GUE Primer or Fundamentals for a brand new diver?

[Menk]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but would you recommend Primer for someone fresh out of open water before doing Fundies?

 

[eelnoraa]

You are in Alameda, Bay Area. We have 3 excellent local instructors here. My suggestion is to talk to them. Tell them your experience and goal, they know better which is better for you. And since you are going this route, before you are making expansive gear purchase, ie, can light, drysuit, discuss this topics as well. While there may not have strict requirement on some gears, but some are better than others for local condition. They may give your the advice you need

 

[PfcAJ]

Take fundies.

Its nearly impossible to outright fail unless you have a bad attitude. Ergo, you get a "provisional" which means you have 6 months to sort out your business and be evaluated for a pass.

With primer, you spend $xxx and have no cert and no potential for cert without taking fundamentals.

The good thing about being a new diver is that you've got virtually 0 bad habits. If you can get somewhat neutral and stay put so you can watch the demos you'll be good.

 

[Menk]

Thanks for the input. I've already reached out to Alberto Nava this afternoon by email, who are the other two?

 

[Ben_ca]

Rob Lee and Susan Bird. Monterey (and the SF Bay area) have an awesome community that is very supportive of like minded divers. The local affiliated club, BAUE is very active with training, outreach and exploration projects thru out the year. Feel free to PM myself or Aaron (eelnora) if you need specifics, gear advice or maybe grab a coffee or better yet get a dive in.

GUE Instructors | Global Underwater Explorers

 

[Menk]

pm sent!

 

[Lorenzoid]

Another thought: I don't know what your class composition might ultimately be, but if you go straight to Fundies without any prior work, such as Primer or getting some pre-Fundies mentoring, the instructor might have to divert more attention from your classmates to you than if you had been more prepared. For at least this reason, I highly recommend Primer before Fundies unless you already have (or get) some experience with this style of diving.

But the best advice is what you have already done--reached out to the instructors and potential mentors in your area. Fundies was the best thing I could have done for my diving. A couple of years ago I was right where you are now in your journey.

 

[elgoog]

Menk - My wife-buddy and I are planning on the Primer in Jan-Feb of next year. We just got BP/W rigs and have a handful of dives on them so far, also planning on getting the long hose regs during Black Friday sales. Overall, we're both at about 20 dives. What time frame were you looking at for the class? Maybe we can co-ordinate the class and even get some practice dives in before that?

What PfcAJ said below was my main deciding factor in going for Primer before Fundies.

If you can get somewhat neutral and stay put so you can watch the demos you'll be good.

I can't do this at all - staying neutral in one spot involves frantic/random/chaotic/extremely-tiring finning and arm flapping for me. The BP/W helped in the sense that I'm not vertical as much anymore but getting neutral and staying still enough to focus on anything is still beyond me at the moment. I figured the Primer setting would be a lot more forgiving given my current abilities.

Feel free to PM myself or Aaron (eelnora) if you need specifics, gear advice or maybe grab a coffee or better yet get a dive in.

Uh, is this open to other aspiring DIR/GUE divers in the area as well? We'd love to get some first hand experience/knowledge from local divers. I found out about GUE from someone earlier this year (can't remember his name) when I was doing my drysuit check dives at the Breakwater. Seriously, the effortless way in which he was moving was mind boggling. I practically chased him down to the shore and asked about his setup, etc and learned about GUE/DIR.

On a side note, wife-buddy and I are diving at the Breakwater on Thursday for a gear check for our new DSS BP plates and weight belts that I assembled yesterday. On Friday, we're on the Beach Hopper II.

Best,
elgoog

 

[TSandM]

I wouldn't recommend either Primer or Fundies for a brand new diver. I took Fundies with someone with 8 dives and someone with 16; they were extremely frustrated and unhappy and got very little from the class.

You live where there is a very active and good-sized GUE community. See if you can find some folks who will go out diving with you. Get some time underwater, until you've got your gear reasonably well adjusted and your weight balanced so that you can hover. Then go for the training to refine and polish what you have begun to build.

The second option would be Primer, which is designed as a non-evaluated workshop, where you can get an instructor's input on how you are doing. That kind of guidance is valuable, but it won't be inexpensive, and you may be able to get a lot of the same thing from mentoring.

I'm strongly against the tendency to master all the Fundies skills before taking the class, but you do need a certain degree of buoyancy control and stability in the water to be able to focus on the skills, and if you don't have that, the class is kind of an exercise in futility.

 

[elgoog]

The second option would be Primer, which is designed as a non-evaluated workshop, where you can get an instructor's input on how you are doing. That kind of guidance is valuable, but it won't be inexpensive, and you may be able to get a lot of the same thing from mentoring.

Getting more dives in before either of the classes was my goal but I hadn't really considered the mentoring aspect during those dives. Definitely sounds like something worth doing ...
Also, my assumption was that the Primer was more along the lines of learning GUE skills (dare I say, from scratch) as opposed to an evaluation and refinement of said skills. Is the expectation that I've made at least a few attempts at balancing my rig, frog/flutter/mod kicks, etc? As you mentioned, I'm not trying to master anything but I'm curious how much exposure+practice of those is expected in the Primer.

Working on the hover is on me and I hope to get that figured out at least a little bit before any more classes.