Introduction: After reading a lot about GUE and particularly GUE-F here on SB, last year I became interested in taking GUE-F myself... earlier this year the opportunity arose for me to do the course when my friend Anders needed to run a course for his GUE-F Instructor Evaluation (IE). He managed to arrange for Gideon Liew to come to Puerto Galera in the Philippines this month at the same time as my annual birthday dive trip
Background: I have about 300 hundred dives including 50 of what I would call 'technical' dives (deco with 50/100%). I am Deco Proc/Adv Nitrox/Extended Range certified (TDI) as well as some other tech certs, all of which I have done wet in PG. I would consider myself a competent technical diver albeit with limited experience. I include this so you can judge your own experience against the prerequisites
Expectations: I wanted to learn some advanced propulsion techniques (especially the back kick), to have some fun, to learn more about GUE, and to 'benchmark' myself in terms of where I am now and where I could get to in the future
Content: There are plenty of other reports here which go into the details of the course structure and/or you can look them up on the GUE website, so I'm not going to go into that... except to say that we used the 'new' (official release August 1) class presentations and 6-dive structure (previously 5)
Environment: There was just myself and 1 other student (total 2) and Anders & Gideon as instructors (Anders delivering the course and Gideon evaluating and chipping in as required) ie total 4 people. So a great 1:1 ratio - we were very lucky. Also all of our dives were confined open water ie in the ocean - no pool work at all. Duration was 3.5 days; over 30 contact hours in total which was great value I think
Experience: Anders and Gideon were both very enthusiastic, knowledgeable and open... we had some really interesting discussions about the pros and cons of the "GUE way" and no topic was off-limits or treated with disdain (even bungee wings lol). These are clearly two guys who have thought a lot about how they dive and are committed to doing their best in both their personal diving and in educating others who are interested
Fitness: You need to do a 275m swim in <14 minutes, and a 15m underwater breathold swim in case you are worried, I am 43yo and did no training but managed them both comfortably
Classroom: I found some of the classroom presentations a little tedious, in that they repeated topics that had been previously covered, to at least some degree, by my previous technical training however they were thorough & interesting and a nice refresher; they were also required to set the basis for the more advanced discussions
Reservations: I still find it difficult to justify using Trimix for anything >30m although I respect the rationale behind it ie using standard gases for all types of diving, and viewing GUE as a holistic system
Dry drills: Most skills are introduced by watching a video, then a dry drill (on land), before a wet drill this was generally helpful, apart from getting sunburnt during the dry drills! (very hot in the Philippines right now except of course when we did the swim test, when it rained the whole time :/ )
Dives: As above we did 6 dives total... the in-water instruction/correction was very helpful, and the post-dive video reviews, while sometimes embarrassing, were a great tool
Frustrations: I did the two worst (most uncontrolled) ascents I have ever done on dives 1 and 4; and on dive 5 I nearly threw my backup light away in disgust (backup light deployment drill) - however I came up from every dive feeling like Id made good progress and learnt something. There were also some skills that I only practiced wet once, (eg SMB deployment) which makes it hard to perfect doing them the GUE way
Caveat: IMO it would be very easy for someone with less experience to become highly frustrated at the demands of this course, as other GUE-F course reports have indicated, which could outweigh the benefits of the instruction
Recommendations: If I would say one thing, it would be to try to get some help with the backfin before the course; it will make life a lot easier (notwithstanding previous advice not to form bad habits, and also about diving doubles and/or drysuit if thats how you plan to do the course I did mine with doubles, wetsuit & can light)... Furthermore this is team diving and it would help *you* if your buddy has similar or slightly better skills than you - a lot
Outcome: I really enjoyed the course a lot, and would recommend it *if* its what you want to do and are ready for it. If youre wondering, I got a solid rec pass; my instructors & I think I can get a tech pass and be ready for Tech 1/Cave 1 after a couple more dives, if my learning curve continues at the same rate
Review: Something I thought was great was that at the end of the course I sat down for 40 minutes with Anders & Gideon and we talked about the course, my feedback, their feedback etc. One suggestion I made was that it would be nice to do a check out dive before the course to evaluate what areas students were already good at vs their weaknesses. Of course this would require more time/resources
Conclusion: Congratulations to my friend Anders on becoming the newest GUE-F instructor! And thanks to both him and Gideon for their time and dedication
If you have any questions, feel free to ask
Background: I have about 300 hundred dives including 50 of what I would call 'technical' dives (deco with 50/100%). I am Deco Proc/Adv Nitrox/Extended Range certified (TDI) as well as some other tech certs, all of which I have done wet in PG. I would consider myself a competent technical diver albeit with limited experience. I include this so you can judge your own experience against the prerequisites
Expectations: I wanted to learn some advanced propulsion techniques (especially the back kick), to have some fun, to learn more about GUE, and to 'benchmark' myself in terms of where I am now and where I could get to in the future
Content: There are plenty of other reports here which go into the details of the course structure and/or you can look them up on the GUE website, so I'm not going to go into that... except to say that we used the 'new' (official release August 1) class presentations and 6-dive structure (previously 5)
Environment: There was just myself and 1 other student (total 2) and Anders & Gideon as instructors (Anders delivering the course and Gideon evaluating and chipping in as required) ie total 4 people. So a great 1:1 ratio - we were very lucky. Also all of our dives were confined open water ie in the ocean - no pool work at all. Duration was 3.5 days; over 30 contact hours in total which was great value I think
Experience: Anders and Gideon were both very enthusiastic, knowledgeable and open... we had some really interesting discussions about the pros and cons of the "GUE way" and no topic was off-limits or treated with disdain (even bungee wings lol). These are clearly two guys who have thought a lot about how they dive and are committed to doing their best in both their personal diving and in educating others who are interested
Fitness: You need to do a 275m swim in <14 minutes, and a 15m underwater breathold swim in case you are worried, I am 43yo and did no training but managed them both comfortably
Classroom: I found some of the classroom presentations a little tedious, in that they repeated topics that had been previously covered, to at least some degree, by my previous technical training however they were thorough & interesting and a nice refresher; they were also required to set the basis for the more advanced discussions
Reservations: I still find it difficult to justify using Trimix for anything >30m although I respect the rationale behind it ie using standard gases for all types of diving, and viewing GUE as a holistic system
Dry drills: Most skills are introduced by watching a video, then a dry drill (on land), before a wet drill this was generally helpful, apart from getting sunburnt during the dry drills! (very hot in the Philippines right now except of course when we did the swim test, when it rained the whole time :/ )
Dives: As above we did 6 dives total... the in-water instruction/correction was very helpful, and the post-dive video reviews, while sometimes embarrassing, were a great tool
Frustrations: I did the two worst (most uncontrolled) ascents I have ever done on dives 1 and 4; and on dive 5 I nearly threw my backup light away in disgust (backup light deployment drill) - however I came up from every dive feeling like Id made good progress and learnt something. There were also some skills that I only practiced wet once, (eg SMB deployment) which makes it hard to perfect doing them the GUE way
Caveat: IMO it would be very easy for someone with less experience to become highly frustrated at the demands of this course, as other GUE-F course reports have indicated, which could outweigh the benefits of the instruction
Recommendations: If I would say one thing, it would be to try to get some help with the backfin before the course; it will make life a lot easier (notwithstanding previous advice not to form bad habits, and also about diving doubles and/or drysuit if thats how you plan to do the course I did mine with doubles, wetsuit & can light)... Furthermore this is team diving and it would help *you* if your buddy has similar or slightly better skills than you - a lot
Outcome: I really enjoyed the course a lot, and would recommend it *if* its what you want to do and are ready for it. If youre wondering, I got a solid rec pass; my instructors & I think I can get a tech pass and be ready for Tech 1/Cave 1 after a couple more dives, if my learning curve continues at the same rate
Review: Something I thought was great was that at the end of the course I sat down for 40 minutes with Anders & Gideon and we talked about the course, my feedback, their feedback etc. One suggestion I made was that it would be nice to do a check out dive before the course to evaluate what areas students were already good at vs their weaknesses. Of course this would require more time/resources
Conclusion: Congratulations to my friend Anders on becoming the newest GUE-F instructor! And thanks to both him and Gideon for their time and dedication
If you have any questions, feel free to ask
