Why Recreational Triox ??

[MHK]

I'll offer this...



As long as other agencies stick to their guns in the opinion that OW dievrs don't need skill and good technique (and at least one agency has more or less said so more than once publically) and sends them off into the diving world without that skill, their students are not going to look good when there's some around to compare them to.

When you get into the tech and especially the cave communities, things get a little more even but in recreational diving the difference ls like night and day.

Mike,

I have a theory about this, as I've offered many times, but my theory is that based on the law of primacy most OW students are trained to a bare bone basic minimum. They are planted on their knees, they do a few skills over the weekend wonder classes and then are sent off with a c-card as a "license to learn" to dive. Some will go onto a AOW class and, in all candor, no skill(s) are empasized in terms of balance, trim, bouyancy et. al so what happens is they progress in terms of getting c-cards but not really addressing fundamental issues like balance, trim & bouyancy, so in terms of recreational diving they dive the way they dive. and never know any differently.

Enter a diver that now decides to do cave diving or technical diving, most then believe that they are doing a new thing and thus are cognizant that they now need a different skill set because of a "new" environment. Therein lies the difference, and therein is why JJ decided that the DIR-F class needed to be a pre-requisite to advanced training. Our thinking is that it's a shame that divers approach it as if it were two different types of diving [ absent the obvious additional training requirements] because we believe divers at every level should have the core foundation of balance, trim and bouyancy and they shouldn't be "new" skills attainable by tech or cave divers. That's a generic overview, and obviously there are exceptions as there are divers that have no desire to ever see a cave or do tech diving and have great skills, but I'm speaking to a generic observation..

Regards

 

[MHK]

There was no name calling in my post. Reread my post Genesis. It was a challenge to see if you are man enough to check your ego. In the process, you might actually learn something. If you don't learn something, then you wouldn't be out the money for the course.

.

Dan,

It's a generous offer, but as you will recall from your classes with us, Andrew & I have a policy that says if anyone takes our classes and can honestly say at the end of the class that they didn't learn anything that we'll refund their money. To date no one has ever asked for a refund, but that policy applies to everyone, including Genesis. In terms of offering a class to Genesis, in all candor, I don't believe GUE training is for him. As you know we welcome questions and we invite students to challenge us on every point we make in class. In fact, we start every class off by saying that the WHY's are more important then the HOW's. However, what I have no interest in doing is convincing someone that they need our training. We offer what we offer, we spend countless hours explaining our training methodology on various scuba forums, and to the best of my ability I've tried to answer Genesis' questions but have fallen short of what he is seeking in terms of responses. I accept that I can't help him, and I'm not about to start chasing students to try to convince him that he needs our classes.

I'm comfortable that most get what we are trying to accomplish, most who ask questions seem to accept that we adequately address the point(s), but there are a select few that aren't satisified so I do what I can and then wish them the best of luck. Genesis, for me, falls into such a category. I've tried my best to answer his questions, and in his view I haven't satisfied his concerns. I accept that and have long maintained that what we offer isn't for everyone.

Regards

 

[DeepScuba]

MHK:

In response to your 12:34 post above.....

I am/was (initially) a product (I would say typical) of PADI.

I agree it's a "basic" course, with barebones teaching is most cases.

I think as a "starter" course it's at least acceptable. The fact that many many "starter" divers don't die attest to some amount of competancy. Yes, a basic amount only.

GUE, if my understanding is correct doesn't certify OW divers, right? they only take them from after "basic OW" and go for there, correct?

If true, we can't compare any GUE course to, nor condemn any OW course, unless GUE starts to certify divers.

We can only start "comparing" on certs AFTER OW.

I will agree, on certs after OW, PADI at least STILL does not do what GUE does, as far as making "good" divers (Trim, special attn to bouyancy etc).

You say that we then learn a new skill set for "technical" training.

Well, yes and no.

The fact is, as you point out, they don't know what they don't know. Rec divers, unless they take a GUE course OR a technical training course either never know how poor their skill set is, OR they trip across the "proper" skill set in the course of diving over the years.

I guess JJ's DIRF course is just separate from GUE's other courses which is different to other Tech training in the fact that, say TDI, even though it MAY not be mandated in the course outline (I can't remember), are learning the "DIR-F of TDI" WITHIN our first set of Tech training courses. (Meaning correct trim, better buoyancy, fin kick styles, lift bags, SAC's blah blah blah etc).

What i am saying, for one, is, that most divers don't knwo what they don't know. They either "get it" in 1 of three ways.

1.) Trip over after year of diving and learning, talk to others, watching other etc

2.) Take a GUE class

3.) Take a XXXX Tech training course (EG: TDI).

Either way, their first exposure to it is AFTER they decide to walk away from the "once a year carribbean diver mode", and decide to actually start to become a real diver.

Either way, the "real" divers learn it regardless of the training association.

Not EXACTLY the same outline of skill sets, but no-one ever said that one course from any agency is EXACTLY the same as teh other, un;less of course you have only a dozen instructors. It would be obvious that after an association had hundreds of instructors, I would guarantee that not all of them could humanly possibly teach the EXACT same thing.

GUE is not PADI (thank goodness)

And TDI (To name a tech agency) is not PADI

Different birds all together.

Just a thought.

 

[Big-t-2538]

In fact, we start every class off by saying that the WHY's are more important then the HOW's.

Lies Lies Lies.....

You start each class with "What is the most important element in SCUBA Diving?"....to which I immediately responded in KY with "Having Fun"....and you even had a slide to prove it wink

But yeah...then you got into the Why & How

 

[MHK]

I also don't understand the value of an instructor essentially kicking everyones butt in a class (no matter how good he thinks he is.) The objective is to teach and intimidating your students is a poor way to accomplish that. The fact that that type of instruction is tolerated really does not make we want to attend a GUE class.

Let me speak to this point because sometimes in cyberspace some concepts are more difficult to communicate then others and may not necessarily paint a true picture of the facts.

Our training is modeled after the airline industry pilot training programs. We "simulate" failures such as engine failure, landing gear failures and so forth and use a simulated environment. For example, do you think the captain of the last flight you were on would be experiencing an engine failure for the first time with a plane full of passengers?? No, they simulate in training time and again and if the captains screws up, they reset the simulator, let him learn from his mistake and try again.

We do the same thing. We break our dives up into 3 phases:

1) Fundamental;
2) Critical skills; and
3) Experience phase dives

During the first few dives of the class we are teaching and assessing "fundamentals" skills like trim, balance and buoyancy to make sure the diver has built upon the skills taught in the DIR-F class. Assuming a student has successfully progressed we then move into the "critical" skill dives of the class in a simulated environment. These dives take place in 20' and we simulate critical skills that could happen during a dive; lost mask, valve failures, OOA's, toxing diver, unconscious diver etc... This is all done in 20' so if the student screws up, we "reset" the simulator bring him to the surface, de-brief and then go back to 20'. This allows us to create a real life scenario, as opposed to planting a student on their knees doing mask R&R's or valve drills etc.. Assuming the students successfully completes both the fundamental phase and then the critical skill phase we then take them to the "experience" phase, which is to say that we do the deep dives and allow the students to "experience" the mix at depth and the instructors don't do anything in terms of simulated failures at depth as that would create unecessary risk.. I may add that all of these skills are video taped for thorough review later with the students..

That is our training philosophy, and most everyone that have taken our classes appreciated this approach, and I suspect if you survey those that have actually been in the class versus those that interpret what they think we do based upon information gleemed off a scuba forum, you would hear, and conclude, that we do NOT unecessarily harrass our students..

Hope that clarifies the point..

 

[DeepScuba]

MHK:

Thanks for the info Re DIR-F.

TO further enforce my previous post.

At TDI the same "skill set" is taught, the same way I might add (Drills at 20ft specifically) with the exception of Videoing (Which I think is a grand idea. I have done videoing, and ooccassionally get "poor" divers on tape and we discuss it later, but that's originally not the intent of the videoing I have done, but it certainly could be) We also don't do rescueing of a diver (Mainly because, right or wrong we all have, as prerequsites a Rescue course, but again, I feel re-inforcing it would be a good idea).

SO I guess, in TDI we do Phases 1, 2 and 3 of DIRF with minor exceptions WITHIN another course.

 

[kalvyn]

<snip>

That is our training philosophy, and most everyone that have taken our classes appreciated this approach, and I suspect if you survey those that have actually been in the class versus those that interpret what they think we do based upon information gleemed off a scuba forum, you would hear, and conclude, that we do NOT unecessarily harrass our students..

I can personally attest to this fact. When I did my fundys last April, the class dives were the first dives I had done after an "exciting" (in the bad sense) dive at at Titlow the week before. Well, I started feeling "jumpy" about 20 minutes into the first class dive and signaled to one of the instructors, who then came up with me to the surface. I told him the story and what I was feeling. We talked about it for a while and then dropped back down to rejoin the rest of the class. He stuck with or near me the rest of the day and I started feeling a lot better (getting back on the horse, so to speak). When it came time to do mask removal the first day I declined, with no retribution from the instructors.

I did do mask r&r on the last two dives the next day, quite a few times. It was the one skill I still need the most work on, quite honestly.

Anyway, MHK is exactly correct. I was not harrassed at ALL for refusing to do a skill at first.

Jimmie

 

[ERP]

ERP:
What was the sticking point for you in Triox class?

It was a combination of things, I was diving doubles with only 3 prior doubles dives, and my buddy was new to doubles also.

Both of us were having problems adjusting and we just couldn't get it together in the timeframe.

 

[-hh]

MHK:

Thanks for the info Re DIR-F.

TO further enforce my previous post.

At TDI the same "skill set" is taught, the same way I might add (Drills at 20ft specifically) with the exception...So I guess, in TDI we do Phases 1, 2 and 3 of DIRF with minor exceptions WITHIN another course.

Okay, now that we have DIR-F and equivalents discussed, we can get back on-topic of discussing the merits of the Rec Triox class.


-hh

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Okay, now that we have DIR-F and equivalents discussed, we can get back on-topic of discussing the merits of the Rec Triox class.

Or in the interest of equal time...discuss the lack of merits of the Rec Triox class.

Sorry but after 19 pages of arguing I don't see the point of the class other than a revenue source for the training agency involved. Nor do I see the need for recreational triox in the real world. The envelop between depths where EAN or air works and where a full blown trimix course and normoxix trimix is required is narrow is just too narrow for me to see the usefulness of recreational triox.