First look - GUE Fundamentals 1

[johnkendall]

You've got to remember what you are paying us for Our job is to improve the students skills, regardless of how good they are to start with. Therefore we all have a lot of tricks and processes that will work with different people.
I much prefer bringing out "supportive John" but sometimes "disappointed John" or "hardarse John" have to come and play.

 

[JohnnyC]

You've gotta start somewhere, and you can always get better. I'm full cave through IANTD, and you bet I'm going to take Fundies as soon as schedule allows. Always trying to improve, and at this level, the instructors are so good you can always take something away from them.

 

[WhiteSands]

Whitesands... you made me laugh... because I can exactly remember this Jekyll and Hyde theme...

When we were doing Cave2 someone on my team told Chris Le Maillot after check dive 1 (which is again the basic skills), that he was getting fed up with those silly valve-drills and that we showed we were good enough. Guess what we got to do thanks to mister "sunshine I'm good enough for this silly GUE business", for ALL following dives until end of class. Exactly... valve-failures up through our nose.

LOL...I think that's the worst possible thing you can say to a GUE instructor, but it must have been a great learning experience.

I've learned the hard way that no matter how good you think you are, the instructor can always find a way to crank it up a few notches so you'll understand just how much you really suck.

E.g.
Think your back kick is good? Great! Now do it as narrow as possible as if you're moving through a tight space.
Think your S drills look polished? Awesome! Now I want you to face your back into the current and back kick while doing it.
Think you've got your Basic 5 down? Cool! Now I want you to do it with zero fin movement.
Think your valve drills are solid? Fantastic! Now just give me a moment while I tie this line on the reef slope and let's try it mid water with only your depth gauge as a reference.

Etc. etc. etc.
Don't you just love GUE instructors...

 

[Lorenzoid]

Well done. I went into Fundies after having taken Primer a year earlier and with over 200 dives in my log over a span of 10 years, and I did miserably. Five back-to-back days just wasn't enough to get in the practice that I needed. Breaking it up as you did is the way to go. I'm not quite clear on how the new Fundies 1 and Fundies 2 format relates to the old route of Primer and Fundies, but I get the impression it helps address the issue of too much stuff to get down in a short timespan.

 

[Ouvea]

Hi elgoog:

Welcome to the GUE community. There are lots of us in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two resident instructors, Beto Nava and Rob Lee, have probably trained the majority of us here. Beto showed us some pics of the training. I gotta say, that's a very good platform that both you and your wife have. Wish I could have gone this route, oh so many years ago. Hopefully, you will continue your training. There is so much to explore in our area.

As to these debriefs that leave you depressed, they simply don't exist! Of course, when you have difficulty executing a drill that had become autonomous, there is a bit of disappointment. However, this is where we learn something new, something we had not anticipated. This makes you a better and safer diver.

If you make reservations at Point Lobos, you're going to see many GUE divers (the Husky X-Workhorse tables will give us away). We'll be happy to show you around and answer any questions you may have.

O.