a GUE diver.

I am sorry for your bad experience during the class. I guess you somehow end up to less than "perfect" GUE instructor that behaved in a very anti-intellectual way.

It is hard to practice when there’s few other people around my locality who want to do the same repetitive practice.

I have been there and it's totally understandable. I even mentioned this scenario in my answer. When it comes to me, in such case I may perform some solo dives but at the same time I will actively search for buddies.

It’s also fair to add that myself and my instructor didn’t get on. Am not blaming anyone nor anything. He’s no longer teaching nor diving.

I’ve never responded well to dogma. I do learn by logic, understanding and experience. Being older I will argue (as anyone on here may have noticed).

If the instructor was teaching you in a dogmatic way, I think the major responsibility goes to the instructor.

An example: why must equipment...
...self-inflating SMB?

I am an extremely newbie diver with around 70 dives and only the last 30 being with GUE. I only have a strong rec pass from Fundies (doubles etc), so I cannot answer everything, but I am confident that the large large majority of GUE divers with the required level could clarify all of them.
Many standards might not make sense at some levels because they have utility in the next levels. The idea is that no (or minimal) changes on configuration and procedures will be needed in the next levels but they will be simply add on the current skillset of the diver. For me at least, an awesome concept that ensures minimal effort on addressing problems under stress with minimal thinking.
Just to try to give my newbie takes:

why must equipment be so standardised even to the extent that it is sub-optimal for the task at hand? General purpose is not specialist and not all dives are the same

I am not aware on such case and I have find for myself the "DIR" system to be optimal. Please note that although I am not very experienced, 90+% of my dives were involving carrying many equipment, controlling robots or other gear underwater for data collection etc. I have never felt that I needed a different setup for a dive. If you have something in mind please feel free to share.

Why not use a topped off gas — 80% — rather than demanding 100% or refusing to do the dive?

My uninformed take is with standard gases we can ensure that always the deco procedures are the same, along with the mix in case of air-sharing. It adds to safety in one of the most dangerous aspects of tec diving.

Why not use lean left, rich right and sidemounted back to reduce your frontal profile, streamlining and snag reduction when diving in wrecks?

Not sure. I am sure somebody else could give a thorough answer.

Sidemount may be wholly appropriate for some dives and divers.

Yes, that's why GUE has a sidemount class...

Why is it that someone on a rebreather cannot learn to use inverted cylinders or a bailout mounted longhose? (Muscle memory, oh please don’t say you’re incapable of learning something different)

I think that in case of stress the last think you would like is a diver not being able to reach their valves because the confused the configuration they are diving. Muscle memory is a thing, and the main reason more experienced divers might find a harder time to pass Fundies... If you train for 20 years to reach on the top for leaks, I doubt that in a stressful situation the first reaction of most will be the new procedure that they learned months ago on their brand new rebreather.

Why not have two or three dive computers and follow them for the decompression curve?

Why not 4 or 5? Why not 6 or 7? ... Why not 999 or 100? etc...
First of all at some point a red line should be chosen on what kind of risks are acceptable. Everybody does it, and you might be more conservative than GUE in some cases. Awesome. I don't believe that anybody would tell you anything if you dive with 2 computers. I do it myself due to my paranoia...
Secondly, you already dive with 2 or 3 computers, since you also dive with 1 or 2 buddies. Your buddies is an extention of yourself in GUE.
Thridly, GUE, to the best of my knowledge, is not against folllowing computers that are set up properly if needed. It is just against following them and relying blindly on them instead of the dive plan, assuming no major deviations were made from it. Dive computers for GUE is not a necessity, just something nice to have since every GUE dive could be done with bottom timers.

What about using a long reel and self-inflating SMB?

Not sure, but the self-infating SMB might self-inflate in appropriate moments endangering the entire team in a wreck or cave dive? i don't know.

Then there’s the holy writ. All dives are fundamentally solo dives regardless of whom you’re diving with. Only you are responsible for your own standards, kit and circumstances. I’m not a fan of diving with buddies.

Well I fundamentaly disagree. A GUE team is a unified team, one single living organism built on skills and trust. I want my buddy to also be responsible for my kit and circumstances, the same way I want myself to be responsible for my buddy. On the surface I want my buddy to let me know if they see something adding unecessary risk on the dive, and if something bad happens down there I wasnt my buddy to know how everything is placed on me during rescue. But of course to each their own...

Of course there are circumstances where team diving is critical, these mostly being extreme dives; deep, long penetrations, even personally extreme dives.

Agreed ofc.

General purpose buddy diving means you need to consider the buddy all the time; found this amazing xxxx but you can’t spend the rest of the dive looking at it as the buddy's bored.

It also means that the buddy is considerring you all the time. And all GUE divers I know they just love diving. My GUE dives practically are like relationships: I will enjoy something I might find boring in other settings just because my buddies enjoy it, and I have noticed that this goes also the other way. I cannot say the same with insta-buddies ofc and your opinion might have been formed from such bad matchups.

Sod that, I’ve paid for the dive and don’t see why I should bother with a buddy. Most people I dive with have a similar attitude. Great to chat on the boat about the mermaids, the anchor, the boilers…

For me scuba is a social sport, and I prefer if I should bother with a buddy in case my gear have a catastrophic failure or I face some other issue. You might think that you have optimized your equipment to be fully self reliant. I still prefer double or trimple the brain power and manipulation capabilities at all times for resolving issues, rather than just myself.

Finally, why shouldn’t I take Fundies again...
...personal pride into skills development.

I don't think that everyone should take fundies. You obviously shouldn't since you have core philosophical differences with GUE, so it will be counterproductive for all invlolved (you, the instructor, and the other students).

I just can’t stand the dogma.

You seem to insist on the dogma, but I think you have not interacted with GUE enough to be able to make such an assesment, while at the same time you are extremely offensive to all GUE divers. There are many GUE divers that are top researchers and professors in their fields, working their entire lives against any dogmatic belief. Calling all such divers dogmatic that are accepting the wisdom of "our dear lord and savior JJ" is, best-case, unreasonable.