Fundies, Bay Area/Monterey June 2010

Carol, my regular dive buddy Fofo and I took Fundies from Rob Lee, all of us in tech rig. We had the usual problems, screw-ups, frustrations, comedy, and small moments of satisfaction/triumph when we got something right as in pretty much every class report, so I won't repeat the details (even if I could remember which dive they happened on). Bottom line, Carol got a rec pass, Fofo and I provisional passes. I wanted a challenging dive class that wasn't a lowest common denominator, 'automatic pass if your check clears' class, and one that wouldn't leave me feeling like I'd wasted my time and money on yet another dive class. I got the class I wanted (and expected).

I'd like to thank Rob, whose patience is seemingly inexhaustible; even without my deafness I'm the student from hell, as I do a lot of reading/research outside of the class materials, have lots of questions and want the reasoning why something is done a certain way justified. As long as it's explained I'm content, even when I still disagree (and I'm not bashful about arguing if I think there's a weakness in the logic). Add in the need for frequent repeats owing to my hearing problems, and the inability to have dive de-briefs in-water (I have to get my hearing aids from the car) and it makes class go slower. So I'd like to thank Rob (and my classmates) for dealing with it. I think this was Rob's first independent class after being certified as a GUE instructor; all I can say is I think he's an excellent instructor now, and as he gains experience and refines his methods he'll be even better (if that's possible). GUE does seem to maintain very high standards for their instructors, and to date I don't think I've ever read a bad review of one.

I'd also like to thank Allison and Joakim for video'ing, and for their comments (even though I was unable to hear a word Allison said, and had to wait for Fofo or Rob's repeat for the high-frequency impaired).

And I'd like to thank Carol (ccohn2000) for the loan of a reg, Dan (dannobee) for the loan of a wing and doubles, and Don (ae3753) for the loan of a can light, which allowed me to take the class in tech rig as I wished. While I've often dived with Carol, I've only met Don once or twice at BW, and only know Dan from posts on SB and ba_diving. So my deepest thanks again to all of them for trusting me with expensive equipment, in the latter two cases on limited acquaintance.


Given Fofo's and my lack of experience with doubles and can lights this was undoubtedly not the easiest way to take the class, as it boosted the task loading substantially. But we'd both like to go on to tech if able, and this seemed like the best way to try that out, get a head's up on what would be required, and see if we wanted to continue down that path. There are issues, some equipment-related for which Rob was very helpful, most skills-related (ditto, naturally), and at least one that's physical.

Although I was finally able to do a full valve drill in my drysuit, I'm at the very limit of my physical reach owing to lack of flexibility and prior injuries. As a consequence, the valve drill was quite slow and painful, I'd estimate 1 minute or so to shut down my right or left post (the isolator was a bit easier). For me, I'd think that 10 or at most 15 seconds from the get-go would be the limit; anything over that and you'd probably lose too much gas.

Rob did give us a link to some stretching exercises and I'll be doing them, and showed us a trick involving inflating your drysuit on the surface and stretching your arms out that finally allowed me to reach and shut down my left post. But I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to do a shutdown more rapidly in a drysuit, and I don't feel that my current limitations would be acceptable from a safety perspective for (team) tech diving; if I were to chose to risk my own life alone, that's my business. As it was I was using a thin undergarment to give me the maximum flexibility possible, and it was far too cold for extended tech dives involving deco hangs; as it was I was shivering at the end of every OW dive, as we weren't swimming around enough to keep warm.


Finally, I had issues with some of the DIR practices/ideology going into the class, and those same issues remain. I'm still not sure that, even if I am able to continue down a tech path, that I'll ever want to dive strictly with DIR (GUE/UTD) protocols (standard gasses etc.). I took the class to learn the skills (or see which ones I needed to learn/improve) and check out the procedures/protocols, not to get another C-card. I certainly want to upgrade from a provisional pass to a full pass, and eventually (if possible) to a tech pass, because the value of having those skills is so obvious (my back kick was becoming slightly less intermittent with each dive), and I want to have a skilled independent observer to judge me on them. But how I dive and my diving philosophy differs in some significant ways from GUE/UTD, and I'm not sure that I'll ever be fully comfortable in a system that seems to me to take too much responsibility for risk-assessment and decision-making away from the individual or the individual team. It may be that as I gain more experience diving with other DIR divers my opinion will change. At the moment I doubt it, but (to use the typical unfinished news story cop-out), only time will tell.

Guy

Thanks for posting your report Guy, and congrats on completing the course! It's not very often that I've seen a GUE class report from one who's still on the fence regarding the system, and it's refreshing to read about what you liked and did not like; I'd certainly enjoy hearing more specifics if you'd like to share.

Guy, don't give up on the valve drills -- and did Rob evaluate your dry suit carefully with respect to that? I fought and fought and fought to get them done, and the isolator was always hard to reach and very slow. Then I bought a Fusion, and all of a sudden, things got MUCH easier.

But even before I changed suits, things had gotten better. It's a bunch of little things -- proper technique with the elbows IN, and having the suit loose enough for mobility, AND managing your trim so that the tanks don't fall away from you. It does get better.

guy, thank you for posting. I have not written up my fundies yet, as i am provisional and would rather wrap it up when i am done.

but having heard , no pun intended, about your challenge, i also want to say to anyone out there who may share my challenge, Dyslexia, to take into account that joining this class is ok. I had not had this "challenge" kick my butt since high school, but holy **** bat man, it hit the wall in this class. Not only in the in water section, but in the academics. it is a five day class that for some of us, should be a month. LOL

i appreciate you posting that there are some of us out there that have special needs and I can say with out any hesitation that my teacher Bob Sherwood went to as many lengths as needed to address my inability to catch on the first second or even third time demo'ed and had empathy for me throughout. ( that is not to say he did not want to smack me with a two by four) but all in all it was ok.... the message's got through the lessons were transmitted and it is up to the individual to do with it what they will..

again, i really appreciate your posting, so that i came forward..
hope this helps someone else who may want to move ahead but was hesitant.

ww

TSandM:

Guy, don't give up on the valve drills -- and did Rob evaluate your dry suit carefully with respect to that? I fought and fought and fought to get them done, and the isolator was always hard to reach and very slow. Then I bought a Fusion, and all of a sudden, things got MUCH easier.

But even before I changed suits, things had gotten better. It's a bunch of little things -- proper technique with the elbows IN, and having the suit loose enough for mobility, AND managing your trim so that the tanks don't fall away from you. It does get better.

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Lynne, I'm not thinking of giving up (yet), until I explore all my options. Maybe equipment will do it, and a Fusion is definitely part of my considerations when/if money allows, which is one reason I test-dove one when White's had their demo day in Monterey. OTOH, Fofo was diving in his new Fusion Bullet, and he was having equal or greater problems reaching his valves than I was - of course, the single wicking layer covered by 5 layers of fleece that he was wearing were the primary cause of his problems, but that's got a relatively easy solution (money for a warmer undergarment). I was in a wicking top and single-layer fleece, so short of losing the fleece and freezing on every dive, that's not an option for me. what I need most is 15 or 20 years of flexibility back, and that's not something I can purchase. I may be able to exercise it back, but the question is for how long. I'm already getting AARP membership letters

Maybe trim will help, although from the video and comments my trim seemed to be fairly decent throughout the drill. And I did improve, from being totally unable to reach my left valve AT ALL in my drysuit despite serious strain and pain, to being able to touch it but not turn it, to being able to turn it most of the way closed but not being able to continue the rest of the way, to finally being able (slowly) to do a full shutdown and re-opening, and a full flow check. My elbows were in, head back (Rob swapped the first stage on my secondary that Carol had loaned me, for a Mk. 25 that had better routing, as the hose for my secondary was preventing me from getting my head as far back as possible), I re-positioned the isolator (again on Rob's advice) which allowed me to get to it much easier, and so on. But it was never easy or comfortable; I was always at the limit of my reach/ability to stay in that position long enough to complete the task. Rob had some things to say about my suit, although didn't seem to think reaching my valves was a primary issue with it (it was more to do with the less than optimum position of my exhaust valve).

So I'll keep trying this and that, work on my flexibility, etc., and see how it goes, cause I really want to be able to dive deep wrecks with useful redundancy. Although I suppose side-mount might be an option.

Guy

Guy, congrats on completing the class and thanks for the report! Rob Lee assisted with our Fundies class and I agree - he is a fantastic instructor!

Fundies can be quite a challenge, especially in all that unfamiliar equipment. I agree, don´t give up yet.

One of my Fundies classmates (both actually, but the other guy was in singles) continues to have issues with flexibility in his right arm so valve drills are hit or miss with him, depending on the day of the week. But Gideon sent him home with a few stretching exercises and hopefully we will see progression in his abilities soon.

Don't let it get you down, everybody's got their own issues to overcome be them physical (inability to stretch) or mental (my occasional spats of ADHD). Just work towards improving on them and eventually you will have that ability.

Peace,
Greg

I have had both collarbones broken, one repaired surgically, and a frozen shoulder . . . and I get my AARP letters, too. So I know about reduced flexibility. But I'm telling you this is doable if you stay the course. Did Rob give you Cameron Martz's stretching exercises to do?

Guy, thank you for the report and your perspective on the class. I agree that Rob is a fantastic instructor.

TSandM:

I have had both collarbones broken, one repaired surgically, and a frozen shoulder

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Just taking a semi-wild guess here, but were horses involved in any of these?

. . . and I get my AARP letters, too. So I know about reduced flexibility. But I'm telling you this is doable if you stay the course. Did Rob give you Cameron Martz's stretching exercises to do?

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Yes, got those, and been doing them. And I fully intend to stay the course, until I'm absolutely convinced that no further improvement is possible. At a minimum I'm months away from that point, as the stretching exercises will take some time to take effect, and then there's equipment changes (Fusion etc.) that might help also, and those will be dependent on income (very poor this year).

I intend to stay as active as I can as long as I can, but I've had to accept over the years that I can no longer do certain sports. The high-impact competitive sports went first, as my downtime from injuries had just gotten to be too long, but I've been able to continue (or add) largely aerobic sports, albeit in somewhat limited fashion for some of them. If flexibility proves to be a limiting factor for me for tech diving, so be it, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel. And even if tech diving winds up being out, I can still do rec dives. I plan to age as gracefully as possible - as Maurice Chevalier said, "growing old[er] isn't so bad, when you consider the alternative."

Gombessa:

Thanks for posting your report Guy, and congrats on completing the course! It's not very often that I've seen a GUE class report from one who's still on the fence regarding the system, and it's refreshing to read about what you liked and did not like; I'd certainly enjoy hearing more specifics if you'd like to share.

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Kenn, if you remember any of the discussion/argument threads I was involved in here and/or on the Hogarthian forum since December or so, that will give you an idea. If not, let me know and I can give you chapter and verse. I don't think much point is served by re-posting them all here, but will discuss it via PM. Let's just say that I find the attitude towards diving that's reflected in say TraceMalin's posts, a more natural fit for me personally than the GUE/UTD approach, which I find overly rigid. Again, I've only just dipped my toes in the DIR water, so my opinion may change; I can be convinced if the argument is strong enough. Right now the jury is still out, although I have a very strong natural bias against it. I suppose if you boiled it down to its essence, I lean strongly in favor of (personal) optimization rather than standardization, except in cases where I find the argument for the latter overwhelming.

On another point, I think I had a bit of self-revelation during the course. I'm an only child, and while I like doing things with my friends I've always been quite comfortable to do things by myself. Indeed, I often enjoy doing something solo more, because it's totally under my own control. This was discussed in the Solo diver's forum some time back, when we compared notes and all found that our SAC was lower when diving solo than when with a buddy, both because we could move at our own pace so we never felt held back or rushed, and because we had no responsibility for anyone's safety but our own.

I've always been really good at concentrating, but against that I'm terrible at multi-tasking, with a low threshold for overload. During the class, especially early on I was often task-loaded to the point of overload or beyond. And at some point it occurred to me that one of the reasons I'm often more comfortable going solo (diving, climbing, backpacking, skiing, etc.) may be that there's far less chance of task overload, because most of the tasks are self-generated and thus I have more control over them. Nothing earth shaking, but the fact that this had never occurred to me before was a mild surprise to me, as (I think) I'm pretty self-aware and don't engage in a lot of self-delusion.

Guy