Will Shops & Instructors like this, or hate this?

I am considering doing an article on a different kind of advanced training. Something that most Dive Shops around the US ought to be able to benefit from, and something I think would be a home run for the majority of the Recreational divers in America. The idea, would be a GUE Fundies “Demo Series”.

The idea would be to have shops which are traveling to Palm Beach, spend one morning or afternoon at the Blue Heron Bridge Marine Park, and to have their divers participate in some sample Fundies skills.
These would be set up to be performed in realistic settings, where the value is clear and obvious.

The benefit to the Dive Shops and instructors ( meaning the mainstream—PADI, NAUI, and the rest) would be their divers—their students, seeing the need for much more advanced training, and proper configuration of gear. This would not need to be a disparagement class for vest BC’s…We could even have a GUE diver in a Scubapro or equivalent Vest BC. The issue would be “Can YOU do this, why would you WANT to, and how can you Learn to do this”.
Demo examples should include:
• situations when you need to swim near the bottom, and why….then how this can be done without silting—and why you may NOT want to silt…and how you can recognize the factors that lead to a diver always silting when they swim near a bottom.
• What is a balanced Rig….in other words, can you be stable if you are not swimming? Why would this be something you might need to do some day? Can you swim to the surface if you have a bc or wing failure.
• How can your shop help you to get much closer to optimal Buoyancy and Trim…what does this look like, and what do you look like now? Introduce Peak Control Buoyancy classes, and alternatives available with mainstream agencies. Introduce the idea that most recreational divers need this much more than they need Nitrox courses, and their shop can help them with this….Introduce the idea that even if you like the idea of Fundies via GUE in your future, most people NEED their shop to prepare them with advanced skills prior to Fundies even being feasible.

So what do you instructors or shop owners….or recreational divers, think about this…?
Would it be well received, or would it be taken as obnoxious?
A major premise is that GUE is not and never will be a masses oriented agency…it will never represent market share a dive store could go after..And the average recreational diver could never pass Fundies without special advanced training by their own shop/instructor, specifically for this.
Also, the actual number or divers that may want to take their skills all the way to successful completion of a Fundies level course, is far too small to keep any Dive shop in business. Typically for GUE, a fundies class will often need to pull divers from multiple states, even for a single class. This level of optimization is not part of the business model of a normal dive shop..However, this can be a level that shops can use for their own benefit, to drive the higher level of class most should really enjoy teaching...

You hear about divers who don’t know what they don’t know….
This will show these divers what they really should have known, and then show them a pathway to get there.

But if the Scubaboard response to this idea is against it, I definitely will not pursue this as an article for South Florida Dive Journal > Home

I've spent years solidifying the idea that GUE peeps are a bunch of jerks. You can't expect me to get my students and customers together for you to change all of that on a single publicity stunt can you?

I'm kidding of course.

It sounds like a good idea to me, but just too far away. I don't see it helping a non-gue shop much though.

I think for the most part dive shops and instructors will not respond to it positively. They'll see it as a put-down to their current way of doing things, and a potential threat to their sales and services.

Which is unfortunate ... but emotions and egos will prevail for the majority who currently teach non-DIR methods. They won't see a sincere attempt to help people improve their skills ... they'll see someone trying to peddle kool-aid.

The people who are most likely to see the benefit will be those who are already inclined in that direction, and therefore the least needful of such a demonstration.

The fact is that because GUE is a "system", it's an inherently all or nothing approach. That approach really doesn't suit the typical recreational diver as much as an approach that would focus on what they could do to improve their skills within the parameters of the equipment and mindset they've already acquired. And because it inherently encourages people to purchase equipment and training not offered at most dive shops, the instructors and owners of those businesses will not willingly encourage their students and customers to look into it.

I applaud what you're suggesting, but as long as it's promoted as a "GUE" activity, I doubt you'll get a positive response from the majority of non-GUE dive businesses ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Superlyte27:

I've spent years solidifying the idea that GUE peeps are a bunch of jerks. You can't expect me to get my students and customers together for you to change all of that on a single publicity stunt can you?

I'm kidding of course.

It sounds like a good idea to me, but just too far away. I don't see it helping a non-gue shop much though.

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You sound awfully BITTER .

To the OP, would this be broadcast and run as a GUE sampler? As Superlyte27 mentioned, it might not benefit a non-GUE shop thus causing those shops to steer clear. Perhaps if it were run instead as an Advanced Workshop (neither is likely to get you a certification) where the diver is exposed to advanced dive skills........the more I write this the more it seems like you are trying to offer a GUE-Primer.....how do you see your course differing from......the GUE site is not loading for me so I cannot link to it but I thought GUE offered a sort of Primer course for preparation of taking the Fundies class.

Let's suppose that I have a PADI and TDI shop that's been around for 10 or 20 years. I've got a few instructors on staff, including a couple of CDs. Most of my staff has decades or more of dive experience, including military and commercial diving.

I have students and customers who regularly do trips with me.

Even supposing you could teach the STAFF something they don't already know (which is possible but they'd be learning a lot less than you presume, I think) why would I want to take my customers to your site for a trip where you'd be explaining to them why they shouldn't be staying with my shop?

You'll have to try explaining the upside to me for a shop owner.

Now, if you wanted to do something like multi-agency instructor skill training where you doing something like an agency neutral professional seminar, I could see some potential value.

NWGratefulDiver:

I think for the most part dive shops and instructors will not respond to it positively. They'll see it as a put-down to their current way of doing things, and a potential threat to their sales and services.

Which is unfortunate ... but emotions and egos will prevail for the majority who currently teach non-DIR methods. They won't see a sincere attempt to help people improve their skills ... they'll see someone trying to peddle kool-aid.

The people who are most likely to see the benefit will be those who are already inclined in that direction, and therefore the least needful of such a demonstration.

The fact is that because GUE is a "system", it's an inherently all or nothing approach. That approach really doesn't suit the typical recreational diver as much as an approach that would focus on what they could do to improve their skills within the parameters of the equipment and mindset they've already acquired. And because it inherently encourages people to purchase equipment and training not offered at most dive shops, the instructors and owners of those businesses will not willingly encourage their students and customers to look into it.

I applaud what you're suggesting, but as long as it's promoted as a "GUE" activity, I doubt you'll get a positive response from the majority of non-GUE dive businesses ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

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Bob, Scubasteve and Kingpatzer.....
Thanks very much for weighing in on this....
Let me try one other variation of this....what if, the DEMO series at the BHB is Run by Pura Vida Dive shop, a PADI 5 Star IDC.....What if they chose to use a GUE instructor along with some of their own PADI and NASE instructors, maybe even invite a NAUI or SSI instructor...any that can display perfection in the skills to showcase what is optimal. We could then truly be pushing pure learning, without agency related agendas.
My agenda for this is getting better skills into all the recreational divers we see on the charter boats....and far more, getting better skills at the BHB Park where the LACK OF SKILLS is most apparent. Photographers and videographers can benefit enormously from this kind of a showing of what they might do differently...so this can even be for divers with more than a decade of diving.

The "sell" would be for shops all over the country, to decide this could push high level instruction for them to provide..the demo just being the impetus.....
what do you think?

I can't see any shop offering "special advanced training" in order to prepare you for a course they do not teach. They may offer that type of training but will market it as preparation for something they DO offer, so I doubt they would really want to expose their divers to something they can't/or won't teach in-house. Personally, I wouldn't mind a sort of "fundies light" but I have trouble imagining such a workshop running with no bias towards a certain gear configuration.

I think it could work as long as there is no agency-affiliation involved, nor any mention of the "D" word. But I still believe there won't be strong acceptance.

In some ways I think it's similar in concept to my gas management seminar, which I've been offering for free to local area shops for years. Because it's not agency-specific, and not an implicit conflict with how the shop does things, some shops welcome it and invite me back year after year to promote it. But the majority of shops ... because they don't teach it ... see it as either a threat to or a put-down of their current training practices ... and they not only won't invite me to their shop, they actively discourage their customers by telling them it's not needed at the recreational level.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I still think they'll hate it. You're still basically competition trying to steal away customers from them.

I think you need to go one of two directions:
1. Market the course to *instructors* at dive shops, who can then go teach the skills within their own curriculum (e.g. turn PPB and AOW into a real course as a few instructors around the country seem to have).
2. Give up on the dive shops and set up camp at BHB and market to divers directly.

The two could potentially be complementary if you branded it right. E.g. if GUE launched a "Bare Basics of Diving Control Workshop" similar to Primer but not taught by GUE instructors. It would be a tricky line to thread, because the organization's imprimatur would be on the instructor but the requirements to become a instructor would be a lot less stringent presumably. Similar to Freud Avanti or Armani Exchange...a down-marketing effort.

Kingpatzer:

Let's suppose that I have a PADI and TDI shop that's been around for 10 or 20 years. I've got a few instructors on staff, including a couple of CDs. Most of my staff has decades or more of dive experience, including military and commercial diving.

I have students and customers who regularly do trips with me.

Even supposing you could teach the STAFF something they don't already know (which is possible but they'd be learning a lot less than you presume, I think) why would I want to take my customers to your site for a trip where you'd be explaining to them why they shouldn't be staying with my shop?

You'll have to try explaining the upside to me for a shop owner.

Now, if you wanted to do something like multi-agency instructor skill training where you doing something like an agency neutral professional seminar, I could see some potential value.

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I am thinking it definitely needs to be multi-agency. The main draw for the GUE Fundamentals "fraction" in the mix of instructors running this, would be that it is a well publicized upper level of skill which can easily be shown to work well with each shops own training agency.

The issue of how much one of your instructors could learn, is potentially less important than the value to your shop of the NEW benefit that this new approach can offer your students. And it would be for you to offer. The idea is that this could create dozens or even hundreds of specialty students for a big dive shop....for GUE the DEMO might end up generating a very small number of students in the next 3 to 6 months, but only AFTER your people went through all the training you had for them.


As to which skills may be of interest to your own instructors.... To me the most impressive skills were the ones where you have yourself in a shipwreck penetration environment, and an issue arises where no movement, or ultra slow movement is very desirable. The GUE emphasis on getting your body absolutely quiet, without any swimming to stabilize you, is quite impressive when most instructors would try this themselves. No front, back , upward or downward movement and maintaining a position like you are attached to something is hard to do, without the skills they teach. All the your diveshop needs is a pool with 6 feet of water to train 90 percent of the issues we would be showcasing here.

These same skills are fantastic for photographers and videographers.