When to take DIR-F

[Carribeandiver]

the number of dives you have is not a factor in deciding if you should or should not take the GUE DIR F course.
The only real factor is you and your readiness. I can tell you from experience that you should NOT take the course if you are not familiar with the rig you will be diving with. DO NOT take the course if you have no idea of what the course is about - meaning dont go in thinking the diving habits you have now are the ones you will learn to perfect.
DO take the course with an open mind. DO take the course with an idea of what skills will be presented for you to work on.
To be BEST PREPARED, I would strongly suggest diving with a GUE DIR diver. It has been suggested that you should not practice skills before hand so as not to develop muscle memory while doing it incorrectly. Whether this is true or not doesnt matter, what does matter is that you at least have an idea that you will be taught to swim horizontally and all the vertical diving you did for all other agency classes will have be unlearned.

 

[PerroneFord]

I took it with 25 dives. In some ways I'm glad I did. But I wish I had at least had reasonable buoyancy before taking it, as it cast an inescapable shadow on all the water portion of the class for me. I got far less out of the class because I could not be buoyant and remain still in the water.

It's certainly a mind twister if you've progressed very far down a different path. I am quite glad I had embraced the gear and the ideas before I know much about DIR. Part of the benefit if living around caves I guess.

 

[mwhities]

I'm slowly getting all of my gear together and hope to dive it quite a bit before next year. That's when I plan to take my GUE(DIR)-F course. I currently only have 20 dives logged, I hope to have plenty more with the BP/W.

Michael

 

[GetNarc'd]

I agree a lot with what TSandM has said. The purpose of Fundamentals is to establish and get you on your way with correct techniques and skills. If you're struggling with something as basic as buoyancy, you're not going to reap as much out of the in-water time as possible.

I'm currently doing a buoyancy 1 class with Ed Hayes in Ct. This was recommended by him because i'm such an infant in diving (40-50 dives), and I can see how it will take away from Fundamentals if I'm too distracted by my struggle to keep proper buoyancy and trim (not that I won't be anyway). After this i'll do some rec diving and schedule a Fundamentals class with him.

A bit of advice I was given was by some of his assistants/dive team was a recommendation that since I plan on extending my education through Cave 1 and Tech 1, that I gain some experience with doubles after becoming more comfortable in the water than I already am. The reason being that if I want to take Tech 1, i'm going to have to pass Fundies with Tech status first. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing fundamentals twice; once with a singles rig and again with doubles. I don't know if all GUE instructors require this though so correct me if I'm wrong.

Part of the benefit if living around caves I guess.

Don't rub it in!

 

[PerroneFord]

Don't rub it in!

You have no idea. Most people dive for years on OW gear and enjoy scuba. You have no idea what it's like to have to drop $4k just to play the game. Gotta have doubles, gotta have a light, etc.

All your buddies are buying UK4s for $99 and your light is $600. For the entry model. Caves seem cool, but they are demanding taskmasters that must be respected.

 

[lamont]

FWIW - Lamont was one of my dive buddies in the class. He had about 25 dives. He did better than I did ... in part, I think, because he didn't have to work against ingrained habits ...

yeah, doing it early is the way to go.

some of it is just that you don't know you're flog kicking until someone shows you what you're doing underwater with a camera.... i'd had about 5-10 dives practicing my flog kick before i got shown it in fundies, bob probably had 500 dives doing a flog kick before going into fundies...

you do need to be able to float off the bottom, while reasonably still and not immediately cork. you don't need to hold a +/- 1 foot depth while doing a mask-off-OOA, but you need to be able to hang out at least a little bit in mid water without going straight up or down....

i did have the advantage of doing 25 dives with GUE trained divers, so had a head start in just trying to imitate them....

 

[The Mushroom King]

Sorry to deviate slightly from topic...

What is a ballpark price for the fundementals class? I've seen it offered in my area and when I saw the price I fainted away!!! (Of course a starbucks coffee is $4 in these here parts....)

just an idea would be helpful.
Cheers

 

[johnkendall]

Sorry to deviate slightly from topic...

What is a ballpark price for the fundementals class? I've seen it offered in my area and when I saw the price I fainted away!!! (Of course a starbucks coffee is $4 in these here parts....)

just an idea would be helpful.
Cheers

It depends entirely on where in the world the class is, and whether there is a local instructor or not.

Normally classes cost somewhere around $500US plus instructor expenses. In the UK at the moment they are £400 inc Instructor expenses. If you are lucky and have a local instructor who has low expenses then you'll get a cheaper course, than if you have to fly an instructor in from the other end of the world.

HTH

John

 

[Ben_ca]

Actually Starbucks is expensive here on the mainland as well...

You do have a GUE DIR-F Instructor on Okinawa.... Pretty good one at that...

 

[GetNarc'd]

Sorry to deviate slightly from topic...

What is a ballpark price for the fundementals class? I've seen it offered in my area and when I saw the price I fainted away!!! (Of course a starbucks coffee is $4 in these here parts....)

just an idea would be helpful.
Cheers

Hah, wait until you hear what Tech and Cave courses go for. Ack! I almost fainted....Let's think, go to Bonaire for a week and dive all day long, or, pay the same amount to have someone make me do demanding and sometimes scary tasks underwater while tormenting me (for lack of better words!). But from what i've heard, it's worth every penny.