The Fundamentals of Better Diving with Ed Gabe

[b1gcountry]

Fundies with Ed Gabe

I just got done with my Fundies weekend with Ed Gabe, a GUE instructor, Cave, and Open-Ocean Tech diver. The course was a very intensive experience, and I think I gained a lot from it. I had a hard time describing the course to others before the class, and frankly, I still have a hard time summing up exactly what this course is about. In a lot of ways it is like going back and doing an Open Water class with a very demanding instructor. It covers a lot of the things commonly missed in general training, with a large emphasis on Dive Planning, Situational Awareness, and diving as a Team.

Another aspect of the class is the emphasis on Trim and Buoyancy. Students refine their finning techniques, and all skills are done with a huge emphasis on maintaining proper form and the correct depth throughout. All this is done with an emphasis on non-silting techniques for situations where disturbing the bottom has negative consequences.

The class also trains divers for Enriched air Nitrox, and covers some basic rescue techniques. So the class is sort of a mix of skills from a lot of different classes from OW, to Peak Performance Buoyancy, Nitrox, Rescue, and even some aspects of Deep Diving, and cavern (Dive planning, and non-silting techniques).

The name of the class is "The Fundamentals of Better Diving", and that pretty much describes it. It teaches the fundamental skills you need to be a better diver. In practice, its used either as an introductory class for tech/cave divers, or as a skills improvement for recreational divers. The evaluation criteria are a little different for rec vs. tech, but the skills are basically the same. There really aren't any tech-specific skills taught in the class, and everything has equal value to the recreational diver as the technical diver.

The main difference between Fundies and my previous classes is that Ed focused teaching a MASTERY of each individual skill. This meant we did a lot of skills over and over in the course of the four days. Other classes, I generally got the idea I was doing the skills just to cover the course standards. As long as I mucked my way through, it didn't matter how ugly I was doing it. With Ed, if you didn't have your head or feet positioned just right, he let you know, and you would get to do it again.

 

[b1gcountry]

Pre-Class

I'll be honest, the online boards were my first experience with the DIR concepts. A lot of people are pretty dogmatic about their beliefs concerning DIR or not DIR, and although I was pretty interested in the ideas behind DIR, I was turned off by a lot of the more zealous and more vocal proponents. Once I started talking with Ed, I was very pleased with his open attitude towards other styles of diving. He is pretty vocal about his dislike of the mainstream ATTITUDE toward diving of getting people certified as quick and cheap as possible, but he never bashed anyone because of their gear choices, and never used the S-Word.

I also had the opportunity to talk with Benji Schaub in Bonaire, and attend his presentation on DIR diving. My wife was with me, and she came away interested in the class so much that she signed up with me, and we took the class together.

I had done quite a bit of research beforehand, and had most of my gear set up properly, but Ed spent a good deal of time online answering my questions for several months before the actual class. Living in the Midwest, it is fairly difficult to find a GUE instructor, or find enough people to put on a class like this. So it took about 6 months between the time I first contacted Ed about setting up a class until the first day of lecture. This gave me enough time to get my doubles and can light set up, and get a couple dozen practice dives in on them.

 

[b1gcountry]

First Day of Class

My wife and I loaded up the car and drove to LaGrange, KY on Wednesday, and we met Ed, and the other two students at the Super 8 lot on Thursday morning for our first day of Lecture, swim test, and gear setup. The class was an interesting mix.

I am a pretty regular diver with varied experience. I've been diving a hogarthian setup for about three years, and I set up my first set of doubles in January, with about 20 dives on them before the class. My wife has only been diving for about two years, and she is somewhere around 100 dives now. She took the class in a single tank, and was primarily focused on improving her skills with no tech of cave aspirations. The third student, Greg (names changed to protect the innocent), was a Great Lakes Tech diver certified by a pretty respected instructor, but hadn't been in the water in almost three years. He was doing the class in Tech gear, but was taking it mainly as a refresher. Bert was a local diver who had caught the cave bug. He was an experienced diver, but the class would be his first dives with doubles or a can light.

We met at a local restaurant, and went through the lecture portion before heading to the pool and doing our 300yard swim, and 50' underwater breath-hold. My wife is very competitive, and was trying to get the best time she could in the swim. She wound up winding herself a little, and was still out of breath for her breath-hold. Ed was very helpful working with her, and getting her there on the second try.

After the pool, we did some more lecture, and went back to the Hotel to let Ed adjust the fit on our Backplates, and recommend any changes for us to make before the first day of diving.

 

[b1gcountry]

Days 2-4

We had three days of diving. They pretty much started with some land drills at the quarry on the benches, followed by diving, and then video debrief back at the hotel. Each diver is video-taped while performing that day's skills, and the video is very helpful pointing out what you are doing wrong or right during the class. It's hard to say exactly how many dives we wound up doing since we were up and down so much, but I spent about 6 hours underwater by the time the class was over. The days were long. We met at the hotel around 8:30 each morning, and had debrief and lecture until about 8:30 each night. On top of that, Ed had to shlep our tanks back to Lexington each night and fill them. So 12 hour days for us were 15 hour days for Ed.

The first day of diving was pretty much focused on trim and propulsion, with a lot of attention to detail. There was a bit of repetition as Ed tried to make small details second nature to us. Our default position was horizontal above the platform at 12' with the back of our heads against the manifold, and our fins up and horizontal. More time was spent trying to acheive or maintain this than on anything else during the class. All of the drills the first day were very simple, but we still had to do them in proper trim and maintaining our depth.

I did pretty well the first day except for a bit of floaty feet. I had thin undergarments on with some thick, doubled up socks. I had also developed a bad habit of letting my fins go vertical as a sort of relaxed posture. I tried to correct this the first day, but still fell back into it when I was distracted doing drills. The second day, I was much better, and I took off the doubled socks to make it easier as well.

My wife did pretty well the first day, but the class is pretty intense, and she was pretty well overloaded by the end of the first dive when asked to do the basic 5 (reg removal, reg exchange, modified S drill, mask flood, mask remove/replace). Everyone has their limits on how much they can stand in one day, and she just reached hers. Ed was pretty good about realizing this, and wisely did not push the issue. After a little downtime for lunch, she did them no problem.

Bert and Greg were paired together for their skills. Bert was doing his first dives in doubles, and first time with a can light. The benefit of this was he hadn't developed any bad habits that needed to be corrected. The downside, is he spent a large majority of Day 1 dealing with the new gear. He managed it better than I could have on my first doubles dive, but he wasn't as smooth as he was used to, and it made him a little frustrated. Greg had lost a lot of his sharpness due to the long layover, and he let it get him frustrated. When the two of them did their skills together, the frustration was pretty apparent on the video review, and they fed each other's negative vibes.

The take home point I'm making is that your mindset is very important in this class. The skills are very exacting, and you will mess up. I think what helped me the most was a very deliberate and calm mindset. There is no time limit, and these are drills, not real emergencies. The more frustrated you get, the more mistakes you are going to make. You are also doing these skills as a team, not individually, so use your buddy. If they catch something you miss, it won't be counted against you, so don't let that frustrate you either.

My biggest nemesis during the class was the Valve drill on Days 2+3. You have to stretch in an abnormal position while maintaining trim, head position, and buoyancy. Then you have to turn your valve with one hand while signalling for your teammates with your other hand. I touched the platform, or floated too far up a couple times before I managed to get it right. My biggest help was my wife helping me with feedback and eye contact to keep my head from dropping down, and maintaining her depth at 12' in order to give me a good visual reference for depth. If I had gotten frustrated, I would have lost all chance of passing this skill.

 

[b1gcountry]

Summary

The class was pretty expensive, and I was a little leery given previous instruction from other organizations. I wasn't sure how much I would gain from this class; whether or not it would be worth the money. I kept hearing how much everyone who took the class was humbled by it, and most said it was the best class they've ever taken. All in all, I'm glad I took it. Ed was a great instructor, and whenever I had an easy time with something, Ed just raised the bar a little higher. He is definitely the highest skilled instructor I have ever taken a class with. He also had very good instructor ability. It is hard for an instructor to deal with a wide variation in skill level within the same class without going too fast for some, or too slow for others, and I think he managed this very well.

Attitude and mindset are very important for the class. I decided that I paid enough for the class, I would just go along with Ed, and try out anything he suggested. I tried as hard as I could to leave my ego and pride at the door (which isn't always easy for me, but I'm trying.) I tried to focus as much as I could on learning to dive according to Ed. I figured I can always decide later if I don't want to do things that way, but for the class, I basically did everything he asked. (not that there's really anything he asked that I disagree on)

I had a pretty good back-kick going into the class. I practiced it a lot beforehand. I pretty much learned it in split fins, and then translated it over to Jet fins later on. It was a tremendous help in the class. Doing ascents/descents as a team, it was invaluable for maintaining position along the line. Doing drills facing each other, it was nice to be able to give your buddy more room. If you can practice at anything before hand, I would say, practice the back-kick.

So is the class as hard as everyone says it is? Well, I guess it depends on the diver. Each skill is graded from 1-5; 1 being unsafe, 3 being adequate for a rec pass, and 5 being perfect. I managed to get fours on all the skills. I also understand why I didn't get fives, and what I need to do to improve. It also seems like there are two ways to approach the class. One way is to use the class as the evaluation and try to pass during the class session. The other is to take the class to learn the skills, then practice them on your own for a couple of months followed by an evaluation later on to get the card. I think I like the second approach better, and I wish I'd taken this class a couple years ago.

I hope this helps anyone contemplating taking the class, and thanks for reading my lengthy commentary

Tom

 

[Rainer]

Very nice report.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Jasonmh]

I'll be honest, the online boards were my first experience with the DIR concepts. A lot of people are pretty dogmatic about their beliefs concerning DIR or not DIR, and although I was pretty interested in the ideas behind DIR, I was turned off by a lot of the more zealous and more vocal proponents. Once I started talking with Ed, I was very pleased with his open attitude towards other styles of diving. He is pretty vocal about his dislike of the mainstream ATTITUDE toward diving of getting people certified as quick and cheap as possible, but he never bashed anyone because of their gear choices, and never used the S-Word.

Great write-up. On the above comment, it was very much like my own experience, and I think that many people would be surprised at the good attitude. It doesn't match up much with alot of what you see and read online.

 

[caribk]

I was there as one of the students (referred to as Bert in the post) and I completely agree with what b1gcountry said. I had gotten somewhat bored with my diving career, and besides the opportunities to eventually go on to cave or tech, this provided me with a "system" that I can use to train continually, regardless whether it's for Cave 1, 2, 3 etc. or just to be safer on the next reef dive. Kudos to Ed Gabe to his teaching methods, as he definitely made the course more rewarding than any other instructor with whom I have taken a course in the past.

Once thing I would say is that if you consider taking GUE Fundamentals, ensure that you are comfortable in _all_ of your gear before taking the class as any unfamiliar pieces will make it more difficult. It was my first time in doubles and with a canister light (as b1gcountry mentioned in the report) and this did somewhat take away from the learning process.

Karl

 

[Scubastud16]

BC,

Thanks for the report! I've had my eye on this class for a little while, but I think I'd like to take it in tech gear and get a tech pass if possible.

Danny

 

[Bismark]

Congratulations guys. You are going to find that as you get more practice with what you learned, you will enjoy your dives more and more. Then wait until you get into warm water without drysuits.........you are going to have a great time. Next time you see Benji, tell him Guy said hello. Good Job!