CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Looking to do your DM or Instructorship or taking your skills to the next level with Essentials, Fundamentals, or Intro to Tech training? Post here.
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Grateful Diver
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by Grateful Diver »

coach_izzy wrote:
LCF wrote:Nobody would send divers that inexperienced into Fundies nowadays. They'd get mentored -- go diving with the group, get their equipment tweaked, work on their buoyancy, get an introduction to situational awareness, and perhaps even take the Primer class. By the time they got to Fundies, they'd be ready for it.
Are any of these dives taking place on a regular basis? Would definitely love to join you guys!
I would highly encourage it, coach ...

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CaptnJack
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by CaptnJack »

spatman wrote::grouphug:
kdupreez wrote:In the past almost 2 years we have had about 18 Fundamentals students and 8 GUE Tec1 graduates in Seattle alone.. and if memory serves, there was only 2 provisionals.
It would be very interesting to see how the ratio of provisional:pass changed year to year over time as the local community grew.
As mentioned, the course has changed too. Duration, expectations, nothing is really the same as it was even 3 or 4 years ago. So attibuting the "pass rate" to one or even 2 or 3 variables is not really meaningful.
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coach_izzy
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by coach_izzy »

Grateful Diver wrote:
coach_izzy wrote: Are any of these dives taking place on a regular basis? Would definitely love to join you guys!
I would highly encourage it, coach ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Hey Bob! How's your recovery buddy? Your advice has always been spot on and I remember you mentioning something like this back when I was still fresh in the PNW. I look forward to it. :)
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Sea Goat
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by Sea Goat »

I took Fundies so long ago that it was just a weekend workshop. I got my tech pass several years later. My Fundamentals instructor (RJ Myers, son of Rick Myers, of Bandito charters) became my closest dive buddy, and taught me so much. The awesome part of becoming part of the community is that you suddenly have lots of similarly trained divers to be mentored by, and can keep learning and practicing skills and building your muscle memory and instincts and knowledge base. My mentors back then were so important, and I'm a mentor now too, albeit a rather sketchy one. :)

Koos can clarify this, but I think Fundamentals can be taught either straight through, or on split weekends, which allows the students several days in between to regroup and practice their skills and get their gear dialed in. And not miss a lot of work. Which is kinda nice.

There's also the Primer class, which is a weekend workshop like the course I took, but it's not pass/fail, and is a good intro to this kind of team diving. And that's just what GUE offers; there's also UTD, and independent instructors who teach team diving courses as well. I think other people have already listed them.

So fun! Seriously. Diving this way is so fun. I love it. Welcome Jeremy!


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lamont
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by lamont »

Grateful Diver wrote: My initial Fundies class was 2-1/2 days long ... which was really fast-paced and trying to pack way too much into too short of a time frame. When they moved to a four-day class, I think they did their students a huge service by giving them more time to process and perform the skills. Before, if you didn't get it right the first time, you were pretty much guaranteed not to pass.
That fundies class was only 2 days long. We started on friday night, did all day saturday and the instructor flew off halfway through sunday. He doesn't teach for GUE any more, and it was incidents like that one that led to stricter standards on the instructors on how the courses should be run and led to the longer format. I don't believe we were instructed in how to properly shoot a bag, and definitely didn't have any timed ascent drills among other standards issues (which caused issues for us in later courses when we showed up unprepaired).

Another thing that has been introduced is the tech-pass/rec-pass distinction, which makes it easier for a relatively new single tank recreational diver to get a pass out of the course, and then come back later and get a tech upgrade. That has reduced the number of provisionals coming out of the course. Back before the tech/rec distinction all those rec passes would have been provisionals (or they would have been fundies passes at a lower standard leading to tech1 provisionals, which was a problem until the standards for tech passes were better standardized across instructors). Its still fairly difficult and not too common to get a tech pass out of fundies right away.

There's also been a shift towards divers getting more prepared before going into fundies, which is a bit of a double-edged sword since divers can wind up overpracticing the wrong things without good mentorship. When I took my first fundies I had 25 dives and fully expected to get a provisional out of it (at that point I also had zero interest in cave or technical diving at all). Some of the divers had a lot more diving experience (e.g. Bob had around 1,000 dives and had been mentored a bit by a GUE trained diver), but generally for most of the course it was their first exposure to GUE at all.

Anyway, there's been a lot of debugging in the past 8 years, and fundies has evolved a lot as a course, and is almost barely recognizable compared to the course that me and Bob were in (of course, again, that has a lot to do with that instructor, but having QC over instructors get better is part of the debugging that has gone on...)
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Sounder
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by Sounder »

I totally agree with the community-involvement prior to the course. I was fortunate enough to meet Bob Bailey before I started diving... and, subsequently, was initially exposed to this style of diving. He did it that way so I thought everyone else did, and so I tried to do it that way too. Then I met my next mentor, Rob Holman - same thing. Eventually when I ran out of classes to take from Bob, I trained with Scott Christopher... and again, same deal again. All the while I was meeting and diving with people Bob, Rob, and Scott suggested and/or introduced me to.

Granted, I took GUE-F much later in my diving education than most people do. I credit these three guys, and the community they introduced me to, with my success in GUE-F. The community makes all the difference in the world.

Well done guys! Thanks for letting me participate in the celebration. :funky:
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mattwave
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by mattwave »

Congrats!! This is a major step for GUE in the PNW.
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seainggreen
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by seainggreen »

coach_izzy wrote:
LCF wrote:Nobody would send divers that inexperienced into Fundies nowadays. They'd get mentored -- go diving with the group, get their equipment tweaked, work on their buoyancy, get an introduction to situational awareness, and perhaps even take the Primer class. By the time they got to Fundies, they'd be ready for it.
Are any of these dives taking place on a regular basis? Would definitely love to join you guys!
Dives like these happen each and every Wednesday down at Cove 2 (check out Wacky Wednesday West dive plan posts). Myself and many others would happily meet up with you if you'd like. All of us dive very regularly and we dive all over the Sound; we're big fans of getting out and about and not being limited to just the Cove all of the time. Just send an email or PM! :)

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KaizerWilhelm
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by KaizerWilhelm »

Congrats to all three guys in the class! It was my pleasure to fill your tanks at UWS in-between dives. I could tell how tired y'all were, but clearly y'all powered through and kicked ass! Well done!
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by LowDrag »

First let me say congratulations to you guys for passing. I have little to no idea what GUE Fundamentals courses are like but after reading this thread I find myself interested in finding out. I am very new diver so I will watch with interest and look forward to learning more about GUE Fundamentals.
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Mortuus
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Re: CONGRATULATIONS are in order!

Post by Mortuus »

If you are interested, talk to Koos (the OP)! Or just come up and dive with us some time. I also took Fundies this year and I absolutely loved it. It was definitely a challenge, but I got a ton out of the course. It really puts things in perspective
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