Before I completed Fundies, I found the various course reports posted on SB to be very useful in terms of preparing for the course. Now is my turn to "give back a little".
Without a doubt, the DIRF class was the single most valuable diving course I have ever taken, up to and including my instructor certification. It has absolutely changed the way in which I now dive, will dive, and teach. Their is a lot of information presented in a challenging and demanding environment, however, if one keeps their head down and prepares a bit, you should come out of it okay.
Doc Intrepdid told me that Fundies is all about "simple skills done with precision" and that pretty much sums it up. None of the skills are particularly complicated in and of themselves, however, until you start to work together as a team underwater, simple task loading makes simple skills become nearly overwhelming at times. I am an ex-military member and have long played team sports so the team concept was not new to me. However, I have never seen it applied to diving. This was probably the most valuable lesson for me during the entire course. In my head, I could understand how valuable diving as a team could be, but it wasn't until dive 4 or 5, where our team started to really come together that I actually started to appreciate what three divers working together could actually achieve. Task loading became more easily dealt with as three people become more "switched on" and started to be able to expand their awareness to take into consideration environmental issues, such as our crappy viz and some ignorant swirling currents. Team members became less "task loaded" with one particular drill and were able to also hold position, help out team members and keep an eye out for our instructor, Dan MacKay floating somewhere and everywhere around us.
Day one consisted of introductions, a lot of bookwork, presentations, video, etc. The topics were varied and interesting and presented in a clear and concise manner. I have never attended a course where an instructor had such an obvious command of the subject. We hit the pool that evening for our swim test and some demonstrations and practise with the various propulsion techniques. This was very valuable as it let us build up the beginning of some muscle memory.
Day two consisted of more book work and briefing for what we would do in the water. Our first dive was a real cluster #$&@! We looked like a bunch of bowling pins underwater. We had no team cohesiveness and we all emerged from the water feeling pretty depressed. There were three OWI's on the course and one OWI in training. The other two students were also at least DM qualified I believe. I think I can say for all of us that it was a truly humbling experience.
Dive two on that day seemed to go a lot better. Of course what it looked like is another matter but we emerged feeling a hell of a lot better than we had after the first dive. Our team worked a little better together and we pulled off our individual skills portions in a fairly decent manner. I think we even kept the ascent line in view for most of the ascent....
The third day was "hump day" where we were expected to demonstrate some of the more complex skills, like valve drills, etc. Both teams were doing the course in double tanks and most of us had primary lights so it was a bit more complicated and the standards were a little tighter. The dive on this day didn't go too bad save for the fact that I managed to hoover through too much of my gas and this prohibited our team from doing a 2nd dive that day. I would like to think that my team member Allan sucked up about 1000psi on the 30' shared air ascent where I was the donor, but we all know that would be a lie......
Day 4 was crunch day. We had demonstrated s-drills and valve drills on day 3 but we all knew we would have to tighten them up a lot to meet standards. On the first dive our mask-less swim went pretty good except that Dan said I wasn't really swimming and was actually just towed along by my team. "Heh Dan, the standards said to demonstrate a comfortable demeanor so what could be more comfortable?"
I guess my modified frog kicks were so modified no one could even see them. Our SMB deployment went fine, that is until we tried to all ascend and reel them in at the same time. Dan was roaring with laughter on the surface as we found ourselves unwrapping each others lines from around various parts of our bodies. Line truly is evil.
The last dive of Day 4 was the "show me" dive. We had to really have our &%$# together for this one and I gotta say that our captain on this dive (the same young guy I blamed for sucking all my air on day three
) really came up golden. He really stepped up and shone. He was the youngest of all 6 students and he performed admirably under stress. Hats off to you Allan. We all made it through our drills and
demo'd some helicopter kicks and backkicks for Dan. They sucked but thanks to a strong current in our face I think we all moved backwards.
In the end, we were pretty tired as the adrenalin rush which had sustained us for 4 days started to fade. All in all a truly excellent course of instruction from an instructor (Dan MacKay) who is a dedicated and skilled instructor who really cares that his students excell. Thanks from all of us Dan.
As for advice for prospective DIRF students, I offer the following suggestions:
1) Find your local DIR community and start diving with them. Do it now. Don't wait until a week before your course. I met one of the more active DIR divers and he was more than generous with his time and skills (Thanks Mark) and it is for this reason alone that I felt even a little prepared for the water skills. I can't imagine how I would have fared if I had not done this prior to fundies.
2) Follow the DIR gear requirements to a "t" and have at least 10 dives with the equipment you are going to use in the class. Do not add anything new or experiment with it during the class. This is not the time to add additional task loading.
3)Once you find out who is on your team, start doing everything together (within reason) for the time of the course. Spend as much time "dirt diving" your drills as you can. Do it verbally and physically. Actually go through all the motions of what you are going to do. You "train like you fight" and you "fight like you train".
4) Try to relax if you can. Remember, the skills and knowledge you will gain are there regardless of pass or fail. You are entering a "process" which has no end and you are on a continum of skill development. Like Dan states, "you are where you are" and you need to recognize this so that you can understand what you need to do to get to where you want to go.
Course result: Tech pass (no the work starts for preparing for Tech 1)
Heh Bjorn and Jeremy, why don't you do up a course report also?
See you guys in the water.
Guy
Without a doubt, the DIRF class was the single most valuable diving course I have ever taken, up to and including my instructor certification. It has absolutely changed the way in which I now dive, will dive, and teach. Their is a lot of information presented in a challenging and demanding environment, however, if one keeps their head down and prepares a bit, you should come out of it okay.
Doc Intrepdid told me that Fundies is all about "simple skills done with precision" and that pretty much sums it up. None of the skills are particularly complicated in and of themselves, however, until you start to work together as a team underwater, simple task loading makes simple skills become nearly overwhelming at times. I am an ex-military member and have long played team sports so the team concept was not new to me. However, I have never seen it applied to diving. This was probably the most valuable lesson for me during the entire course. In my head, I could understand how valuable diving as a team could be, but it wasn't until dive 4 or 5, where our team started to really come together that I actually started to appreciate what three divers working together could actually achieve. Task loading became more easily dealt with as three people become more "switched on" and started to be able to expand their awareness to take into consideration environmental issues, such as our crappy viz and some ignorant swirling currents. Team members became less "task loaded" with one particular drill and were able to also hold position, help out team members and keep an eye out for our instructor, Dan MacKay floating somewhere and everywhere around us.
Day one consisted of introductions, a lot of bookwork, presentations, video, etc. The topics were varied and interesting and presented in a clear and concise manner. I have never attended a course where an instructor had such an obvious command of the subject. We hit the pool that evening for our swim test and some demonstrations and practise with the various propulsion techniques. This was very valuable as it let us build up the beginning of some muscle memory.
Day two consisted of more book work and briefing for what we would do in the water. Our first dive was a real cluster #$&@! We looked like a bunch of bowling pins underwater. We had no team cohesiveness and we all emerged from the water feeling pretty depressed. There were three OWI's on the course and one OWI in training. The other two students were also at least DM qualified I believe. I think I can say for all of us that it was a truly humbling experience.
Dive two on that day seemed to go a lot better. Of course what it looked like is another matter but we emerged feeling a hell of a lot better than we had after the first dive. Our team worked a little better together and we pulled off our individual skills portions in a fairly decent manner. I think we even kept the ascent line in view for most of the ascent....
The third day was "hump day" where we were expected to demonstrate some of the more complex skills, like valve drills, etc. Both teams were doing the course in double tanks and most of us had primary lights so it was a bit more complicated and the standards were a little tighter. The dive on this day didn't go too bad save for the fact that I managed to hoover through too much of my gas and this prohibited our team from doing a 2nd dive that day. I would like to think that my team member Allan sucked up about 1000psi on the 30' shared air ascent where I was the donor, but we all know that would be a lie......
Day 4 was crunch day. We had demonstrated s-drills and valve drills on day 3 but we all knew we would have to tighten them up a lot to meet standards. On the first dive our mask-less swim went pretty good except that Dan said I wasn't really swimming and was actually just towed along by my team. "Heh Dan, the standards said to demonstrate a comfortable demeanor so what could be more comfortable?"
I guess my modified frog kicks were so modified no one could even see them. Our SMB deployment went fine, that is until we tried to all ascend and reel them in at the same time. Dan was roaring with laughter on the surface as we found ourselves unwrapping each others lines from around various parts of our bodies. Line truly is evil.The last dive of Day 4 was the "show me" dive. We had to really have our &%$# together for this one and I gotta say that our captain on this dive (the same young guy I blamed for sucking all my air on day three
) really came up golden. He really stepped up and shone. He was the youngest of all 6 students and he performed admirably under stress. Hats off to you Allan. We all made it through our drills and demo'd some helicopter kicks and backkicks for Dan. They sucked but thanks to a strong current in our face I think we all moved backwards
. In the end, we were pretty tired as the adrenalin rush which had sustained us for 4 days started to fade. All in all a truly excellent course of instruction from an instructor (Dan MacKay) who is a dedicated and skilled instructor who really cares that his students excell. Thanks from all of us Dan.
As for advice for prospective DIRF students, I offer the following suggestions:
1) Find your local DIR community and start diving with them. Do it now. Don't wait until a week before your course. I met one of the more active DIR divers and he was more than generous with his time and skills (Thanks Mark) and it is for this reason alone that I felt even a little prepared for the water skills. I can't imagine how I would have fared if I had not done this prior to fundies.
2) Follow the DIR gear requirements to a "t" and have at least 10 dives with the equipment you are going to use in the class. Do not add anything new or experiment with it during the class. This is not the time to add additional task loading.
3)Once you find out who is on your team, start doing everything together (within reason) for the time of the course. Spend as much time "dirt diving" your drills as you can. Do it verbally and physically. Actually go through all the motions of what you are going to do. You "train like you fight" and you "fight like you train".
4) Try to relax if you can. Remember, the skills and knowledge you will gain are there regardless of pass or fail. You are entering a "process" which has no end and you are on a continum of skill development. Like Dan states, "you are where you are" and you need to recognize this so that you can understand what you need to do to get to where you want to go.
Course result: Tech pass (no the work starts for preparing for Tech 1)
Heh Bjorn and Jeremy, why don't you do up a course report also?
See you guys in the water.
Guy
