Most useful specialty courses

[ChuckP]

That sounds like "student didn't drown while performing skill. Pass!"

Now that’s an exaggeration

 

[MichaelMc]

GUE have this set of skills and procedures that may take a lot of practice to master at a high level.

- They have a 4-day class if you think you'll master them quickly (rec. or tech.), or have prior experience.
- Or two 2-day classes to add practice time after the first set.
- Or you can get shown them, get some feedback on having grasped them, have the gist but need more practice (provisional), and come back later to get checked off.

If you were taught from day one to control buoyancy/trim/propulsion, and have been continuing to improve at that while practicing air shares and doing DSMB deployments, it will likely take less time. If you bicycle kick through your dives and safety stops with poor depth control, it will likely take longer.

Likely they thought offering a 6-week very intensive and expensive course would not appeal, as not everyone will need all that time. Maybe think of it as an up to 6 month class, where you may have take home work to practice, without the expense of us always in the water with you.

(I'm not GUE, but this seems a sensible approach)

 

[jlcnuke]

Funny, their training and standards are unparalleled. It's obviously working.

That's one opinion.

 

[Esprise Me]

I really appreciate everyone's input on this subject, as I've been contemplating taking GUE Fundamentals at some point but I've been confused about the various levels of passing. This discussion has answered my questions and clarified things for me better than anything else I've read, so thanks!

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Funny, their training and standards are unparalleled. It's obviously working.

GUE training is great. I'd almost say a must for any serious diver that dives a BP/W. However, for the vast number of divers who like to see pretty fish once a year or so, I'd like to just see a requirement of students performing skills all neutrally buoyant. A Quixotic quest on my part perhaps, but I'd really like to just like to see divers not killing reefs.

Now that’s an exaggeration

I thought the "" were an indication of just that. But I've seen time and time again in open water and con ed boxes being ticked where there was no mastery of the skills.

 

[PullYourselfTogetherMan]

GUE have this set of skills and procedures that may take a lot of practice to master at a high level.

- They have a 4-day class if you think you'll master them quickly (rec. or tech.), or have prior experience.
- Or two 2-day classes to add practice time after the first set.
- Or you can get shown them, get some feedback on having grasped them, have the gist but need more practice (provisional), and come back later to get checked off.

If you were taught from day one to control buoyancy/trim/propulsion, and have been continuing to improve at that while practicing air shares and doing DSMB deployments, it will likely take less time. If you bicycle kick through your dives and safety stops with poor depth control, it will likely take longer.

Likely they thought offering a 6-week very intensive and expensive course would not appeal, as not everyone will need all that time. Maybe think of it as an up to 6 month class, where you may have take home work to practice, without the expense of us always in the water with you.

(I'm not GUE, but this seems a sensible approach)

I can't help but think that you're making Fundies seem much more brutal than it actually is. Maintaining proper trim and buoyancy while task-loaded isn't a skill that requires hundreds of hours of dives to accomplish. Honestly, if it takes a diver many consecutive dives to maintain their position in the water column then I think that they're a risk to themselves, at least. Before I took Fundies I had heard of divers with less than 50 dives signing up for Fundies and excelling in the class. I went into fundies with 15ish dives and I found it very frustrating at first but, by the 3rd day, I was significantly improved. I ended up passing with a rec pass (which was what I sought). I want to see more noob divers signing up for Fundies and moving forward into their Tech passes and then Tech1/Cave1. When more and more people become GUE divers, more and more people will see how amazing and misunderstood GUE is.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I can't help but think that you're making Fundies seem much more brutal than it actually is. Maintaining proper trim and buoyancy while task-loaded isn't a skill that requires hundreds of hours of dives to accomplish. Honestly, if it takes a diver many consecutive dives to maintain their position in the water column then I think that they're a risk to themselves, at least. Before I took Fundies I had heard of divers with less than 50 dives signing up for Fundies and excelling in the class. I went into fundies with 15ish dives and I found it very frustrating at first but, by the 3rd day, I was significantly improved. I ended up passing with a rec pass (which was what I sought). I want to see more noob divers signing up for Fundies and moving forward into their Tech passes and then Tech1/Cave1. When more and more people become GUE divers, more and more people will see how amazing and misunderstood GUE is.

Hey! Stop being so elitist! Just kidding. I was accused of that for recommending to someone on Facebook UTD Essentials or GUE fundies. One of the advantages you have from taking this class early where you didn't have the time to develop really bad habits. I know a lot of people who never earned a rec pass, but they did improve significantly. Those who were determined kept at it, earned their tec passes and kept going. I know of one instructor with thousands of dives who completely washed out. I found fundies tough at around 380 dives. But that's because I had developed some bad habits. I've gone sidemount, so I've decided not to pursue a tec pass as I'm dismantling my twinset.

Hands down the best skills course I've taken. Though I've heard T1 is even better.

 

[MichaelMc]

I can't help but think that you're making Fundies seem much more brutal than it actually is. Maintaining proper trim and buoyancy while task-loaded isn't a skill that requires hundreds of hours of dives to accomplish

I was responding to the sentiment of roughly "How can the class not teach what its designed to?"
Maybe I should have bolded the 'may take a lot of practice to master'.

From the manual the pre-req is "autonomous entry-level scuba diver". So if this diver:
- got rubber stamped through their OW class
- can't clear their mask, yo-yos all over, and kicks hell out of the bottom
- is a total klutz.
It will likely take a while to get them up to Fundies standards.

That is where my if it has to cover every one 6 week wild ass guess course length came from. "We" get them on a good diet. Release any muscle tension from past injuries or trauma. Do some nervous system patterning work. Work on any psychological issues. Build up flexibility. Do yoga breathing for calming and breath control. Resolve any family dramas. Get them in a mind set where they can learn. Play videos of kind helpful water spirits to remove any fear of the water. Connect them to a dampening and safety rig that smoothes out the sudden buoyancy changes so they can start with a bit of control, then we gradually start removing the dampening as they learn the principles of how breath affects buoyancy.... ....
(An over blown example, as should be obvious. But if you have to train anyone, with a very high chance of success....)

Or you could give a 4 day class with optional breaks and admit that some are not ready for the class, hence may fail.

Ideally, a class should filter its applicants well and be structured to succeed for its students. But Fundies takes a wide range of applicants, and GUE does not seem in a position to teach a guaranteed to prep you prerequisite to Fundies to enough people. They teach very few OW classes. Fundies is already that level setting prep class and prerequisite for the later classes.

To I believe reiterate, I have not taken fundies. I hope to for a rec pass (but in small doubles). And I'm interested despite sidemount being my rig of choice.

 

[Griffo]

They teach the same thing so it would be plain dumb to have 2 separate classes. For example, proper horizontal trim is taught. Trim recreational is allowed maximum 30 degrees from horizontal trim, Tech is maximum of 20 degrees. Still the same thing, trim. They teach good bouyancy control. Recreational bouyancy precision is 5’ depth window of allowance. In other words, you can swing up or down 2.5’ and your still passing. Tech has a 3’ window of bouyancy precision. Still the same thing, bouyancy control.

Plus a Tech pass requires twinset and the additional training around valve drills. Rec can be done in single tank etc.

I've done Wreck, Deep, Nav, Night, Nitrox, Wreck and Fundies. The only course that taught me to be a better diver was Fundies. Rescue was great too, but is a totally different focus. The rest were what I would call "certification courses". They existed to get the card, not particularly learn anything. I did Fundies with approx 50 dives to my name, best thing I ever did. We did our course split up with time to practice in the middle. It's what I'd recommend for a newer diver because you'll be learning a lot.

I'd say 90% of our dives are not dived according to GUE protocols (apart from gear) yet the in-water skills are used on every single dive and make every single dive more enjoyable and safer. For a course that cost lest than my dive computer, it was worth every single cent.
Trim, Buoyancy, proper propulsion, SMB deployments, communication, air-share and other skills are just as useful on a 100ft single tank reef dive as they are in tech scenario.

 

[EireDiver606]

The elitist attitude is much better, but I still regularly see it (reddit is real bad about it sometimes, here isn't as bad anymore). My primary problems are their thoughts on medical and their training program structure. Regarding medical, when GUE get's their medical degree, and becomes my PCP, then they can have my whole medical history and I'll trust them to make any judgement about what I can and/or can't do with whatever medical conditions I do or don't have. Until then, being a good diver doesn't make them qualified or competent to make those choices or to get that information and I won't be handing that information over to them. A diving instructor/agency needs to know that I'm cleared by a medical professional to dive, that's it imo. The WRSTC questionnaire is excessive imo, and many organizations don't really care about the first page if you have a doctor's sign-off on the second page (yeah, that's the subject of a number of threads by itself), but at least the other agencies don't ask for your full medical history like GUE requires per their website.

As a person who has been an instructor for various subjects over the years, and has designed many training programs, one key part of any good training program, without major unusual scenarios, imo is that it has a 1 set of goals for any given class. Those goals are established based on the purpose of the training, and the training should be designed such that the goals are reasonably achievable for any qualified student taking the class with a competent instructor to achieve. There should never be course that has a fail, a pass that isn't a pass but you didn't fail, a you passed but you you didn't fully pass, and a "congratulations, you passed" all as options. A design such as that tells me that someone didn't understand how to make a course that took a student from the expected starting point, to the end point desired, for the course. It's inherently flawed in its design, in my opinion as someone who designs training courses as part of my profession.

That isn't to say it isn't "good" training, or it doesn't work for many people, it's just not what I consider a well-designed program, and that coupled with my issues with their apparent opinion that they deserve to play doctor, without bothering to become a doctor or be subject to the privacy rules that doctor's have to follow etc, that keeps me away from the organization primarily.

I'm sure most of the people at GUE, teaching for GUE, and who have been certified by GUE are good people. I just have those two philosophical oppositions to their program. The having seen some people with crappy attitudes who were trained by them is really just a minor point that wouldn't have, in itself, influenced me in any way for or against obtaining training through them.

I agree about the medical questionnaire but to be honest, the instructor doesn’t even read it like. I think it is excessive but it’s fine.

As for the courses, if you pass every course you take, they’re either too easy or you’re very good. Easy courses which are passed with no skill don’t create good divers. GUE classes probably should be extended by a day if someone cant do the skill or understand the knowledge. I think there is a limit to how much time you have for a course before you don’t take in any more information.

If you’re not ready to move to the next level, the course will tell you.