Late to the party?

[Jaydubya]

I never thought I'd actually do it but I've decided to take GUE Fundamentals with one of my buddies. I've already gone through technical and cave training with TDI, IANTD, and NACD but my buddy hasn't done any of that. My gear is basically DIR, my skills are very solid, but not perfect of course. FWIW, I'm not going into this expecting a tech pass right off the bat.

Anybody else come into Fundies at a similar point and want to share your experience? What did you learn? What did you have to unlearn?

[katepnatl]

Welcome to the forum! and good luck with Fundies!


There are a lot of class reports out there speaking to literally, hundreds of peoples experiences. Obviously a lot of people with backgrounds similar to yours have been where you are and told the tale, but it can be challenging to find and sort through all of it. A thread was created last year that speaks to a lot of what you asked... Common Fundies Mistakes


Inherent in that thread, is how to avoid the mistakes. One thing I've reiterated multiple times, however, is that everyone has their own unique experience with a class. Two different instructors can have very different teaching styles, and different people/classes can have different experiences with the same instructor. To counter that, you may wish to keep the following in mind. It is MHO only, however it seems to have worked well for the people who have applied it. (I think that both of these items are covered in that thread as well, but I'll pull them out here)

A) Try to match the instructor to your learning style as much as possible
B) To the extent that you can, go into the class focused on learning.

NOTE: With regards to B) above - I personally believe it is a mistake to tell people to "not care" about something they already care about, specifically passing Fundies. What people *can* do, is focus their energy elsewhere, such as on the learning process. It's like when you are a kid and you skin your knee playing soccer or something - your coach is less effective in telling you to forget about your knee and more effective at telling you to get your head back in the game. Something else to focus ON vs. NOT focusing on something. For those who don't care about passing, great, but for those who do, just focus on the learning and it will be a better experience. Again, just MHO.

Anyhow - didn't intend to write such a long response! Welcome and good luck!

KLP

I never thought I'd actually do it but I've decided to take GUE Fundamentals with one of my buddies. I've already gone through technical and cave training with TDI, IANTD, and NACD but my buddy hasn't done any of that. My gear is basically DIR, my skills are very solid, but not perfect of course. FWIW, I'm not going into this expecting a tech pass right off the bat.

Anybody else come into Fundies at a similar point and want to share your experience? What did you learn? What did you have to unlearn?

[LiteHedded]

good luck with your class. have you decided on an instructor yet?

[Jaydubya]

good luck with your class. have you decided on an instructor yet?

Thanks. We're going with Doug at EE with class in North Florida. We're doing 2 days, an "off" day, followed by 2 more days.

[LiteHedded]

doug will take good care of you. have fun

[BluewaterSail]

Good choice! Doug's a fantastic instructor and a great guy.

[kathydee]

Hi,

I'll add another welcome :-)!

Good luck with the class & have fun!!