Some last minute changes came about and David Rhea, GUE Training Director was gracious enough to put together a GUE Fundamentals course that me and another person could participate as interns.  This was opportune because the GUE Fundamentals ITC was scheduled for May.  Any time one goes back to the basics in their training you can't help but learn or re-learn skills that should be second-nature, rote, etc.

Friday we spent our academic portion of the class at Extreme Exposure.  This was the first time David conducted the class in the three day format.  I believe this was a better format than the one I attended as a student.  This class allowed all the academics to be covered on Friday leaving the dives and the all important skills practice for Saturday and Sunday.

As the fog burned off the cow fields (sounds like a lead in to a great ???? novel.  Maybe another life.), we drove to Blue Grotto for our land drills and water skills.  On land we reviewed equipment configuration covered some demonstrations then practiced the usual: matching, modified s-drills, modified valve drills, SADDDDD.  Then to the water for bubble checks.  Then under water for: propulsion techniques, buoyancy, balance & trim, the basic five underwater skills, s-drills, valve drills, SDB deployment, OOA horizontal ascents, etc.

I initially thought I would get to sit back and soak it all in.  Well, few methods of learning are as good as kinesthetic (learn by doing).  David got our "hands dirty" from the get go.

Thank you David for you time and insights.

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