What's the hardest class you have taken, and what made it hard?

[TSandM]

Interesting discussion about Dan's Fundies class, which I think gets back to the ideas I had when I started this thread.

"Hard" and "easy" are subjective and personal terms. A class can be hard (I'm thinking about differential equations here) because the material presented is complex and requires time and effort to master. Or you can make a class involving easier concepts difficult, if you don't allow students enough time to absorb and become facile with them. Or a class can be difficult because the instruction is poor, and the students are left trying to put things together on their own (I think some of the OW examples are like this). You can also make a class difficult if the prerequisites aren't adequate to ensure a properly prepared student (I think one of my cavern classmates was in that situation).

As a point of discussion, I'd like to offer the idea that any class, if well-organized, given over enough time for the students to get enough practice with the ideas to become comfortable, taught articulately and well, and with sufficiently strong prerequisites to ensure prepared students, will not be "hard". It may be challenging, but the feeling of success at the end will keep people from terming it "hard".

 

[nimoh]

Interesting discussion about Dan's Fundies class, which I think gets back to the ideas I had when I started this thread.

"Hard" and "easy" are subjective and personal terms. A class can be hard (I'm thinking about differential equations here) because the material presented is complex and requires time and effort to master. Or you can make a class involving easier concepts difficult, if you don't allow students enough time to absorb and become facile with them. Or a class can be difficult because the instruction is poor, and the students are left trying to put things together on their own (I think some of the OW examples are like this). You can also make a class difficult if the prerequisites aren't adequate to ensure a properly prepared student (I think one of my cavern classmates was in that situation).

As a point of discussion, I'd like to offer the idea that any class, if well-organized, given over enough time for the students to get enough practice with the ideas to become comfortable, taught articulately and well, and with sufficiently strong prerequisites to ensure prepared students, will not be "hard". It may be challenging, but the feeling of success at the end will keep people from terming it "hard".

great summary of an interesting discussion. This has been my favorite thread of the week

 

[danvolker]

One thing I have to say....GUE people telling non-GUE divers they need a "balanced rig" is a huge mistake...it sounds like rhetoric, it explains none of the real issues......
What they are referring to is very true, but an entirely different verbage to describe this needs to be used. We can do MUCH better in describing the real issues.

 

[sam1]

As a point of discussion, I'd like to offer the idea that any class, if well-organized, given over enough time for the students to get enough practice with the ideas to become comfortable, taught articulately and well, and with sufficiently strong prerequisites to ensure prepared students, will not be "hard". It may be challenging, but the feeling of success at the end will keep people from terming it "hard".

Agreed!

 

[Mayor]

One thing I have to say....GUE people telling non-GUE divers they need a "balanced rig" is a huge mistake...it sounds like rhetoric, it explains none of the real issues......What they are referring to is very true, but an entirely different verbage to describe this needs to be used. We can do MUCH better in describing the real issues.

Start a new thread on the topic!

 

[BluewaterSail]

I didn't answer up til now, because I could not decide on the definition of "hard". Physically, my SDI rescue course was the hardest. It pushed me physically to my limits.

None of my PADI courses could be called hard by any definition (OW, AOW, a few specialties), because there were no challenging standards to meet, in some cases no standards at all.

Fundies has got to be my hardest class from a content point of view. By the simple measure that I didn't pass it, it must have been. My experience in fundies was a bit different than some people have written about. It wasn't long hours. It was 4 not 5 days. We had 2 teams that took turns in the water, since the class size was 5, so physically, it wasn't a strain, less water time during the course than normal diving days for me, and none of the excersices were physically demanding. The logistics were a nightmare, which wasted time and were distracting. Like having a student have her child in the classroom with us (somewhere between 1 and 2 years old), and not always having access to the classroom in a very crowded facility, and the nitrox compressor broke. The mother tongues between the 5 students were 3, so there was often translation and questions on translation going on. Nothing wrong with this necessary action, but it does take time. The stress of the learning opportunities flying by without fully learning was probably the hardest part.

I learn things slower than some others do. For this reason, I like to have written material to review before hand. I carefully studied all of the fundies materials that I downloaded from the website, but still I couldn't instantly pop up with the "easy to calculate in your head" answers when called on in class. When called on, by brain froze. Most of the prestudy topics were not covered in class. If I had focussed my prep work on those areas that were, then maybe I would have felt more confident.

In the water, I did not have my bouyancy sorted out, so sometimes that distracted me and I did not pick up all aspects of the demonstration of what we were supposed to do. And the bouyancy issues themselves of course kept me from performing some of the skills well.

My team of 3 people included one guy, who was already a tech diver, and another woman, similar experience to me, but in doubles because her tech diver husband wanted her to be, who swam so slow it was hard to see the difference between slow and stop. We never really got our act together as a team, though the experienced guy was great and mostly through his efforts we managed to make some show of skills. I was really relieved that in spite of his 2 team mates, he did earn a tech pass. By the end of the class, the only thing I cared about was his pass, and the worry that my problems would result in him not getting the tech pass.

It seemed to me that, in the class that I attended, that you needed to have most of the skills and knowledge beforehand, and the class polished them. There was not time to learn much from scratch, unless you were exceptionally talented.

BTW, the reason that I never wrote a class report on my fundies is because I don't think that it is a good example of what a fundies can be, or usually is.

In summary on fundies, I believe that there were 3 major contributors towards it being hard for me, in the order of importance:

1) bouyancy not ready for this step
2) stress of not being adequate makes everything more difficult in a downward spiral.
3) Maybe a different environment, team, and instructor would have been a better match for my learning capabilities

When I take it again in March, I expect it to feel easier on all accounts.

Linda

 

[Mayor]

I didn't answer up til now, because I could not decide on the definition of "hard". Physically, my SDI rescue course was the hardest. It pushed me physically to my limits. None of my PADI courses could be called hard by any definition (OW, AOW, a few specialties), because there were no challenging standards to meet, in some cases no standards at all. Fundies has got to be my hardest class from a content point of view. By the simple measure that I didn't pass it, it must have been. My experience in fundies was a bit different than some people have written about. It wasn't long hours. It was 4 not 5 days. We had 2 teams that took turns in the water, since the class size was 5, so physically, it wasn't a strain, less water time during the course than normal diving days for me, and none of the excersices were physically demanding. The logistics were a nightmare, which wasted time and were distracting. Like having a student have her child in the classroom with us (somewhere between 1 and 2 years old), and not always having access to the classroom in a very crowded facility, and the nitrox compressor broke. The mother tongues between the 5 students were 3, so there was often translation and questions on translation going on. Nothing wrong with this necessary action, but it does take time. The stress of the learning opportunities flying by without fully learning was probably the hardest part.I learn things slower than some others do. For this reason, I like to have written material to review before hand. I carefully studied all of the fundies materials that I downloaded from the website, but still I couldn't instantly pop up with the "easy to calculate in your head" answers when called on in class. When called on, by brain froze. Most of the prestudy topics were not covered in class. If I had focussed my prep work on those areas that were, then maybe I would have felt more confident.In the water, I did not have my bouyancy sorted out, so sometimes that distracted me and I did not pick up all aspects of the demonstration of what we were supposed to do. And the bouyancy issues themselves of course kept me from performing some of the skills well.My team of 3 people included one guy, who was already a tech diver, and another woman, similar experience to me, but in doubles because her tech diver husband wanted her to be, who swam so slow it was hard to see the difference between slow and stop. We never really got our act together as a team, though the experienced guy was great and mostly through his efforts we managed to make some show of skills. I was really relieved that in spite of his 2 team mates, he did earn a tech pass. By the end of the class, the only thing I cared about was his pass, and the worry that my problems would result in him not getting the tech pass.It seemed to me that, in the class that I attended, that you needed to have most of the skills and knowledge beforehand, and the class polished them. There was not time to learn much from scratch, unless you were exceptionally talented. BTW, the reason that I never wrote a class report on my fundies is because I don't think that it is a good example of what a fundies can be, or usually is.In summary on fundies, I believe that there were 3 major contributors towards it being hard for me, in the order of importance:1) bouyancy not ready for this step2) stress of not being adequate makes everything more difficult in a downward spiral.3) Maybe a different environment, team, and instructor would have been a better match for my learning capabilitiesWhen I take it again in March, I expect it to feel easier on all accounts.Linda

Can you search out other GUE divers to train with? Could you pay for a private day with your instructor before class? Could you have taken the primer class first to have some skills before class? In our area we have many divers that would run through the skills with you. The class opens you up to a support system of skilled divers. They understand you want more from your diving if enrolled in a class like this. Take the time and ask around you might find some help your looking for.

 

[LiteHedded]

Mayor,
One of the best things for me about the class, also created a severe time problem....Bob realized I needed to experience some things first hand.....so my trying to use Free diving fins, and then another radical fin, before finally accepting that for the zero movement skill set, I really needed to give the Jetfins a try....and they won by a mile for this...but at the cost of a huge amount of time I "could" have been working on perfecting other things...Related to this, I had insisted on my LP120 rather than doubles...without the speed of freediving fins, this tank actually topples you side to side--causing a lot of fin activity for stabilizing, even with jets. Bob ended up changing so many aspects of my configuration, I was left with insufficient time to deal with all the new configurations, including the dry suit ( used 10 times last year, and 2 times prior to class this year). While boyancy and trim is easy for me on the bottom, with the lp 120 swing of bouyancy, and the tiny amount of weight GUE insists we use ( which I agrere with) , I felt like a new diver on ascents where the 120 was getting light near dive end....
And....Now that Bob has been kind enough to totally change the position of my right shoulder d-Ring, I really stink at "un-clipping" the primary reg from it....this change in muscle memory positions, added to my laziness in typically not clipping the reg, made this a skill I need more practice with.....probably a few days at most....the drysuit a couple of days....and I am switching to doubles which I am picking up from Brownies in about an hour So I need about a week or so to reach a comfort level with all the new stuff....Bob gave me a Provisional for this, and neither he nor I expect any problems once I just use the gear with the new knowledge he has imparted. He will be around here plenty often to re-test this soon.

Anyone who has read my past posts, would probably have expected this....I have done such huge dives, using the "non-optimal" gear configurations mentioned, that I really would not just accept the "new" GUE ideas. Since I have some big plans for some of the big projects coming up, it made perfect sense to become totally GUE..it just takes someone as stubborn as me a little extra time to let go of old ideas.

One of the new buzz's you guys will soon hear about, is what we think is an enormous underground Cave system under the intracoastal in Boynton ( near Boynton Beach Blvd, where a failed bridge project many decades ago proved a huge void in the underground below the intracoastal, could be Wakulla sized for u/w cave. We now have some information about what may be an external opening or conduit from the huge aquifer system, at 115 feet deep, off of Boynton....Bill Mee and I are planning on checking out the entrance area of this, and determining if it is functinal cave or not....the reliable info we have, is that it goes back in MORE than 60 feet, but the spearfisherman who went in was NOT a cave diver, and did NOT know if his light would hold up, or that his gear and training were up to going further....good call really
He did say it was roomy enough to swim in, but NOT large enough for him to turn around, so he had to back out pushing himself with his hands....so apparently it is not terribly silty in this part either

Hi Dan,

just tossing my hat in the ring if you need assistance looking at your cave

 

[BluewaterSail]

Can you search out other GUE divers to train with? Could you pay for a private day with your instructor before class? Could you have taken the primer class first to have some skills before class? In our area we have many divers that would run through the skills with you. The class opens you up to a support system of skilled divers. They understand you want more from your diving if enrolled in a class like this. Take the time and ask around you might find some help your looking for.

Mayor,

Thanks for the suggestions, but I am not in a GUE or UTD area.

I did take Primer in Florida 3 weeks before the fateful fundies. If I hadn't, I wouldn't of even known what a frog kick was! Primer was wonderful, but I still wasn't ready for fundies with my 30 something dives to my name.

There are no GUE or UTD instructors here. There are a few GUE divers in my country (Israel), but they are not organized these days, and I have not been able to find one to regularly dive with. One guy I dove once with (the weekend between Primer and Fundies) and another guy I tried to dive once with, but because of ocean conditions we called the dive. All of the GUE trained folks that are actively diving are technical divers, so if they do have time to dive, they want to do dives that they find interesting. I have talked to lots of people trying to find someone, anyone, not just DIR folks, to do some serious practice with, but so far can only find people to swim around and see the pretty fish and coral with. So I can practice some things like propulsion techniques while swimming over the coral reefs, but the only real skills dives that I can do are in a pool by myself. Since I drive about 4 hours each way to Eilat to the coral reefs and pool, I can't even do that as much as I would like.
But I do feel fortunate, that the guy that I dove once with, and I am sure will one day dive again with, is available any time I want to talk and ask questions. He's a GUE tech2. And he has been very helpful, and assisted me setting up my gear when I first bought it. So I do have something!

Actually, its worse than not having the GUE influence, I am constantly getting advice from divemasters about how my equipment is wrong and unsafe (long hose, BP/W) and how I should keep my legs straight and do a proper flutter. Not very helpful.

BTW, the only reason that I took the Fundies, knowing I wasn't ready, was that a GUE instructor from Europe was visiting Israel, and so I thought that this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up.

I hadn't intended on writing about my fundies experience at all, but I was thinking that my problems did contribute towards the question of what makes some classes seem hard.

 

[LiteHedded]

I know some israeli GUE divers in the tel aviv area...