ericfine50
Contributor
Hi Guys,
I took a DIR-F class last weekend in Plymouth,MA. Andrew G. and Mike Kane were the lead instructors. They were assisted by Dan Mackay from Canada, two divers from Detroit (whose names escape me - sorry) who did the video, James and Eric - who were interning for the class. Here is a run down of what it was like:
Day 1 - Friday 7pm - I arrived at Plymouth Fitness center after about 2 hours of Boston weekend traffic. Met up with a few of the divers in the class and we went inside to wait in the AC and for AG and MHK to arrive. The class actually started on time. There was a total of 10 divers in the class. We first introduced ourselves, it was a very diverse group of divers. Once that was over, Andrew handed out an outline (very helpful) and started the power point presentation. We went over the basic skills we would be covering that weekend, buddy awarness, gas managment, etc... The lecture ended around 11 pm and we packed up for the night.
Sat - 8am Hathaway Pond, Plymouth,ma - We all met at the pond entrance and learned the pond would open at 9am. So, Andrew told us to get our Drysuits, undergarments, and backplates and we would start the working on sizing the backplate. Let me tell you, it was only 815, but I was cooking in my DS and undergarments. Andrew went around and told us the pros/cons of each suit/undergarment he saw. He really likes the way Andy's makes his suits. Once that was done. We put on our BP and were sized up. The plate should come up to the 2nd vertibre of the back, mine was way lose - So we fixed that. They did not like the Highland Millwork D-rings I had on (those will come off soon). When the sizing was done,the plate was very tight to the back, but it felt comfortable after a little while. When everyone was sized up, we got out of the suits and went down to the pond. We then went right into practing s-drils on land. Each team was watched by one of the instructors or assistants. From there it was more dry land drill work, kick drills. Around 12pm we took a lunch break. The afternoon was spent conducting 2 40 min. dives (max depth 20 ft) to pratice all the skills we had just been shown. Personally, my trim and bouyancy was off and I was feeling like crap (anyone want some free dive gear?). We were being video taped during the dives and that night during evening lecture, we reviewed them. It was very harsh to see yourself on tape, but showed exactly was we were doing wrong. That night ended around 9:30.
Sunday - 9am - This was the last day of the class, Mike had to catch a flight at 3:30, so he left early from the cape. We went right into the dives 40 minutes back to back and shot a lot of video. We praticed our S-Drills, Valve shut downs, OOA, Frog kick, modified frog, mod flutter, backwards kick, helicopter turn, - all these had to be done while horizontal in the water. . Finished up the dives and went to the video tape as they say. A little better then the day before. And that was it. We were done by 5:30 on Sunday.
I know this is short, but basically the class showed up what skills we need to have down cold if we want to take a Tech1 class from GUE or have a bigger bag of tricks to go into for our dives. the main themes of the class were buddy/team awarness, trim, bouyancy, and pratice, pratice, pratice.
Hope this helps you guys that are thinking about taking the class.
Eric
I took a DIR-F class last weekend in Plymouth,MA. Andrew G. and Mike Kane were the lead instructors. They were assisted by Dan Mackay from Canada, two divers from Detroit (whose names escape me - sorry) who did the video, James and Eric - who were interning for the class. Here is a run down of what it was like:
Day 1 - Friday 7pm - I arrived at Plymouth Fitness center after about 2 hours of Boston weekend traffic. Met up with a few of the divers in the class and we went inside to wait in the AC and for AG and MHK to arrive. The class actually started on time. There was a total of 10 divers in the class. We first introduced ourselves, it was a very diverse group of divers. Once that was over, Andrew handed out an outline (very helpful) and started the power point presentation. We went over the basic skills we would be covering that weekend, buddy awarness, gas managment, etc... The lecture ended around 11 pm and we packed up for the night.
Sat - 8am Hathaway Pond, Plymouth,ma - We all met at the pond entrance and learned the pond would open at 9am. So, Andrew told us to get our Drysuits, undergarments, and backplates and we would start the working on sizing the backplate. Let me tell you, it was only 815, but I was cooking in my DS and undergarments. Andrew went around and told us the pros/cons of each suit/undergarment he saw. He really likes the way Andy's makes his suits. Once that was done. We put on our BP and were sized up. The plate should come up to the 2nd vertibre of the back, mine was way lose - So we fixed that. They did not like the Highland Millwork D-rings I had on (those will come off soon). When the sizing was done,the plate was very tight to the back, but it felt comfortable after a little while. When everyone was sized up, we got out of the suits and went down to the pond. We then went right into practing s-drils on land. Each team was watched by one of the instructors or assistants. From there it was more dry land drill work, kick drills. Around 12pm we took a lunch break. The afternoon was spent conducting 2 40 min. dives (max depth 20 ft) to pratice all the skills we had just been shown. Personally, my trim and bouyancy was off and I was feeling like crap (anyone want some free dive gear?). We were being video taped during the dives and that night during evening lecture, we reviewed them. It was very harsh to see yourself on tape, but showed exactly was we were doing wrong. That night ended around 9:30.
Sunday - 9am - This was the last day of the class, Mike had to catch a flight at 3:30, so he left early from the cape. We went right into the dives 40 minutes back to back and shot a lot of video. We praticed our S-Drills, Valve shut downs, OOA, Frog kick, modified frog, mod flutter, backwards kick, helicopter turn, - all these had to be done while horizontal in the water. . Finished up the dives and went to the video tape as they say. A little better then the day before. And that was it. We were done by 5:30 on Sunday.
I know this is short, but basically the class showed up what skills we need to have down cold if we want to take a Tech1 class from GUE or have a bigger bag of tricks to go into for our dives. the main themes of the class were buddy/team awarness, trim, bouyancy, and pratice, pratice, pratice.
Hope this helps you guys that are thinking about taking the class.
Eric
