GUE Open Water class documentary

[ElGaucho]

I try to get my students to achieve this sort of proficiency (in terms of water comfort, without the whole knowledge or the team aspect). But the only way I can even come a bit close is to get them to dive with me after the course. I always keep teaching ... mentoring is what I would call it. I incorporate a lot of extra stuff, not as performance requirements, but as guidelines of things they should strive for. Modified frog and flutter, horizontal trim, good buoyancy control, buddy awareness. It is hard, because many people just ... don´t really care. But when I get students that want to continue improving, it is very rewarding. But then I don´t teach for a living, nor do I do more than 3 or 4 OW courses a month, so I can stretch the time I invest in them. It is definetively not a 10 day course by any stretch, it is actually a 4 day diving course, and maybe 3 or 4 days of theory.

The video gave some ideas of how to go about teaching more stuff in dry land (and since Im landlocked, it makes sense), getting students to understand some of the concepts outside of the water. I would love to teach a GUE Rec 1 course. But I would find very few takers at all. I find it hard to get people to take the extremely "friendly" PADI course. I can´t imagine anyone commiting to Rec 1 timeframe ... forget about the cost.

But it is all a learning experience for me, see how can I "push" to teach better scuba divers. Right now I am diving in Coz with 3 recently certified students. They have been improving day in and day out. Of course I mentor them every day, and I can clearly see the results. Today i will take my camera down and do a bit of video recording so they can see themselves in the afternoon. I think that video is a great educational tool that GUE encourages and other agencies should at least, suggest. GUE has so many things "right", but it feels so realistically outside of the scope of the truly commited. As an instructor, I feel I need to look up to agencies like GUE and try to reach their level of proficiency, by keeping the entry bar open to more people. I hope in time I can find a nice in between.

 

[gsk3]

There are (were) none listed there.

Bob Sherwood teaches regularly at Dutch Springs, which is likely the closest training location to NYC anyway. Give him a call and have a chat. I'm also happy to meet up and dive as well. Drop me a PM.

 

[johnkendall]

There are (were) none listed there.

There are 16 GUE instructors in the US listed as able to teach Rec 1. If you get in touch with any of them I am certain that they will arrange a class.

HTH
John

 

[beanojones]

Well having watched it, I have to say I am far less eager to take a GUE course. An instructor who puts his back to the sun when teaching on the surface simply is not aware enough to be a good instructor of anything, because he is thinking of all the important things he has to say, and completely forgetting about the students.

And that seems to be how he built the course: He has important things to say, and that's all that matters, dammit. And frankly it shows; his divers look uncomfortable, and jerky all the time, right to the end. The only difference between the Bad divers in the typical OW at the beginning and his divers at the end is that the discomfort is happening at a different place in the water column.

 

[ElGaucho]

Really? I can´t believe you are being serious. As a side note, in photography (and videography in this case), we look for backlit situations for lighting purposes. The video is very well shot, and lit, and hence it really looks professional. To achieve that look, it is evident that the look of the film takes priority over instructional awareness in this video. For a 10 day course I believe the students show very good progression. Nobody says they will come out as the "perfect diver", but I was able to see as TSandM commented, a very good improvement from zero to OW diver.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

10 days is still not the trigger for learning to dive, it takes time to let knowledge sink in and although many can do well, some will already be set after a few days. I do agree that everything should be in the class to be a confident diver.

On another note the divers on there side of the world are divers that are impressive to me, they had 161 santas show up for a dive for a charity event.

Here in america you have to give away prizes for divers to show up.

When my travels over there was a new adventure, the wreck and caver's I dove with were way ahead in dive technique, so myself I had more different look on dive gear and accomplished deep caves and wrecks.

Now here in seattle the gue has a dive set up to practice the team diving that I think laura james has founded many years ago and is still goin on now with other divers and that to me is the most way to improve in diving and it is only yourself that has the choice to improve, there is no cost you show up and dive. It is the closest thing I have seen to how the dive clubs operate in Europe.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Beano does admit to lacks common sense. of course beano has pointed out that teaching and filming should not go together. You can do it but not worry so much on vid quality.

 

[Scubagolf]

Very nice video and an excellent course to the extent prospective divers would opt for it. I doubt many will because of the time + expense commitment. Say what you want about the major cert agencies' standards/curriculum for OW, but it does allow new divers to enter the sport in relatively large numbers with the option of progressing thru OW>AOW>Rescue.

 

[TSandM]

Beano, thank you for your comment about the position of the sun. It would never occur to me to worry about it . . . of course, we rarely squint in the Pacific Northwest.

But I'm intrigued with your criticism of the divers as "jerky". At the end, I do see the occasional brief balance loss, but overall, they appear very fluid to me. Do you have any video of your students at the same stage of development (end of AOW, say) to show me what you would like to see in preference?

 

[Blue Sparkle]

The 'hidden' cost in GUE courses is usually the travel expense needed to take the course.

That can be true, especially in certain areas (where lodging, etc. are more expensive). On the other hand, I traveled to the Keys and back to take OW*; then made another trip to take AOW; and then a third trip to take a specialty class - and I had still not learned all that material. (I don't think it would have been practical/possible to take all three of those classes on one trip, because they are not set up that way, skills-wise. The skill level at end of the OW class really necessitated me to dive and improve on my own before taking the next ones.)

I suppose if I lived right near dive training that would have mitigated the expenses - but then the same could be said for a GUE class, since they seem to be offered in most "good" diving areas (?).

I do appreciate that many people couldn't or wouldn't want to pay $1000 and/or be that "serious." To me it looks like a crazy bargain.

Blue Sparkle

*Actually I took my first OW class within 40 miles of where I live; but I was no-where near ready to dive after that, so I re-took it some years later in Florida.