Hog loop on a CCR

[kieren]

Can you point out what's challenging about it? I mean to someone who's been diving for a while. I get that it can be challenging to a beginner to deploy a spare mask without smashing into the bottom but to any somewhat competent diver this should really be no problem whatsoever.
Below I pasted what you are required to show in tec1 according to GUE. What part of this is supposed to be challenging? Can you point something out that people are having difficulties with?
I'm not being facetious, I realy dont get it.
I might read in in between the lines but it sound to me like old school GUE bravado as in 'were better than you'.
At least George back in the day would be very specific... x and y sucks because this and that. That, I get. You can either agree or not with the reasoning given.

I would love to some day have a GUE instructor show me what I suck at and how it's done better. I'd be happy to pay for a day and gladly do a full fundi class and tec1 if there is actually something of subtance to learn. But I not paying a grand and spend 4 days bored in fin kick class listening to someone telling me why being in trim and situational awareness makes sense.
Germany is full of GUE divers, I see them all the time. I don't see what special other than the attitude and being douchy to people with split fins or neopren drysuits.

On paper, many things seem easy. The list of skills in the standards are common for almost all techincal courses, sure. But the precision and consistency that they are expected to be performed are significantly greater than what other agencies expect. Most allow everything to be done kneeling on the bottom, so if you are comparing a GUE course to that minimum standard, I'd say it's a bit tougher.

For an experienced diver, you'd be surprised how challenging it can be. The vast majority of my Fundies students do not earn a tech pass on the first go. Many are coming in as experienced tech, cave, and CCR divers and a handful of instructors at those levels as well. But you've seen the standards, which seem easy, so everyone must breeze right through it I guess.

I can tell there's not much point in continuing the discussion with you on it, though. You seem to have made up your mind about it long ago, and that's perfectly fine. It's certainly not for everyone, but I would place an honest wager that if you went through the course with an instructor you gelled with, you'd enjoy it and your diving would certainly improve.

[kieren]

Helitrox is 150ft max. 21% min o2. Technically trimix, but same level as an OC an/dp course.



TDI CCR path is:
20 OW level dives to start

Course: Air diluiant, no deco, 100ft max


Then
Course: Air deco/helitrox. 150ft max depth
Min 6 months, 30hours of experiance

Then
Mixed gas CCR: 200ft max, 18% o2 min. AKA normax trimix

Min 50hrs of experience


Then
Adv mixed gas ccr AKA hypoxic trimix
min 100hrs of experience


So TDI's standards are higher than GUE? lol

Thanks, I'm pretty familiar with TDI's CCR standards

GUE doesn't have an air dil no deco cert, so to compare fairly you'd need to look at the path starting with a qualified technical diver going straight into "mod 1". For TDI, the diver only needs 50 open water dives to start the AN/Helitrox course (as close to an equivalent to Tech 1, 170' on 18/45 with 1 deco gas and max of 30 min of deco, as you can get). From there, there's no experience dive requirement, so you can go straight into a CCR helitrox course, which is pretty close to the CCR 1 program in qualification. So to get the initial CCR rating, the GUE path quite a bit more thorough.

Moving on from level 1 courses, the GUE path in all curriculum is quite streamlined, though. 25 experience dives and you meet the requirement for level 2 which is pretty much the end of the road on the CCR side. But again, the level of proficiency expected for a CCR2 diver is quite high.

[bent]

The vast majority of my Fundies students do not earn a tech pass on the first go. Many are coming in as experienced tech, cave, and CCR divers and a handful of instructors at those levels as well.

Is that really true?
The vast majority fails? Of the experienced divers? It's the first time I've ever heard that the vast majority fails Fundies.
Can you tell what they're failing at?

But you've seen the standards, which seem easy, so everyone must breeze right through it I guess.

Yes, I think a competent divers should breeze right through fundies or any other OC class for that matter.

[rddvet]

Is that really true?
The vast majority fails? .

Thats what I was told. Expect to get a provisional. Dont expect a pass. All of my friends who took fundies passed with a tech pass, but I know a ton of people who have lots of experience that had to go back to work on some stuff. I (and most of my friends) were lucky enough to have instructors who were both gue instructors and instructors for other agencies, so we got alot of ?gue-type? training but through a different agency. For example, somebody that can pass Dan Patterson?s classes likely will be able to pass fundies, because his mindset in teaching is very similar to gue?s.


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[jcr]

I know you guys are on to debating the difficulty and value of a fundies class but I'll add my 2 cents to the initial discussion. I was initially trained to stuff the long hose on the sm bottle in ccr but after several frustrating dives where the long hose caught on something or just free flowed I switched to wrapping the long hose under the loop and clipping it to the right d-ring. Many years later, I can say that I will not go back. Since then, I have seen many divers struggle with the same issue and most have ended up wrapping the long hose. The advantages are numerous including immediate access to oc gas from the right sm bottle (not even necessary to unclip). It also promotes breathing the long hose before the dive as a part of the predive check procedure. This is easy to skip when you have to restow the hose on the bottle. A BOV simplifies the donation procedure by keeping the donors gas source in the left hand while donating with the right.

[jcr]

I think its important to note that at least on the RB80 (JJ guys can speak for that unit), its REALLY flood resistant. Taking the loop out of your mouth even with the BOV open isn't really a big deal. I think for less flood resistant units the priorities might shift a bit.

While I agree that the RB80 is incredibly flood tolerant (tolerant, not resistant) I know one senior RB80 diver that would disagree with this statement after taking a caustic during an emergency scenario.

[lord1234]

Is that really true?
The vast majority fails?

My comment from years of seeing and mentoring(but never instructing) divers who have gone through parts of the curriculum. To be clear, I have been a GUE supporter and diver for a long time, but never an active instructor(of any agency, nor do I wish to be one for personal reasons).

No, the vast majority do not fail. Failure is reserved for blatantly DANGEROUS divers. Who endanger themselves and/or others in their team.

I think that most divers earn either a provisional or a rec pass coming out of class. Tech passes are difficult. a 3ft bouyancy window is more like 18inches up/down. Please forgive the non metric, but that's the easiest way to explain it for me. Keeping that kind of bouyancy while ascending, sharing gas with a diver, while also shooting an SMB at depth or during a stop at 20ft, can be exceedingly difficult, but that is a required skill. It's not even just the bouyancy, trim, kicks, or the drills, but also the buddy communication, situational awareness etc.

That being said, I'd like to point you to a good scubaboard thread regarding Fundies and many other GUE courses: https://www.scubaboard.com/community...entory.473690/
This thread even has a post(i can't find at the moment) of someone who came in sounding a lot like you, even had a free class given to them to prove a point, and came out extremely impressed with the level of instruction.

[bent]

No, the vast majority do not fail. Failure is reserved for blatantly DANGEROUS divers. Who endanger themselves and/or others in their team.

I think that most divers earn either a provisional or a rec pass coming out of class. Tech passes are difficult.

Having to go back to get a card kinda sounds like a fail though.

Hearing all this almost makes me wanna borrow doubles and do the class. Still sound off to me. Vast majority to me sound like at least 75% ... that's a lot. I wonder whether it's same with every instructor.

About the hog loop thing. I think I might set the JJ up with the 40s and try it out after the class.

[bent]

Now that I thought about this, I wanna do the class with Draker and Waldo as three man team.

[Terry D]

Now that I thought about this, I wanna do the class with Draker and Waldo as three man team.

I bet the three of you would be funnier than Curly, Moe, and Larry. LOL