H2Andy
Contributor
ah.. i think it's not baccarat, dude
i think it's craps
i think it's craps
Why not Fundies?
- Thread starter TSandM
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Essentials = Fundies - GUEH2Andy:lol ... then why did you jump in on it to affirm that Essentials = NAUI?
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
OP
My goodness, look what happens to my thread when I'm not home to shepherd it!
Fundies: Basic diving skills class, taught to recreational or pre-technical divers, offered by GUE. Requires BP/W, long hose, non-split fins. Pass/provisional/fail grading. Pass only required for going on to technical training with GUE.
Essentials: Basic diving skills class, aimed at recreational divers, taught by Breakthru Diving (aka 5thD-X) in Monterey, California. Requires long hose configuration and non-split fins. Workshop format with no pass/fail evaluation. Curriculum is most of fundies, minus the bag shooting and I think the ascent drills.
Elements: Basic diving skills class (buoyancy, trim, propulsion techniques) taught by one of our local NAUI instructors. No equipment requirements. DIR in spirit, but not in equipment.
This reminds me of arguments we have about classical dressage riding. Good diving is good diving -- The ability to control one's position in the water, avoid disturbing the environment through which one moves, and, if diving with a buddy, exhibiting good buddy skills, awareness and communication, as well as proficiency in emergency procedures seem to me to be desirable in anyone who goes underwater. Where you get that kind of education probably doesn't matter nearly as much as that you get it somewhere.
Some people are talented enough to learn it by observation and experience over time. Most of us, I suspect, aren't. Many people have written on this board that a cavern class was one of the best things they ever did for their diving . . . All these ideas are brought up in a cavern class. But to take cavern, you have to go where there are caverns in which to dive. You can take Fundies anywhere.
DIR or not DIR, in my opinion, everybody who dives regularly should learn this stuff. They'd be safer, better buddies, and have more fun, even if they threw away the BP/W and long hose immediately afterward.
Fundies: Basic diving skills class, taught to recreational or pre-technical divers, offered by GUE. Requires BP/W, long hose, non-split fins. Pass/provisional/fail grading. Pass only required for going on to technical training with GUE.
Essentials: Basic diving skills class, aimed at recreational divers, taught by Breakthru Diving (aka 5thD-X) in Monterey, California. Requires long hose configuration and non-split fins. Workshop format with no pass/fail evaluation. Curriculum is most of fundies, minus the bag shooting and I think the ascent drills.
Elements: Basic diving skills class (buoyancy, trim, propulsion techniques) taught by one of our local NAUI instructors. No equipment requirements. DIR in spirit, but not in equipment.
This reminds me of arguments we have about classical dressage riding. Good diving is good diving -- The ability to control one's position in the water, avoid disturbing the environment through which one moves, and, if diving with a buddy, exhibiting good buddy skills, awareness and communication, as well as proficiency in emergency procedures seem to me to be desirable in anyone who goes underwater. Where you get that kind of education probably doesn't matter nearly as much as that you get it somewhere.
Some people are talented enough to learn it by observation and experience over time. Most of us, I suspect, aren't. Many people have written on this board that a cavern class was one of the best things they ever did for their diving . . . All these ideas are brought up in a cavern class. But to take cavern, you have to go where there are caverns in which to dive. You can take Fundies anywhere.
DIR or not DIR, in my opinion, everybody who dives regularly should learn this stuff. They'd be safer, better buddies, and have more fun, even if they threw away the BP/W and long hose immediately afterward.
Walt1957
Contributor
TSandM:
See, that's one of my problems with the whole concept of DIR. If somebody tells me I should have something to make me a better diver, I will evaluate it and possibly do what they say or at least try it out. But when somebody tells me that their (anal) way is the only way to do it ... I tend to be a bit stubborn (and maybe it is the best, I honestly don't think I am in a position to know for sure at this point). But to tell me that I have to buy new equipment just to try their way is really pushing it. I have a back inflated wing type BC, but no, that is not good enough to allow me to evaluate their way.
Essentials sounded like exactly what I was looking for, until I found out that it would cost me coast-coast travel plus hotel and meals to attend that ... might as well buy the BP/W at that rate. Oh well, guess I will keep looking.
Walt1957:
If I remember right, before DIRF was a certification class they didn't require a BP/wing.
Even then (again, from what I remember), you needed a long hose and bungied backup because air sharing is part of the course and they teach a specific method.
Equipment configuration is an integreal part of the methods and procedures that are applied and their effectiveness. That's true in almost everything, not just diving. In the case of the GUE class, one purpose of the course is to prepare students for further GUE training so one goal of the class is to teach the equipment configuration.
I'm not a GUE instructor but off the top of my head a few key attributes of the equipment that directly effect methods would include...
I already mentioned the long hose, however that long hose gets run under a can light on the right or tucked on the belt at the far right. Many BC's just won't allow you to wear the light and a BC that wraps around your front won't have a place to tuck the hose. Even some back inflate BC's would make routing the hose difficult.
The guages need to be on the wrist because it just wouldn't do to have students needing to reach for a consol to check depth or time during ascents.
If I remember right backup light deployment is covered and the deployment method taught assumes that the lights are clipped and bungied to a shoulder strap and so many BC's don't provide a way to rig that up. Sounds silly maybe but it's important when you consider the function of a backup light.
The SPG needs to be on a shorter than typical HP hose (you don't want those unsightly drag inducing loops of hose) and clipped to the left hip d-ring. How many BC's have one of those?
Lets not forget fins. You just won't have much success with some of the fins that are popular.
In regards to the stowing of the SPG and backup lights even the tech bc's with d-rings all over them generally have them in the wrong places. They may give you 18 d-rings but they don't give you the three that you need in the places that you need them.
On the other hand, if you barrow or rent the equipment needed, you can take greatest advantage of what the course teaches and you might jusdt come to see the benefit. Didn't you have to buy, barrow or rent equipment for your OW class? If you used shop equipment, did they give you a choice about equipment configuration?
So to your point that your back inflate BC isn't good enough to let you try their way...it probably isn't even though you may not completely understand why. That's what they are trying to teach you. You may interpret it as their "anal way is the way" but it's more like, that's just what they teach. You can dive whatever configuration you want but they aren't going to teach it to you.
When I stopped teaching, I had students in what was basically a hogarthian configuration. If I ever go back to teaching that's what I'll teach again. I remember once, I had one of my DM's daughter in-law in an OW class. Her husband approached me the first night in the pool and explained that his wife didn't like having anything around her neck so she was going to put her backup someplace else. I explained that, it really needed to be there in order for her to function in my class. LOL so she could put it somplace else but then she needed to do the class somplace else.
If you force me to teach the same stuff that they teach down the street then you may as well go down the street. If you want GUE to teach what the other agencies teach then you may as well just go take a class with one of the other agencies.
BTW, Doppler (Steve Lewis) authored and teaches a similar course but he is a TDI instructor. His equipment requirements may be a bit different so you might want to talk to him. I saw an early out line of his class and it looked like a great class. I've never seen Steve teach but I've heard really good things about his teaching from divers that I trust.
michaelb51
Guest
TSandM:
Agree that the question is now posed complete with semantic basis. I can apply this menu in cogent simulation (imagining I want to take the Fundies class) and say the the reasons not to do so: ...
Sorry, the only enduring reason not to do so is that you do not want to go on to more technical training with GUE. In that event, I see little or no motivation to choose Fundies over Essentials. I'm betting I can buy bag shooting and ascent drill training "by the trick."
Excuses possible to give to explain the decision:
- I'm a recreational diver
- I'm cheap
- I'm afraid of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)
- I may excel among the "rabble"
- I might look an ***** among "a$tronauts"
- I don't have the available time to work on a "pass" and...
- I am unprepared to accept a "fail"
- My buddy told me that's a cult
- If I don't challenge myself, I drown.
Walt1957,
I want to add something else. My wife and I started out with the junk that you usually see in any dive shop. We ended up in Zeagle rangers and Zeagle techs. We did our first trech class with a Zeagle sales rep so we were all using that stuff and out equipment was a mess. Later we ended up with a different instructor and he really tried to help us get it all straightened out. He asked if we had ever thought of trying a simple BP/wing. Being Zeagle dealers at the time we purchased tech packs and still ran into snags. He kept asking the same plate/wing question and finally we broke down and got some. Badaboombadabing everything just fell into place as slick as you please and we never went back to diving anything else for any kind of diving. I was really determined to make something else work and that cost me many times what just getting a plate and wing would have cost. We still have a garage full of stuff that we view as not worth using so if your really determined to try more halfway measures I might be able to make you some great deals. LOL
You really ought to give it a shot.
I want to add something else. My wife and I started out with the junk that you usually see in any dive shop. We ended up in Zeagle rangers and Zeagle techs. We did our first trech class with a Zeagle sales rep so we were all using that stuff and out equipment was a mess. Later we ended up with a different instructor and he really tried to help us get it all straightened out. He asked if we had ever thought of trying a simple BP/wing. Being Zeagle dealers at the time we purchased tech packs and still ran into snags. He kept asking the same plate/wing question and finally we broke down and got some. Badaboombadabing everything just fell into place as slick as you please and we never went back to diving anything else for any kind of diving. I was really determined to make something else work and that cost me many times what just getting a plate and wing would have cost. We still have a garage full of stuff that we view as not worth using so if your really determined to try more halfway measures I might be able to make you some great deals. LOL
You really ought to give it a shot.
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I suspect if you looked around the country you'd find dozens ... if not hundreds ... of instructors whose teaching reflects some, if not all, of these principles at the recreational level. After all, GUE didn't invent any of this stuff (nor do they claim to).MikeFerrara:
I can think of a half-dozen local instructors who include all or part of what you can learn in Fundies in their OW, AOW, or other recreational level classes. What you can't learn there you can pick up in workshops.
I would find it hard to believe that the Puget Sound area is unique in that respect. I've seen some great course descriptions just from instructors who post on ScubaBoard ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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