The most ridiculously overstaffed Fundies class ever taught . . .

[TSandM]

Well, the star of the day today was DaleC, who had wanted a back kick out of this experience if he got nothing else at all . . . and after today's dives, and a little one-on-one with guy, he not only produced an effective back kick, but Guy got it on video and we all got to see it.

Today could not have been a more beautiful day. It was cold this morning, very cold; I was shivering before we got to doing the land drills, which got moved into the garage, which was marginally warmer. I absolutely loathe leaving thermal units in the parking lot, or driveway, or garage; diving in cold water is hard enough without getting cold before you do it. I would have gotten into my undergarments almost immediately, had my truck not made an unscheduled trip back to the motel without me but with all my non tank attached dive gear.

There are a few changes to the drills, which are refinements but not substantive. Nonetheless, ten years of doing them one way made it extremely difficult to do it another, even when the changes were quite minor. I did a nice job of embarrassing myself during the garage drills (and eventually managed to remember to make the same mistakes at least once in the water). Learning a new skill takes a bit of repetition, but changing an old one takes a lot more!

Once we were absolutely sure that no one would give an "okay" sign at the wrong point in an S-drill, we repaired to the bay again. We were not as lucky as yesterday, and by the time I got there, the lot parking was gone. Luckily, there was on-street parking, and Dale and I were parked together, with Ian just on the other side of the road, so we were able to avoid being scolded for gearing up in insufficient proximity. All joking aside, there really IS a sense of team that builds in these classes, and we were helping one another with harnesses and gloves and hood zippers, and it all felt rather cozy, familiar, and pleasant. The bright sunshine probably helped, too.

We were working in the water today mostly with Alex, Koos and Guy today, with Alex the leader. He does a good job, staying very much on task and aware of time. The first dive was Basic 5 and Ian's double tank valve drill. Our descent was not the Three Stooges event that yesterday's had been, and I dearly love floating down like a leaf through the water in perfect consonance with the rest of my team. We managed to arrange ourselves on the line and wait in good order for the demonstrations, which were done in crisp and accurate style by Liz. When it was my turn, I fumbled through trying to remember that there is a prescribed hand for everything nowadays (and the reasons make sense, it's just hard for me to change), and I of course have never liked removing my mask in cold water, and I don't like it any more today than I ever did. PLEASE just rip the thing off my face, so I don't have to deal with the horrible anticipation of the face freeze! The reality is never as bad as I think it is going to be. The other thing that fascinates me is why a mask which fits perfectly if installed correctly at first, will NEVER EVER EVER stop leaking once it has been flooded or removed, no matter how carefully you resettle it.

Once everyone had had a chance to demonstrate that cold water on their face was not going to cause panic, we watched Ian march through his valve drill, and then we went back to the uplink and muddled through a min deco ascent. Ascents are one of the things that never starts out well in these classes, and this morning's was far better than yesterdays, and the afternoon dive was better yet again. I don't understand quite how people can learn so fast, with so little interim practice, but I've seen it happen in enough of these classes to know this exists, and is reproducible.

On the surface, we began the dratted GUE interminable in-the-water-while-you-are-shivering debrief. I know the theory behind it -- resting quietly on the surface for a while after a dive is a good strategy with respect to decompression. But a half hour of pre-dive stuff, followed by most of an hour of sitting still and doing not much, followed by 15 minutes of talking on the surface, is a recipe for some pretty impressive shivering on my part. I was delighted that Guy, before the second dive, talked about the fact that much of the pre-dive stuff can be done on land, thus avoiding the necessity for prolonged in-water talking and gear checking. In the summer, I can't wait to get in the water, but in the winter, my dives are all limited by thermal units, and I prefer not to spend them on administrative tasks.

We came out of the water into bright sunshine, which had at least the illusion of warmth. I decided not to swap out my tanks, given the remaining pressure, so I could wander around and talk, and make the obligatory inter-dive trip to the water. Everyone had the elegance not to notice.

We had our briefing on the second dive, which was to be S-drills and valve drills for all. Out we went, and drifted like autumn leaves down the upline, and arranged ourselves in good order facing Alex and Koos, who were to demonstrate the drills. We then attempted to arrange ourselves in a triangle at the end of the line, but the current was unhelpful. Once a buddy pair was deeply engaged in the engrossing process of sharing gas, it was pretty much beyond them to maintain position, and there was a frequent need to reset. I wish the water would schedule its movement outside of the class hours, honestly; Fundies is hard enough. With the exception of having to process quite consciously which hand did what, I thought I more or less marched through the drills, until I saw the video and gazed, horrified, at the remnants of what used to be pretty decent trim. All dives buddies in the near future are going to be asked to whack me upside the head if my knees drop. Interestingly, most folks have pretty good trim until task-loaded; I apparently have godawful trim UNTIL task loaded. Go figure.

At any rate, this dive was kind of fun, because I managed to run out of gas on it THREE TIMES. Now, there are lots of people who have run out of gas, and actually quite a few who have lived to tell about it, but I doubt many have done it three times in one dive. The second time was to surprise and harass Ian, who was doing so well with his skills that the instructors felt like throwing him a little extra challenge, and the third time was to annoy me, because I "ran out of gas" coincidentally with having my primary light fail, so I had to swim to my buddy and yank on his wing to tell him I needed gas. To his credit, by the time he had turned enough to see it was me, he already had his primary reg in his hand -- it was very neatly managed.

During this portion of the dive, Dale had been taken aside by Guy for specific back-kick work, which I did not know. I knew he had gone away with an instructor but not where, or what they were doing. The coaching paid off beautifully, since we watched video of a definite, effective back-kick during the evening debrief. All I knew was that they were doing something on the bottom that was resulting in our having to do our minimum deco ascent in a cloud of bubbles, which are surprisingly disorienting. But although not accurate, our ascent was precise, and it was actually fun in a Lawrence Welk sort of way.

Out of the water and out of the gear, we ran back to the classroom for the last of the academic modules. I really enjoyed the last section, which beautifully summarized how the various parts of the system lay out parameters within which we may safely dive and enjoy ourselves. I had never conceptualized GUE in quite that fashion, and I really liked the imagery and metaphors.

Tonight, the students gathered over pizza and beer to do the final exam, which is ostensibly an intellectual exercise, but is actually, as given, a powerful team-building experience. And here I am, staying up way too late to tell you guys about it (and I now owe Guy a beer).

---------- Post added February 22nd, 2015 at 07:11 AM ----------

I forgot to mention, in the late-night recap, that some of the most fortunate people in this class yesterday were the ones who were struggling, because they spent essentially the whole day getting one-on-one coaching from instructor interns, under the benign but observant gaze of Joakim. I have not seen them in the water again, but the report from the staff (and last night, from the students in question) was that enormous progress was made. How many of us, who have struggled to learn some of these things, would have loved to have gotten an entire day of personalized instruction from people of that caliber?

 

[Ayisha]

Such an honest and in-depth report. Thanks for taking the time.

I have to say that I finally learned how to do the back kick in shallow water without fins on. Then when I managed that, we moved on to shallow water with fins on. With immediate feedback from the instructor, and with him at times manipulating my feet/fins so that I would feel how it should feel when I do the back kick, I was finally able to do it. Then with full gear in deeper water and back to shallow water with full gear to refine my back kick and make it more efficient, and I was really going somewhere. I also learned the frog kick and modified frog kick in shallow water without fins, finally getting fairly proficient at it through the same process, but nowhere near as challenging as the back kick for me. I learned the flutter kick and modified flutter kick in shallow water mid-water in full gear, again with lots of feedback, but learned a bit easier than the back kick.

The dedication, patience, and often one-on-one coaching by the GUE instructors, interns, and mentors is phenomenal. Keep up the excellent work!

 

[TSandM]

Well, today was the last day of class. It began with me coming down from the motel room to find a quarter inch of ice on all the windows of my truck, and my buddy Ryan busily scraping them off for me. Team diving begins long before you reach the water . . . And when we got to the classroom, it was clear that SOMEBODY had read my account of yesterday, because we did our briefing and field drills in the warm house, rather than the cold garage. Of course, this morning, I had been smart enough to wear my base layer and undergarment to class, so for probably one of the few times in my life, I was truly a bit TOO warm.

Today's field drill skill was bag shooting. As I had really kind of forgotten, the Fundies bag shooting drill starts with the SMB and spool not assembled. There is a precise sequence for stowing the light and getting the bag out, preparing it and shooting it. I was actually counting the steps in my head in the car on the way home, and lost track at 18 . . . more than 18 separate steps, each of which has a precise way it is to be done, and unfortunately, I learned some of those steps very differently from the way they are done now. I knew during the field drill that I was going to have problems with that, and in fact, when it came time to do the skill underwater, I got halfway through it and found all the equipment in my hands with me looking at it all and asking myself, "Now, which hand am I supposed to have what in?". And of course, I reverted to what I knew, even though I THOUGHT I was doing the new procedure, and when we surfaced from that drill, I saw the other, military side of Guy Shockey, as I got dressed down for not having met expectations.

And that's an important point. The class begins with few or none. Most students are not expected to come into this class with a strong start -- it is simply too different from what they have been asked to do before. Unless they have had some solid mentoring or prior instruction (i.e. the Primer class), they are going to flounder on the first day. Expectations begin to build as the class proceeds, though. One of our number got befuddled and asked a question about the order of things in the pre-dive procedures, and was told that was a surprising question, as we had been doing those things every day, and the SOPs were available on line for study. I got barked at for a sloppy bag shoot, because Guy very reasonably had expectations that I should be able to do better than I did. The instructional staff puts an ENORMOUS effort into these classes -- but they expect to be matched with an enormous effort on the part of the students, and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Again, though, I was struck with the simply incredibly improvement in skills that is possible in a four day class, with only three days of diving. From our initial diver puddle descent on Day 1, we went to very nice, coordinated descents and ascents today (albeit a bit slow). From having little or no sense of positioning or travel strategy at the beginning, we became a reasonably orderly team of three, making good decisions about who to put where. We were three individual divers in the water on Day 1; we were a nascent team by today, and it really, really felt good.

Which brings up one of my own personal epiphanies from the class, which is that I don't dive enough with these people. I've been doing too much teaching and too little diving. My own personal skills have degraded, and I need to challenge myself more often to step up to the bar. I know where it is, and I have reached it, but skills you don't practice deteriorate. In addition, one of the lessons from this class is that strong teams reinforce each other; weak teams bring down the capacity of all the members. The better we all got, the better we helped one another to be. I need to take a little time to do this for myself.

And it won't be hard to do. GUE divers are clearly herd animals; we started with 7 staff, but by today, we had picked up at least three more divers (I think) who just came to hang out and help where they could. Which brings up another point I really need to make, which is that Guy has built an amazing setup for teaching classes up there in BC. The classroom is large and comfortable (sometimes too comfortable for me, in the afternoons). The fill station is on site, and for us, with all the "helpers" doing fills, the logistics were incredibly simple. The dive site really is about five minutes from the house, so the class loses very, very little time in travel. The motel where we stayed was 15 minutes away, and although old and genteely shabby, was very comfortable, and quite close to grocery stores, gas stations, the liquor store, and most importantly, Starbucks. Logistics are really an important part of these classes, because if they are unfavorable, it contributes to long and tiring days. Here, we could maximize efficiency and effective use of time, and it helped.

The one thing I would say is that anybody taking a class from Guy needs a p-valve, though. There are no facilities at the dive site, or near the dive site. Thank you, Heleen!

I'm sure there is a great deal more that I could say, but I'll close with this: The Fundies class I loved and learned from ten years ago has grown up, and gotten wonderfully better. Watching the instructional process as the interns are being developed impressed me that the meticulousness and attention to detail in instructor development is no different from that in the classes I have taken. The bar for the teachers is high, and they get a lot of help to meet it. Every student in this class, I think, came away the better for having been there, and also energized and eager to continue to develop. And having made a bunch of wonderful friends to help them get that done.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience Lynne. I enjoyed reading that.

 

[DaleC]

Great write up Lynne

I'm back from fundies and totally bagged, but in a good way. I set off Wed. at 4pm and it's 12am Sun. so I will begin my report tomorrow. I'm hoping I can give my perspective from three angles: What happened, What I felt internally as it was happening, and some of the broader take away's that I received from the experience. Probably the most boring will be "what happened" as many already know what goes on during fundies. "How I felt" may help others who are going to take the course in the future and the "take away's" might shed some light on the reality vs perception of GUE training that exist (at least it did for me).

I really do have to take my hat off to Guy, Koos, Jo and Alex, Liz, Dave and the rest of the GUE community that came out to help. A lot of time and effort was put into making this event happen and while it was work there was a real sense of enjoyment from both staff and students (though, as our fellow student Rick might ask, "How exactly do you define enjoyment?"

 

[Ryan Kluczynski]

OK, now that I have sufficient rest and the strength to move my arms again, I thought I would contribute my thoughts on the course while events are still fresh. I am not normally short on words for these kind of things so grab a beer now if you need to. Here we go...

I am still trying to wrap my head around what has transpired the previous four days but all I can say for certain is that it was overwhelmingly positive and I am sitting here typing away with a smile on my face wishing I could go practice MORE today. My friend John is the one that plugged me into all of this (GUE) and Guy's incredibly generous offer and I am not sure I'll ever be able to ever fully repay them both for the path I am now on. To say the last four days has been eye opening to me is a gross understatement.

I have always felt that with diving, it behooves the diver to find out what they don't know and hopefully, try and gain a bit of reliable knowledge on the way to keep themselves safe. Like the saying goes, 'You don't know what you don't know' and that was driven home hard for me through the pre-reading and the various lectures we sat through. I was never super thrilled with the imparted information and training I received from my previous dive training courses and after attending a Fundamentals course, I honestly feel the lack of knowledge and skills I was given made it borderline criminal.

All of the classroom materials were presented very professionally but still in a fun and easy to digest manner. Real world experiences readily punctuated the various modules we covered and transformed the 'theory' of why you do something into an easily understood example of what happens when you don't. I certainly learned this first hand a few times over my training dives and the 'Aha!' moments for me were numerous. It was incredibly rewarding to be able to put the learned material into a practical application and just further reinforced the fact the material we were learning was really valid.

Validation also works two ways – it can show you when something is working and when something doesn't. Enter the 'Show Me' dive on Day 2. This was the first time we all hit the water together and the instructor cadre had a chance to see where everyone's skill level was at and, if we could demonstrate the expected levels of trim and buoyancy that was thoroughly covered the day before. Now, I had been warned that a Fundamentals class will take who you think you are as a diver, break you down, and rebuild you (hopefully...) into a much more capable diver. If you have an ego leave it on shore. If you cannot take honest, helpful feedback, don't take this class. If you can not objectively look at your own performance and see your own short comings, stay at home. If you are not willing to put forth real effort to listening and improving then you are wasting your time and the instructor's as well. The water does not lie.

After this dive any illusions I had about thinking I was a decent, not great, but decent diver were gone. Guy often used this analogy in class about building the 'sandbox'. A safe environment to train in, with safe parameters, that could be expanded on. Well, I was the cat turd in Guy's sandbox. This was the hardest diving I have ever done and all in just 30ft of water. But as he stated, everyone has a starting point somewhere along the continuum to becoming Uber Elite Diver and my starting point was well, right from square one. I was also not alone in this predicament. The only real positive I can say is that I didn't drown. Oh, and I have a solid flutter kick. But from this, we can get stronger!

Guy, demonstrating some amazing leadership, was able to rapidly adjust the training regimen to tailor it to meet the individual needs of the students. Half the class was able to go on and train together in a group while the other half of us were able have 1 on 1 instruction over the next two days. Liz became my personal dive mentor and the benefits I was able to reap from that over the next couple of day was huge. I owe a lot of my successes and growth over those last two days to Guy's foresight and Liz's fantastic mentoring.

But there is another element to my success and those of my peers that cannot be understated and that is the overwhelming desire for all of the instructors to see us succeed. Guy, Koos, Joe, Liz, Alex, Dave, and Dennis were constantly encouraging us, sharing little gems of dive wisdom, and celebrated our victories with us every step of the way. We as students also celebrated our successes and were an incredible support group for one another. As Lynne had mentioned, other GUE divers just showed up to pitch in and be a dive buddy for some of our dives just so they could help out... To see so many people share their personal experiences and struggles with you was reassuring in the least. I don't know how many times I heard 'Hey, I was EXACTLY like that when I started too, don't worry – you will get there.' It was incredibly selfless and an amazing thing to be a part of. I have been in the military for the last 15 years and a LEO for 3 1/2 and this sense of camaraderie and 'team' is right on par with those and is a powerful force to have on your side.


So here I am, still processing things a bit but very, very motivated. I am not where I want to be yet but am also not far off. But the best feeling is I know I am not alone and have a stellar group I can dive with anytime.

 

[DaleC]

Good stuff Ryan!

As some know, this exercise really started last year and even before that in the many discussions Lynne, other GUE/DIR divers and I have had over the years on the board. Often we have debated specific aspects of the regime and/or how applicable training and courses would be to the average recreational diver. Guy, seeing some of these debates, made his incredible offer to host a Fundies course for myself, Lynne and several others so we could all experience GUE training together and, going forward, debate from at least an informed opinion.

I should also add that what I am writing is my perception of events. If I ascribe something to someone that they did not intend please feel free to correct me.

I have never thought that the GUE regime was negative in itself, though I may have questioned a specific point or two (or three) along the way. In many ways I have admired the thoughtfulness put into the concepts, the emphasis on training and and the intelligence brought to the table. What I have questioned is how applicable this all is in the general recreational realm. For those who want to meld into the GUE community I could only see good but, for myself, I enjoy certain ways of diving that don't "fit" and have many dive friends that I wouldn't want to abandon for the sake of joining another community.

That was my mindset before class, someone who appreciated the GUE regime for what it was but questioned it's value to the average Joe/Jane diver. As a result Lynne and I did the course in single tanks as though we were rec divers and I intentionally didn't practice the skills so that I would have the experience (or lack there of) of someone new to GUE training.

The night before the class I recognized in myself a feeling/fear creeping in that this might turn into an antagonistic event.. a clash of ideologies as it were. I valued the gesture Guy was making by offering his services so I wanted to make sure I approached the course from an honest and willing perspective. As Ryan said above, ego can play havoc in this course in a lot of ways (as we all saw). So I worked that evening on getting my mind right. This may seem an odd point to discuss but I know, for myself, that the small negative feelings I have inside generally manifest themselves externally in some way if I don't deal with them as they develop. Some may use self talk, prayer, affirmations etc... whatever you call it, and I think divers going into Fundies should at least be aware that they are probably going to experience some emotional turmoil and have a strategy for coping with it. It is a challenging experience, though most of the conflict is self imposed (the staff was overwhelmingly positive). I also find that when I feel something negative I can diffuse that feeling by vocalizing it to someone, which I also did throughout the course.

The morning of day 1 we all met and introductions were made and it was apparent that everyone was making their best efforts to create a friendly atmosphere. Guy began by describing the course, how it would be delivered, and what the expectations were. This was a good thing as it set tangible benchmarks and described the how, not just the what. He told us he wanted to provide time to learn, time to assimilate, and time to decompress. While the mood was consistently up beat he also told us the staff would provide honest feedback to help us learn and grow and that the emphasis was on us to make the effort - if we did that he would do his part to help us get there. Fundies was described as a process of showing us where we were at, where we needed to go, and the road map to get there. As well there would be a community to help us along the way and it was easy to see that mentoring all along the spectrum is an important part of GUE training. The instructors sought each others opinions, they helped and corrected the intern teaching staff and all of them helped us. You could see this was a general "way of being" and not just pretense for the course.

As we worked our way through the day my concern of clashing ideologies dissipated. This was partly due to the friendly atmosphere in general and partly due to the instructors approach to answering certain questions. Several times when a prickly question was asked, instead of responding with a dogmatic answer, they would provide a more balanced and realistic POV. The thought process behind the GUE choice was given but it was recognized that some things are important to team cohesion and some things are really personal preference. They seemed far more relaxed with knowing what those differences were than is often transmitted here on the forums, where we argue about brass vs SS snap bolts. This brings up an interesting exchange that I like to call "the dingle ball deflection".

Later in the day we were going over equipment and when it came to the wing it was shown to remove the dingle ball from the butt dump OPV. Ah Hah! I balked at this and stated that I would not remove mine as I viewed the entanglement hazard far less likely than the hazard presented by not being able to dump gas when I needed to with thick gloves. Instead of insisting on his approach, Guy said: that's ok.. you have obviously done a risk analysis and made that decision. Zing! Someone suggested that adding thicker cord might be an alternative and fetched an example OPV to show what that would look like and how to convert it. Instead of reverting to dogma we began working solutions. I liked the cord and said I would probably try it down the road. That night, back at the motel, I thought about what had occurred and realized I had never actually tried using the string only on my OPV, I just assumed it would be hard to dump. Since the goal of the course for me was to give GUE an honest try I decided to remove the dingle ball and try it the GUE way. In the end I could dump with just the string but it was very interesting the way the instructors chose to let me make that small decision for myself.

We also discussed the right hip D ring question. What if I don't have a canlight, why can't I put a D ring there to clip off my camera or something??? Guy did not answer the question directly. Instead he suggested we take it as a homework assignment. Having learned what we had learned so far, what could be the problem with that? After mulling the idea around I twigged on the realization that donating gas was the most important ability one should have and something clipped off on the R hip could impede deployment of the long hose. Keeping with the concept of minimalism, was there enough places for clipping stuff off as is without adding a potential problem in that important place. I had to admit to myself that considering the pros and cons, yes there was. It was interesting that again, Guy did not press the dogma and let us/me come to a conclusion myself. Teaching us to think, not just follow.

Of all the stuff presented that day, one of the most important concepts was that of the stable table. This was described as the foundation upon which we put what we like to do while diving on. Photography, scientific work, archeology, fish watching, caving... Place those activities on a stable table and you will be successful and safe; place them on an unstable table and they will fall off under stress. The stable table, or stability, has three legs: buoyancy, trim and propulsion (maneuverability). The more stable the table, the more you can stack on top of it, if you want. This, for me, would be the defining concept of the Fundies course and I would show myself how important and valid it would be.

The three legs of stability, and only a few skills, are what were described as the "fundamental" of diving. Besides the academics, Fundies really only focuses on a few things but insists on developing proficiency in them and the community continues to reenforce those skills after the course is finished. While we talked a lot about equipment and rationales throughout the day it really became clear to me that the real emphasis was on developing these core competencies.

Honestly, even though it was a long day, the time seemed to fly by and I found myself really enjoying the people and the learning opportunities. Later, back at the motel, I found some performance anxiety creeping in in anticipation of the first "show me where you're at" dive. Again, I did some more internal work to get my mind right.

I'm going to post this now (in case all my data dumps)...

 

[lv2dive]

Dale... If you didn't write another word I think you have really nailed what a "good" fundies looks like, and how to be successful going in. Your dongle (dingle?) story is great... Your resistance, the instructor's acceptance based on your risk assessment, and then your willingness to try it. The same with your consideration of the right hip d-ring.

I really enjoyed your post.

 

[DaleC]

Day 2: The day our worlds crumbled...

Bright and early, fresh faced and ignorant of our own impending doom, we set off for the dive site after some more teaching and field work. As Lynne noted, the team concept was drilled into us as a continuous process and not just something that occurs only before splashing. The dive goals themselves were simple and well explained: Go down a few feet and just see where we are at...

Come on.. how hard can staying in one place be really?

I just got my a$$ handed to me... by me. Who else can I blame? This is an inspired idea. We were not beaten down by some conspired complicated taskloading. Other than some very simple stuff like descend, stay in one place, watch a demo, swim a bit and ascend, nothing much was asked of us.. but I could not do it. Apparently I had no reverse gear and every time I tried to back up I went forwards instead. I was also very unstable and resorted to a lot of odd leg/fin positioning to try to compensate. We say that, under stress, we will revert to our base skill level and it was interesting to watch myself pushing off the bottom to try to go backwards or having to peel off a circle to reset, only to drift forward again. at one point I considered fin pivots as the only realistic way to stay put so I could watch the demo.

I could say that I was using a borrowed drysuit and big steel tank, or that I didn't have my lead dialed in on the borrowed gear, but those would only be excuses. The truth is I lacked the three legs of stability and as a result, could not perform the tasks I was being asked to do. Regardless of the fact that underwater, the staff provided tactile adjustments and visual cues, positioning fin tips, bending the knees etc... I found the desire to use my hands and legs (and bottom) to try to maintain trim/position so overwhelming that they seemed to have a mind of their own. I wanted to do what was asked of me but I couldn't for any length of time.

It could be crushingly humiliating to someone with a brittle ego to think you have skills and then prove to yourself you don't, and I could see some people bailing on GUE based on that. Two things that countered those feelings (which were very real for some of us I think) was the fact that we were all experiencing similar failures and, as the others have said, the staff and community all told us of their own personal struggles. There was not a sign of snickering or finger pointing or rolling of eyes (did they hide it well?). Instead it was a shrug and "Ok now we now where we are starting from" and positive direction for improvement. Positive but always honest.

This created an Ah Hah! moment for me. If you dive alone, or with others who lack the skills, you will not know you don't possess something. Even though I can do a lot of things underwater, I never really try to remain motionless at shallow depths or challenge myself in that way. As a result I was totally shocked by what resulted when I did. At the same time I realized for the first time I really wanted something from GUE... a stable table. I also realized I would not get that from one four day course (though I did get the tools) and became ok within myself, with just learning for learning sake and not for a specific outcome (pass). It was a letting go of the abstract (card) for something more valuable (skill).

I also got calf cramps from the isometric stress I create via my breakdance movements. I was actually a little worried that these would continue on successive dives and really mess me up physically, but they didn't.

Back in the classroom we talked about gas and deco models and I asked a question about Haldane vs VPM. The intern teaching gave a pretty standard answer and then Guy interjected to ask: Were you satisfied with that answer? It was interesting to see that he wanted to make sure there was understanding behind the knowledge. This was one of many teaching moments for the class and staff combined and over the length of the course it was sort of reassuring to see the interns being challenged with honest but positive tweaks to their skills in the same way we were being challenged with diving skills. They were learning they same as we were.

Up to now I haven't mentioned Koos or Jo that much but they were there the whole way.. and I will echo Lynne's noting of their positive qualities. They all had this sense of deep ability without inflated ego. Koos can be totally knowledgeable and totally funny at the same time and Jo just makes you feel good about everything in some sincere enthusiastic sort of way. I really can't say enough about how important those sort of qualities are to students who are getting dejected by their own shortcomings. Sometimes it is about competency and sometimes it is about humanness. I would say they all had a good mix of the two.
Dave, Alex and Liz all had their own qualities as Lynne mentioned and they, along with community members, really represented a positive image of GUE members.

That night we went out for dinner at the Pub and relaxed as a whole group for a while. Decompression 2.0. I was pretty tired though and soon headed back to the motel. There I did some more internal work to combat my frustration. I don't know if I can describe the feeling of wanting to do something (back kick/trim), knowing exactly what I was supposed to do, but not physically being able to will my body to do it. Geez....

I'm posting this now in case I lose data...

---------- Post added February 23rd, 2015 at 10:00 PM ----------

Day 3
More field drills, more class work, more diving.
I made some improvement on dive 2 by not using the bottom to move backwards. Koos kept telling me not to look down and I realized I was referencing the bottom to see if I was moving backwards, which put me out of trim and moving up instead of back. Along with furious hand sculling and weird flailing fin movements and I was given a new tool - it is called the fist bump. When I drift forward I can use my team mate to bump off of instead of the bottom... ah Hah! At some point Guy took pity on me (or my team mates) and peeled me off for a little 1:1 back kick work. It was cool to see how he would flex the plan to meet a need. With some work I did actually get some backward movement which he video'd. Later, we reviewed different clips as a group and I managed to make the highlight reel.

Before the next dive Guy did something interesting. He made a more serious comment to me about the next dive. Stop using fist bumps so much.. you have a back kick - use it. It was a little thing but he sensed (I think) when to push me to step up my game and not rely on substandard technique. Koos also did a similar thing at some point regarding my hand movements.

I actually felt pretty good about the skills portion of the dives. If I had a task to do (basic 5, S drill, shooting the SMB) I did not so bad; mistakes here and there but overall getting the job done. I really felt that, with practice and stability, those things would not pose a real problem. Our team of three also really began to gel. I got to know Lynne more and really liked Ian, who is a pretty interesting guy.

For me it was the ever elusive stability/reverse gear that dominated my dives. I would get it for a moment, and then it was gone. But very slowly, with a lot of help, I could feel improvement.

That night we (students) all got together to work out class problems and that was a cool experience. From strangers to a team helping each other was pretty neat to see. Ok Ok explain that to me again... How did you get that... and burnt pizza to boot.

Day 4
The last day we met again, with more instruction and field work. Lynne did one dive with us and then had to leave to catch her ferry. Ian and I really clicked as a team and we set off for evaluation. Even with my propulsion deficits we managed to work through our tasks. I totally blew the no mask swim by thinking it was a blind swim drill (brain fart) so I closed my eyes and though Ian was going to lead me. As a result I moved up and down quite a bit because... he wasn't guiding me. Doh! Oh well, I know I'll nail that one next time.

In the end I recieved a provisional rec pass with a need to work on my stability.. no surprise. I was totally ok with that result and would have actually been a little miffed if I had been given a pass because I knew I did not deserve it at that time. It's funny to be happy with a less than expected result but the emphasis of the course, how it was taught and reenforced by the staff and supporting community made it feel right. I am where I am - I have an honest appraisal and the tools I need to improve, if I want. I did not feel sugar coated or kicked out the door. Where I go with it is totally up to me.

In the end I came away with a lot of info, experience and a new perspective on GUE. I do think it would be beneficial for rec divers to take the course (the skills and info are valid), though I suspect not all would be happy with it. It really appeals to those who want to improve themselves and are willing to work hard at it. At the same time, if you seek GUE as a way to puff up your ego by being an uber diver I think you would be quite disappointed by the messaging from within the community. The focus to me seemed to be more about being positive and helpful rather than elitist. Do they think they are good divers, yes. Do they work hard to be so, yes. Do they think others can be so, yes.

I also came away thinking one does not need to be either/or about this thing. You can be realistic. A diver could spend part of their time diving within the GUE community to build their skill level and also dive with other agency divers if that's what you enjoy. You just bring more skills to that table. I think that is the path I intend to follow: growing my capacity within one community and sharing it with others.

Thanks to Guy, Koos, Jo, Dave, Alex, Liz, the community, Lynne and my other class members for making this experience a challenging but positive experience. Hopefully I can pay it forward.

 

[TSandM]

Great writeup, Dale!

Yes, these classes are exercises in honesty. When I took JP's cave class, he started on the first day by talking about "owning" the class; by this, he meant not being defensive when you are given critical feedback that isn't to your liking. I heard myself doing it . . . and tried to shut myself up. Really hearing the feedback (or seeing it, in the case of video) is the beginning of change.

There has never been any prohibition of diving with non-GUE divers. That's an internet myth we really didn't get into in class. The principle is to match the dive you are doing to the people with whom you are diving, and obviously, being GUE folks, we tend toward the conservative. I will do the biggest cave dive I feel capable of doing, with a GUE Cave 2 diver I've never met before that morning (I actually DID this), but if it's someone whose training I don't know, we'll start with a much easier dive (and a round of drills). But my revelation from the class is that, if one doesn't dive with divers who set their standards this high, your own will drop. So I hope we see you every once in a while at a Wednesday Tweak or a weekend GUE-Seattle dive!