Well, I dunno. I am not affilitated with those guys other than being a student/customer. As a whole, I really like them so I try to get the word out to my fellow divers when I see that they are offering something that I personally find helpful.
if u do a course through 5th d are u credited with GUE or not?
Short answer: It depends on which class.
Long answer: There are two separate companies. One is called Fifth Dimension or FifthD (
www.fifthd.com). They are based in Washington state. The other is Fifth Dimension X or 5thd-x (
www.5thd-x.com) now based in California. The company that produced the video is the second company. Both of these companies used to be owned by Andrew Georgitsis and used the same name. He sold off his interests in the part of the company that is in Washington state which is why there are two different organizations which have very similar names.
5thd-x currently has two instructors who are qualified to teach GUE classes (fundies, rec triox). If you take those classes from 5thd-x and pass, you get GUE cards. 5thd-x has also come out with their own classes that are not at all related to GUE. Because of their backgrounds, the classes created by 5thd-x are very much rooted in DIR. However, most of those classes are created under NAUI. As such, you get a NAUI card if you pass. The one exception is the "Essentials ot Recreational Diving" class.
5thd-x felt that fundies was not a real good fit for new recreational divers and divers not familiar with DIR. Just read up on all the threads where people "who practice" prior to going to fundies. There are several reasons for this but the bottom line is, 5thd-x wanted to offer much of the content of fundies without making students feel intimidated or compelled to "practice" prior to going to class. So they came up with a workshop called Essentials. Again, this is not GUE class. In fact, as a workshop, it is not even a class that you get a card for.
The implicit question - why did I think this DVD would even be vaguely interesting to the DIR minded divers?
I think the DVD in itself is useful in that they provide videos of a lot of the basic skills that are covered in fundies, a class that most who post in this board have either taken or interested in. They supposedly explain some of the why's of what they teach. I don't have a copy of the DVD yet so I am going on what I was taught during the class and the descriptions provided those who have seen it (Chris Cali). If nothing else, I believe the DVD will either be a useful resource for those have started their journey in learning DIR or it will be a useful intro to those who are curious about DIR but not yet ready to invest time and money into an intro to DIR class.
