GUE Tech1.

[Clare Gledhill]

Well done guys

[Garf]

Originally Posted by Bardo

Out of interest, who will be finishing off your course if it carries over into the new year? Surely Andy won't be able to 'finish you off' (ooer) if he's no longer in active status with GUE as from January 1st? Mr Lundgren, perhaps?

yup, probably Richard Lundgren.

[MATTBIN]

Great report Garf. Hope it goes well if/when you do the next part.

Matt

[wilbo]

Garf - only just caught this - work got in the way.

A captivating read mate - a real riveting account. I know each of you will take this away and crack it between you.. you know where I am if you need a video bitch.

Well done to all of you.

Mark.

[Skiverdiver]

That sounds like fun!.....bet the video was great!...are you gonna post any snippets to scare anyone?

Much respect to the "team" for going through that....and your going back for more!!!

[divingniknaks]

Skiver, you don't normally get the video as such. It's main use is for feedback during the debrief sessions.

I dare say there's probably some spectacular bits stored away by a lot of GUE Instructors though, maybe they share them in order to swap ideas of how to torment people underwater


.

[Diving Dude]

Garf, did you learn the best way to store a drain r.... oops l mean conger prodder?

l know one of the problems is that the screw ends are not stainless steel.

Oh and well done. How long before the scar disappears?

[Skiverdiver]

Originally Posted by divingniknaks

Skiver, you don't normally get the video as such. It's main use is for feedback during the debrief sessions.

I dare say there's probably some spectacular bits stored away by a lot of GUE Instructors though, maybe they share them in order to swap ideas of how to torment people underwater


.

Ah, sorry misunderstood...though Garf meant Clare Gledhill was a friend who tagged along to video for them...

There has to be some interesting footage that we can all learn from?..

[Miss Roxy Chablis]

"Like crabs in a bucket"
Video remains the property of the instructor - sorry!
Very useful tool tho' - you don't know what you we're really like until you see it played back on video and debrief yourself.
Clare on video gave Andy more scope to "play" with us. He did waste the opportunity

[onthetrain]

Garf,
Firstly well done to yourself & the other members of your team for all the hard work you put in before & during your course. I'm sure you will all get there when you finish in the new year.

As you know from our conversations in Scapa I am far from a DIR knocker. On a couple of occassions I have almost signed up to do fundies myself. I believe that DIR/GUE has much to offer though I myself have chosen a different route (CCR).

I really enjoyed reading your account of the course, and I thought long and hard about whether to post this or not, but there are a number of things in your account I find disturbing.

Originally Posted by Garf

Andy described my fins as perhaps a little shorter than he was used to seeing on DIR divers, and perhaps not giving me the propulsion they should. Well, he said they were “completely useless girly crap” anyway.

This sounds like total tosh to me! If I remember you use DIR style jet fins. If all your instructor can find wrong with your kit configuration is the length of your fins I find that a bit sad and unnecesary.

Originally Posted by Garf quoting Andy

“If you let go of the line, you and your team are dead”. If you leave slack in the line you and your team are dead”.

Sorry but what total bull. Granted in a cave or inside a wreck you dont want to go losing the line, likewise if you must get back to the shot for the deco station, but for the majority of diving this is just Macho bull! On the majority of dives if you lose the line its a minor inconvenience.

Originally Posted by Garf

Apparantly, "gentle checkout dive" has a slightly different meaning to AndyK than myself, but any man who happily wears a cap with "BEAST" written on it is clearly not a man to be messed with.

After the first day’s diving we all emerged from the waters a little shell shocked, and packed up to go back to the B&B for the debrief. We sat on the sofa looking like we'd just been beaten senseless

So what is that all about then? I agree that when you are paying good money for a course you want to learn as much as possible and you want to be tested in controlled conditions to help prepare you for the day when the brown stuff hits the whirly thing for real. That said if thats the way you felt after a day's 'training' I really would question your ability to learn. The days of pulling people apart to rebuild them went out around the time England won the world cup. Its so pointless.

I do wonder about the validity of some of the exercises you undertook. I mean what chance of you having an OOG diver, a lost mask and a post failure all at the same time. What chance all 3 of you losing masks when following a line? Surely drills are so much more valid if they reflect reality. I accept you are training for a worst case scenario, but is this really worst case or an attempt to make things unnecessarily difficult.

All agencies do lost mask drills, blackout drills etc at advanced level training, but the scenarios I have dealt with all reflected reality. This to me does not do this. I guess for you guys the bottom line worst case would be lost mask, valve failure at the same time you get seperated from the rest of your team for some reason.

I wonder why that isnt practiced?

Garf, in no way do I mean to detract from your achievements or your chosen route. I raise the issues to highlight what comes across to me as unnecessary macho bullshit which is a (percieved on my part) example of all that hacks me off about some section of the diving community.

I'm really sorry to hijack your thread, I hope you will take it in the spirit it's meant as I have no desire to start a flame war which undermines all your hard work or has a pop at DIR or its training methods.

if you are unhappy with my post let me know & I will delete it immediately with an unreserved apology.

Alan