Time For Fundies

Hey Y'all,

I'm about sign up to take Fundies with Guy Shockey this February here in Seattle. I've been diving since May of this year and have been diving DIR style since July because everyone I dive with dives DIR.

In the next couple of months, what should I look out for as I practice for Fundies? I.E., what has gave everyone a challenge and why? Any quick tips or tricks I can use?

See y'all in the caves...eventually,

Will

I would personally say that you shouldn't practice much at all beside horizontal trim, neutral bouyancy, and situational awareness. Even with good DIR mentors, I would be wary of learning something, anything, the wrong way which is harder for the instructor to correct vs you coming in "fresh" with no knowledge of skills. Guy's a great instructor from what I hear, make him earn his paycheck .

Peace,
Greg

KaizerWilhelm:

Hey Y'all,

I'm about sign up to take Fundies with Guy Shockey this February here in Seattle. I've been diving since May of this year and have been diving DIR style since July because everyone I dive with dives DIR.

In the next couple of months, what should I look out for as I practice for Fundies? I.E., what has gave everyone a challenge and why? Any quick tips or tricks I can use?

See y'all in the caves...eventually,

Will

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He's in luck. there is an ongoing class right now and half of the students are his somewhat regular dive buddies one of his other buddies is shooting video for the class...

Will, Guy is incredibly attentive to detail, and if you send him video of how you already look (okay, maybe he might have already seen some of you) he can give you tips about things to work on.

to the forum, more what he's asking for is an overview of what gave people the hardest time.

for me it was simply having fought an unbalanced rig for 20 years and learning 'new' steps for the skills and new protocol... i'd learned a different pattern for things like valve shut downs, etc...

Laura's right, that's what I'm asking.

News to me that you already sent him some video of me diving. Heck, I haven't seen a video of me diving yet! Thanks though

I'll just ask the group, too. If I ever see them! Stupid finals...

Perhaps going a step further and securing an in-water session with Guy beforehand in order to nail down weighting/trim and work on some basics which should make the class much more enjoyable and productive...

Will, first off, I'm SO glad to read this! You'll perhaps remember that I suggested you dive with this bunch, back when you wrote about starting your DM. Glad you found them, even if you never connected with me.

For Fundies, the best thing you can do is work on being as still in the water as possible. Getting your gear balanced and mastering the posture for good trim, and playing around with maintaining that while task loaded (something as simple as mask flood and clear is good for this) will give you the best possible foundation to learn the actual skills that the class will present.

Although you're already part of a great group, I'd be happy to dive with you and help you work on this stuff as well.

Guy gets down here at least once a month... Case of some scheduling issues with regards to work, but we are ...working on that

Will, it wasn't intentional (or maybe it was? maybe we've been grooming you for this all along... resistance is futile!), you just happened to be in a video with Kees that I'd already sent

Scott L:

Perhaps going a step further and securing an in-water session with Guy beforehand in order to nail down weighting/trim and work on some basics which should make the class much more enjoyable and productive...

Click to expand...

KaizerWilhelm:

Hey Y'all,

I'm about sign up to take Fundies with Guy Shockey this February here in Seattle. I've been diving since May of this year and have been diving DIR style since July because everyone I dive with dives DIR.

In the next couple of months, what should I look out for as I practice for Fundies? I.E., what has gave everyone a challenge and why? Any quick tips or tricks I can use?

See y'all in the caves...eventually,

Will

Click to expand...

Sounds like you already have a great group of divers willing to show/help you with a lot of what fundamentals offers. My suggestion to you would be this: Since you will learn more about awareness than you can imagine from the class, dont solely focus on that. Sure, make sure you are aware of your depth and BT every 30 seconds or so, but let the class hone that.

What you might want to really get down is controlled ascents and descents, because this is the type of control you will be aiming for in class. Try 15 seconds between 3m stops and 15 seconds at that stop (try this with a hard MOD of 9m). Then once you get the down and up down solid, try adding task loading activities. For instance, see if you can do the basic 5 on the way down and on the way up all the while controlling your buoyancy and keeping in trim (I am not suggesting that the entire basic 5 be done quickly, just that you are able to focus on other tasks while changing your position in the water column and still focus on your teammate). Task loading is the thing that gets most people and if you can control yourself in the water (even if you are no where near perfect, which you probably shouldn't be before class) you will be off to a great start for fundamentals.

Anyway, good luck. Im sure you will love the DIR community and diving philosophy/method even more once you make it through the class

To add to what ScubaFeenD said....have you ever done a timed/controlled ascent with divers who are at or slightly below your level? A controlled ascent is really easy with a solid buddy who can nail the timing and stops every time. It's much harder when your buddy is not as solid....often, you'll end up playing off one another and not hitting the stops like you would if you were with one of your stronger buddies (again, this is all assuming you're doing an actual ascent, rather than following the bottom contour up like you can shore diving).

That said, I'm a big proponent of not practicing before the class. Make sure you can hover while in trim and have the awareness to be a good buddy....but no need to be doing valve drills, s-drills, and bag shoots until you're taught how to do them properly. I even held off learning to frog kick and back kick until I had an instructor teach me, for fear of ingraining bad habits and having to re-learn during the class.

ligersandtions:

To add to what ScubaFeenD said....have you ever done a timed/controlled ascent with divers who are at or slightly below your level? A controlled ascent is really easy with a solid buddy who can nail the timing and stops every time. It's much harder when your buddy is not as solid....often, you'll end up playing off one another and not hitting the stops like you would if you were with one of your stronger buddies (again, this is all assuming you're doing an actual ascent, rather than following the bottom contour up like you can shore diving).

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Yes, I keep encouraging our newer divers to go out there and go up and down the can buoy in cove 2 with each other, since what they'll learn with me in the water with them will be mostly how-to-use-lamont-as-a-depth-reference and they'll find things change a lot when I'm not around.

Great practice for me though...