Signed up for Fundamentals

[sea_ledford]

I've contemplated going through fundies as well, just to see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure I would learn things, but if those things would be worth the entry price is a different story.

Interested to hear how it goes for you!

 

[kensuf]

Bumping this thread. I'll have a write-up in full shortly.

 

[AJ]

I've contemplated going through fundies as well, just to see what all the fuss is about. I'm sure I would learn things, but if those things would be worth the entry price is a different story.

If you're a capable diver with excellent skills that does not want to pursue other training like GUE Tech or Cave 1, don't bother. However, when you're a not so skilled diver or want to pursue further training with GUE it is worth every penny. It's not a miracle course that will transform your diving, but it is a solid course to crank up your skills to a higher level.

 

[kensuf]

An old dog learns new tricks..

364 days ago I created this thread, and while things didn't go as originally planned, I have a write-up for y'all.

Last year my friend Lauren Fanning posted on Facebook that she was going to run a GUE Fundamentals program over Thanksgiving. Although I have been a cave diver since 1994 and a cave instructor for the past 7 years, I was genuinely curious about Fundies; most of the divers I had seen that were Fundies divers all seemed to be fairly squared away and competent and I wanted to see what this course was about first hand, however I wasn't so curious about it that I was willing to take a week off from work and the Thanksgiving schedule worked pretty well, so I signed up and created this thread to hold myself accountable.

Unfortunately, a series of personal events conspired against us, and I wound up spending Thanksgiving in SoFla with family instead of taking Fundies. Lauren and I talked a bit about trying to figure out a workable schedule to move the class around to a different set of dates, but we couldn't find any that really worked for the two of us (we both have pretty busy schedules it seems). One day, after diving with a friend of mine that is a GUE instructor, he asked me when I was going to finally finish Fundies and I explained the whole sordid deal. However, he knew I was going to be in Bonaire for Christmas, and he suggested I split Fundies into two parts and take part 1 with Mister G at Buddy Dive and finish part 2 once I was back in High Springs.

So... The emails to Bonaire and discussions with Lauren started and next thing I knew I was signed up to spend two days taking Fundies part 1 with Mister G between Christmas and New Years with Part 2 "sometime after, but probably mid-January."

I knew Part 1 was going to be interesting for a couple of reasons. The most important of them being that my gear wasn't going to be the normal stuff I wear in North Florida -- it was going to be in that stingy eye water, wearing a wetsuit, using double 80s, and I decided to take my "Caribbean travel fins" rather than my jets. I was also using my "ocean diving" backplate, instead of my cave plate.

We arrived in Bonaire and were promptly greeted by a pack of wild donkeys. As planned, I went and picked up a set of doubles to use during our stay, I wanted to make sure that I had all the kinks worked out of my weighting / trim before showing up for Part 1.

I spent the first few days split between running, a conference call for work, and diving in the afternoon. Finally, the big day arrived and I was ready to meet up with my fellow students in Fundamentals part 1.

My fellow students both work at Buddy Dive, one was taking Fundamentals for his second time, but this time he was trying to earn a Tech pass. The other was taking it for his first time, but also trying to earn a tech pass. Neither of them had ever been in doubles before, and although one was a full time recreational instructor (with probably over 4000 dives under his belt), technical diving was new to both of them.

That first day was spent in the classroom, covering the academics in modules 1 and 2 and an equipment workshop. We started with a history of GUE, what they are about, the progression of training, and the course structure, including what the requirements were to earn either a Rec or Tech pass. Module 2 was about buoyancy, trim, balance, propulsion techniques, the basic 5 skills, and equipment. We spent most of the afternoon working on modifying and configuring our gear. For the most part, my gear was set, but I had to change the way I tied my bolt snap onto my pressure gauge, and we added a small bungee loop on my light where the gland meets the head, to allow me to clip the light off with a double ender and have it in "utility" mode.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring spare double enders, but Mr. G was kind enough to loan me one. Which I lost, so I wound up buying a couple from the shop.

PRO-TIP: Stainless Steel Double Enders are worth their weight in gold when you're in Bonaire -- they run for around $20/ea, as opposed to the $6-8 I'm used to paying here in the states. You can also give them to your server as a tip at the bar, exchange them for gasoline at the gas station, and they can be used to cover your entrance fee in the marine sanctuary.

By the time we were finished with our equipment configuration, it was about 6 and time to wrap up for the night.

 

[kensuf]

Day 2 of Part 1 started with my morning jog before heading to Buddy Dive. I arrived at the appropriate time and met up with Mister G and my co-horts. Mister G explained everything we were going to do that day: we were going to learn how to float, how to kick, how to do our Basic 5, and how to descend / ascend as a group. He was also going to shoot videos of ourselves and show us where we went right, and where we went wrong.

He then took us out to the beach and gave us foot massages.

In all seriousness, he helped us practice our kicks, articulating and correcting our motion as we worked through them. The frog kick is my strongest kick, but my "Flutter" kick is my weakest -- actually, before this class I had never seen a flutter kick performed this way, the closest thing to their Flutter that I've seen was what I call a shuffle kick. Yes, I've been diving almost my whole life, and I had never seen a flutter kick like this before.

I spent some time practicing the flutter kick, struggling with the fluidity of motion with my left ankle (I have a chronic case of PF caused by an old running injury), but working on it anyway.

It was then time for us to get into the water and do our thing. We started off with a GUE EDGE before descending as a group. Once we were down, Mister G ran a reel and installed a 20-30' line course. He then had us get neutral and hover, which we all seemed to manage without too much difficulty. He then proceeded to demonstrate the kicks, Frog, Modified Frog, Flutter, Modified Flutter -- aside from this crazy flutter kick, this was nearly identical to how I teach these techniques in Cavern and Intro to Tech, so there were no surprised there. We then each took a turn demonstrating each of the four kicks, while Mister G filmed us and the others in the class hovered and watched. At the end of each propulsion technique, Mister G gave us individual pointers and corrections -- fin tips too high, knees too low, hands waving too much, etc.

After we had each taken a turn, or two, or three, at the skills circuit, it was time for us to attempt a backwards kick. And this is where my carefully selected Caribbean Reef Diving Fins caused me grief, because while I can do a backwards kick like a boss using my Jetfins, my CRDF fins are very flexible, and the simple act of extending my legs back causes them to flex, stopping any backwards momentum and propelling me forward.

Patience grasshopper. Do one backwards kick at a time. Wait, turning the wrong direction? Correct and counter steer. There, good, ahh. You did it.

Dive over, we surfaced to do a video review, go get our doubles refilled and grab lunch. I'll skip the discussions on the video review for brevity, except to say it was pretty accurate and thorough -- personally I've become a big fan of video review over the past few years and use it in most of my classes myself.

After lunch, we discussed our next dive. On this dive we were going to work on our "Basic 5" skills -- #1 - reg recovery and clear, #2 - reg switch, #3 - deploy long hose, #4 - partial mask flood and clear, #5 - mask removal/replace. All of this sounds elementary, but there are something like 11 individual steps in #3, and I had years of muscle memory to overcome while trying to remember them all.

We practiced the skill circuit several times on land, and during this practice Mister G told us we should help our teammates and that the success of the team depended on the success of the individual. He had one of us positioned on the side of the person doing the Basic 5, ready to help steady our partner with their balance (lifting up/down), and the other in front of the person, keeping an eye on them and potentially coaching them to remember the fine points (check your light cord!).

Finally, it was time to get in the water and do our dive. Somehow or another I wound up being selected as the team captain, having to run through the GUE EDGE. Although I teach a very similar drill to all of my classes (START!), the progression is different so I had to use my notes a bit to make sure I was doing things in the correct order. After we did our GUE EDGE, we descended into a team, doing a star formation -- we looked cool (Rule #6!).

At the very start of this dive, he wanted us to check whether or not we had a balanced rig, by having us try to swim our gear up with a fully dumped wing. This is an important safety consideration -- at the start of a dive you should be able to swim your gear up in the event of a loss of buoyancy, and at the end of a dive you should be able to hover at 10-15' with nearly empty tanks.

With our balanced rig test over, Mister G took us over to an area and ran another reel course. He had us once again practice our fin kicks, then it was time to do something new. He huddled us together as a group and demonstrated the Basic 5, with one exception (to keep control of the class he was not allowed to remove his mask, but he told us this in advance). It was then our turn to practice the Basic 5.

One at a time we took turns doing it. My turn came up, #1 - easy peasy. #2 - easy peasy. #3 - purge backup reg, partial deploy long hose, switch to backup reg, wait what's next? oh light cord -- underway, fully deploy long hose, partial stow long hose, light cord - over, get long hose back from my buddy, purge second stage, pop in my mouth, done right? oh crap! don't forget to check the light cord!, #4 - easy peasy, #5 - easy peasy.

#3 threw me a bit just because of some of the finer details, such as remembering to check the light cord after. However, Mister G gave us plenty of opportunities to practice -- we did the drill over and over again.

Around this time, one of my teammates and I really focused on helping each other. He reminded me whenever I forgot to check the cord, I reminded him to always purge the second stage and helped keep him in trim and balance. As the dive progressed, we wound up coaching and helping each other more and more, and that was something I didn't expect to see happen during the class. It really reminded me of my initial leadership training back in the 90s, or one of the desired outcomes when I taught rescue to a group of college students, and it was a thing of beauty.

At the end of the dive, we practiced our "minimum deco ascent" with stops. This includes a slow final ascent broken up by a 30 second stop every 10' and a 30 second ascent to the next stop. It also gave us the opportunity to check for our balanced rig at the end of the dive -- yup, we were all weighted reasonably well.

We surfaced as dusk was falling and the sun was setting, but we still had to do our video debrief. We went in and discussed our performances, watched ourselves on video, and drew some conclusions as to where we were in terms of finishing the class. I still had to do an exam, but we decided to get together the following day and do it then.

 

[kensuf]

Part 2...

When I left for Bonaire, Lauren and I had discussed the possibility of doing Part 2 in mid-January, while everything was still fresh in my head. Although you're supposed to have a teammate for part 2, Lauren told me she may be able to get a sub for the class and we were set to do it on MLK weekend. Unfortunately, some more personal issues happened and I had to unexpectedly attend a funeral in SoFla that weekend, and I was booked pretty solid between teaching and a planned trip to the Cayman's until March.

However, this worked out well, because I had convinced my friend Elisha that Fundies would be a cool class too take, and she had signed up to do Part 1 in February and we coordinated on doing Part 2 the weekend of March 8th! I figured I would practice my Basic 5 between January and March, and should be pretty well prepared heading in for part 2.

I went off on my merry way, teaching an apprentice and full cave class, going to the Cayman Islands to spend 8 days diving on the wall, and other stuff, finally the week was on us. During this time, as more people found out I was enrolled in Fundies, the comments of "you better get a tech pass" started coming in.

To be clear on a few things, I'm a full cave, full trimix, and CCR instructor. I'm also a Cave Instructor Sponsor with the NSS-CDS and I'm going to be one of the two people working together to handle the NAUI Tech Instructor re-qualification workshops in the SouthEast. Before anyone even mentioned "you better get a tech pass", my only thought was that I was taking this course to become better, not that I "had better get a tech pass".

Think about this for a minute: there's a very vocal and negative (thankfully small) group of people out there, and if some of them found out I took Fundies and didn't earn a tech pass, there would have been a lot of noise in the echo chamber. I mean a lot of noise ("did you know that one of the members of the NSS-CDS training committee took Fundies and FAILED to get a tech pass" versus "did you know that a member of the NSS-CDS training committee took Fundies and even though he didn't earn a tech pass, he learned a lot while trying to make himself better."

In hindsight, I probably should have not let anyone know I was enrolled and just kept it as my own little private thing. But no pressure Ken, no pressure...

Oh and about practicing the Basic 5 between December and March, yeah while I had the best of intentions, that didn't happen either.

Finally, March 8th came around. Elisha and I met up with Lauren at Halcyon to lecture. We covered Modules 3 and 4, which went pretty quickly as both Elisha and I have a little bit of background with planning cave dives. Then it was time to head off to bed, with the plan to meet up at Blue Grotto first thing in the morning.

Remember what I mentioned about pressure above? Yeah, I couldn't sleep much on Friday and woke up around 2AM with my eyes wide open. Crap! Take a deep breath, this is just a class and you know this stuff.

It didn't work, and I didn't sleep much until it was time to head to the spring. Regardless, the show must go on, so I made my way to Blue Grotto to meet up with Lauren and Elisha.

We got checked in, then headed to a pavilion. Lauren talked to us about the plan for the day, we were going to do two dives and some academics. On the first dive, Lauren was going to have us practice our kicks, do our Basic 5's, and then we were going to do S-drills as both donor and recipients.

She had us set up our regs and backplates so we could work on the S-Drills on land without the weight of doubles on our backs. She created a square box (cage match 101!) and then showed us how to do an S-drill. Elisha and I then each took turns being both the donor and recipient. After Lauren was convinced we weren't go to be a hazard to ourselves, or each other, she said "OK, it's time to go diving!"

We kitted up, wandered down to the water, then Elisha led us through a GUE EDGE. Thank god, in the 2.5 months since I had done part 1, I had forgotten which order each E was! We then proceeded to do a staggered descent, at 20' Lauren had us pause and do our Basic 5 while hovering in blue water. Elisha, having taken Part 1 only two weeks before, banged out her Basic 5 in no time flat, then it was my turn. #1 - no problem, #2 - no problem, #3 - damn forgot to check the light cord again but thankfully Elisha reminded me, #4 - no problem, #5 - no problem.

However, I was tense and nervous. Remember, there was absolutely zero pressure on me, except of course all the loudmouths that would say something if I didn't earn a tech pass.

We then ran a reel and apparently Elisha was also feeling some pressure. We were supposed to do SIT checks every 5 minutes on the dive, and we were both sucking gas down REALLY quick, much quicker than either of us expected. It probably didn't help that there was a group of 40 doing checkout dives bouncing all over us, but it is what it is.

We did our fin kicks, then it was time to go to the cage and practice our s-drills. Lauren picked one of us to demonstrate the S-drill with, and then Elisha and I practiced it on each other. Over and over and over again.

Oh, stay in trim while you're donating gas too!

After we had spent about 90 minutes doing drills, it was time to call the dive and do our slow ascent.

Post-dive debrief was conducted in a pavilion. Lauren showed us videos of ourselves, I dropped out of trim a couple of times, but not outside of the 20° range, but still. Then we watched videos of the valve drill, and how it's supposed to be performed.

After lunch, we went back to our doubles to practice valve drills on land. The GUE style of valve drills is very close to how I teach it anyway, so there was only one or two things I had to modify, and those felt pretty comfortable to me.

Dive #2 began with me leading a GUE EDGE. Which E is which again??? Elisha gave me a whispered reply to keep me on track, and after the EDGE we did a slow staggered descent down to 20' to practiced our basic 5. Lauren then took us over to a platform where we had the opportunity to demonstrate our fin kicks and reverse kick for the camera, with that all done, it was time to work on valve drills.

Lauren demonstrated the valve drill, then had us each do it. Again, and again, and again. And again.

Finally, she told us the dive was over, and gave us the signal that we were to do an S-drill, with one of us being out of gas for the ascent. Tag, I'm it, Elisha's out of gas, I'm donating, and running the stops at 20' and 10'.

After the dive, we went to the pavilion to debrief, including watching more videos of ourselves. I dropped out of trim a little while doing a valve drill, but still within the 20° and Elisha was a rock star. Post-video review, we covered the academics in Module 5, then went to the dive shop to get fills for Sunday.

At the shop, Lauren mentioned that the two of us had looked pretty tense, and that's when we both explained we felt some pressure from friends to earn a tech pass. She told us that we were well within the possibility of passing, but that we needed to get it out of our heads and just relax.

I went home, planned to spend some time doing a number of things around the house, but simply had a beer with dinner then fell asleep.

 

[kensuf]

[video]
Final day! Our plan was to meet at 8:30, but somehow I was there at 8. Lauren showed up two minutes after me. Elisha was 2 or 3 minutes after her, I guess I'm not the only over achiever in the group.

We got checked in and headed over to a pavilion. Lauren explained that today we would be working on SMB deployment, diver rescues, and a no mask swim.

We watched videos of how to do an SMB deployment and an unconscious diver recovery, and did land drills to cover all 3 skills. Yes, we really pretended to take our mask off while our buddy helped guide us across the parking lot.

Elisha got to be captain and run the GUE EDGE, then we did our descent to 10' where we were supposed to do the first 3 skills of the Basic 5. We proceeded to do our "Basic 3" but kept having interruptions from other groups of divers -- they kept ascending right in between us, kicking us, etc. One of them looked at me and gave me the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign and I had no idea what she was doing -- I'm not making this up.

We moved to another spot and resumed our Basic 3, getting through those without dropping buoyancy or trim noticeably. Then we were able to descend to 20' and perform S-drills. After we were done with those, I ran a reel course which used to practice our kicks. Kick kick kick, ugh I hate this flutter kick. Helicopter turn, kick kick kick.

Time to move to the platform. We then proceeded to take turns guiding each other on the no mask swim, and got those out of the way. Then it was time to do our SMB deployments.

Lauren first demonstrated the SMB deployment -- thread the needle through the eye. Look up. Inflate, stretch the line, let it go. Tighten up the line to help hold the SMB in place. Ascend a few feet, recover the SMB, then it's time for us to do it.

I took my turn, nailed it, then Elisha took her turn, nailed it. We were both on fire and you could tell that our years of cave diving experience gave us all the practice we needed to deploy an SMB safely and correctly (this is humor, cave divers don't usually use SMB's, but we did actually nail these).

Next up was unconscious diver recovery. Lauren told us she was going to have to demonstrate this skill on both of us, so we each had the opportunity to see. Elisha got to be the unconscious diver first, and I passed her a quick wetnote that read "This is the only time in this course where you can lay down on the platform, EMBRACE IT!"

Lauren demonstrated to me how to pick up and tow an unconscious diver, then it was my turn to be the victim so Elisha could see.

After demonstrations were over, we took turns recovering each other. Well, given that I'm writing this up I must say that Elisha did a decent job of recovering me, and hopefully she would say the same for my ability to recover her.

Whew, on the surface, with one dive left to do. Lauren reminded us that we weren't the worst divers in the world (not even the second worst!) and that on the final dive we would end with an SMB and S-drill ascent. Guess who got to be the captain on this dive? Yup, this guy right here.

We did our descent, practiced a few drills (s-drills, valve drills), and pulled the reel that we had left on the first dive of the day, giving us an opportunity to practice our helicopter turns in the process.

Finally, it was almost time to wrap up. Elisha signaled to me that she was out of air and I donated to her. Lauren then gave me the "launch SMB" signal, and we went through the motions and I launched the SMB. We proceeded to do our 20' and 10' stops, and thankfully Elisha was kind enough to help run those stops for me.

After surfacing, we had one more to do -- Elisha had to be donor and launch the SMB for me, so it was my turn to be the victim. Somehow a joke was made about "The Final Countdown" and I started humming the french horn opening sequence.

We descended, got stabilized at 30', and then I signaled I was out of gas. Elisha donated to me and then it was her turn to launch the SMB and begin our ascent. We worked our way up to our 20' stop, I helped run the stops while Elisha dealt with the SMB. We signaled each other that it was time to ascend to 10', and we worked our way up. At 10' I started once again humming the French Horns.

We surfaced, and during the in-water debrief, Lauren told us we weren't the worst divers. She even let the cat out of the bag that we both passed and earned the ratings we were shooting for.

 

[kensuf]

I had some time to reflect on what Fundamentals is about last night. This is an excerpt of what I wrote on Facebook.

Some people may wonder why a full cave, full trimix and ccr instructor would even consider taking this course and the answer is because I was curious about the GUE process and I wanted to challenge myself.

The course was indeed all you've heard.

It's challenging.

There's a lot of buoyancy and trim.

There's also a lot of fin kicks.

Oh and keep your knees up!!

You will be task loaded while doing seemingly simple tasks, tasks you may have done thousands of times before. Reg removal / replacement, yup we were task loaded while doing that at 10' in blue water (it took us 20 minutes, I'm not kidding).

Get your knees up!

However, the one thing I didn't expect going into it was something I discovered when I did part 1 in Bonaire over Christmas. While "floating and fin kicks" are indeed an important part of the Fundamentals program, a major component that is often overlooked is team work.

My teammates in both part 1 and part 2 helped me immensely, and I hope I helped them too. It was really just little things, like reminding each other to check our light cords, or keeping us on schedule with our sit checks, or helping each other when we were simply having a moment and needed a hug.

It reminded me a lot of my initial scuba Leadership training at UF back in 1994. The success of the individual is the success of the team. And visa-versa.

I guess I should have expected this, but everyone always told me the class was mostly about floating and kicking. I think they missed the most important element. Remember, there is no I in team.

Oh, get your knees up. And quit crying.

Having now gone through the program, I think anyone that engages in cave or technical diving will benefit from the Fundamentals program -- but you need to go into it with an open mind (and get your knees up!!).

 

[Efka76]

Very very interesting post!

 

[rjack321]

That was a great writeup Ken, glad you had a good time and got something (other than stress) out of it.