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Never Too Late: Veteran Sports Diver Tackles GUE Fundamentals
What did a 56-year old PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor with 30-years of experience take away from her “Fundies” class? OZTek owner/operator Sue Crowe reports a rekindled “joy” of learning, new skills, new friends, and some new diving goals!

By Sue Crowe
Header photo courtesy of Sue Crowe.
“Keep your knees together, Sue.” GUE Instructor Examiner Guy Shockey explains the details of Fundamentals, GUE’s most popular course, which he characterizes as “simple things done precisely!”
Taken aback, I quickly looked at Duncan, my instructor. The comment was delivered in a sincere, helpful tone, without a hint of a smirk. Impressive! He’d even written it on the board to remind me to practice. I grinned. Broadly. I honestly couldn’t remember anyone telling me to keep my knees together. Ever. But looking at the video footage, I could see exactly what Duncan meant. Wow. It was so obvious. My Global Underwater Explorers’ (GUE) Fundamentals course provided many surprises; it also delighted, sobered, and ultimately, made me proud!
Lots of people have asked me why, a 56-years old PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI), who has been diving consistently for 30 years, decided to take GUE Fundamentals. After all, I’d been preparing for my big trip to Antarctica. I’d done several dives in the new drysuit. I’d chosen my undergarments, and I’d organised my weights. I ought to be feeling comfortable right? I should be ready.
Well, yes, but there is always room to learn more. The Fundamentals course, or “Fundies” as it’s called, is all about preparation: teamwork, buoyancy, trim, task loading— the fundamental skills required to go further, to explore. I’ve got a lot of GUE friends and have been eyeing the course for a while. Now seemed like the perfect opportunity to discover what all the fuss was about.
Indeed, on day one, we were asked to state our course objectives/goals. Mine were very simple:
- Discover for myself what GUE was about;
- Perfect buoyancy, weight, equipment, and trim in my new drysuit BEFORE heading off to complete my absolute bucket-list top slot, diving the Antarctic; and, most importantly;
- Have fun and learn new stuff
I had only my pride to dent, and nothing to lose.
Truth be told, I was apprehensive. I hadn’t taken a dive course for years, either as an instructor or a student. Most of the time, I felt I could hold my own around divers. I know my limitations and, for the most part, stick rigidly to them. But were my assumptions correct? I was about to find out, and reality isn’t always pretty.
Ironically, the week before starting the course, in order to practice with my new dry suit, I was diving in New Zealand with some friends who are highly experienced rebreather divers. I was diving on a single cylinder, with borrowed equipment and some borrowed fins.
The diving was amazing, but for the first couple of days I struggled. The Jetfins were too big— they flopped around on my feet, making it difficult to control the air in my feet (in my dry suit). Strangely, it wasn’t until the third day that I gave up using them and borrowed a standard pair of recreational fins. Finally, it felt like I had everything under control and I had my mojo back.
Another lesson: trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to buck the system when something doesn’t feel right.
A Little About GUE
Immediately following my NZ lesson, I smashed straight into Fundamentals. My confidence was not high. It was tough walking into the dive shop knowing I was going to be taught, and judged. Ming, my classmate, was working for her Tech pass, wearing doubles, which would enable her to move on to GUE’s technical training courses. I did the class with a single cylinder. More pressure.
Many things are said about GUE, and not all of them kind. One comment I heard repeatedly was, “GUE—where fun goes to die!” BUT there is no denying the effectiveness of the training nor the philosophy moving forward if you have exploration in your sights. The essential philosophy is a simplified but big step up on general training agencies. GUE’s standard equipment setup and standard gases are the biggest distinguishing features.
Another BIG difference is the high level of skill taught and expected. Plus, there is absolutely no guarantee that you will pass—something that’s stated very clearly at the beginning of the course. I found it extremely reassuring. I didn’t want a certificate of participation. I wanted to deserve my card. GUE Fundamentals is exactly what it says it is: “teaching the basic fundamental skills required to be competent and to comfortably dive underwater.” It is the groundwork from which to build on.
GUE boasts an impressively high level of Instructor competency. Every GUE instructor is required to pass an annual fitness test and demonstrate both teaching and diving currency at the highest levels of their qualification. I like that, especially as you go further into more advanced levels of training and finally, exploration, deep wreck, and cave training.
I also like, and value, the idea of high level expedition teams all being on the same page, with similar diving levels, being able to react without thinking. Makes good sense to me.
Anatomy of a Fundamentals Class

GUE Instructor Examiner Guy Shockey explains the details of Fundamentals, GUE’s most popular course, which he characterizes as “simple things done precisely!” For a detailed description of Fundamentals see: Anatomy of a Fundamentals Class.
But did I have what it takes?

I chose Dive Centre Bondi (DCB) because of their reputation and the reputation of instructor and owner Duncan Paterson. Though both Dive Centre Bondi and Dive Centre Manly in Sydney were nearby and have excellent reputations, I had never dived with DCB and they didn’t know me very well. I decided that if I was going to do this, I might as well take myself completely out of my comfort zone and go with someone new. So out of my comfort zone I went. The course was four days, six dives (minimum) and usually, but not necessarily, taken over two weekends. The first weekend was a shock.
Day One: Getting Started
Duncan gave an introduction to GUE, including its philosophy and background. We were also given a series of new fin kicks to learn, a briefing on what to expect over the coming days, along with some video skills demonstrations. I was impressed.

We performed a hilarious (although invaluable) walkthrough of skills in the carpark, and then, with our brains buzzing, we were off to the iconic Bondi Icebergs ocean pool—home of Sydney’s beautiful people (yikes!) to complete a swim competency test: 15 meters underwater in one breath, and a 275 meter/300 yard swim in under 14 minutes.
I was glad to get in the water. As a regular, and a strong swimmer, the worst part was walking onto the swim deck surrounded by young, gorgeous bodies (including my very lovely erstwhile fellow student, Ming, looking spectacular in a bikini). I was sporting my very middle-aged self in a black, sensible swimsuit. Ho hum! Six minutes later, I was relieved to be back in the changing rooms, with one of the trials on our checklist ticked off.
Day Two: Diving (The real stuff!)
After the usual faffing, we got in the water, were briefed and ready to rock by 10 am. My buoyancy was okay, but after 30 years of quietly finning in my own way, now mastering the flutter kick, the modified flutter kick, and the modified frog humbled me, to say the least. I was hopeless, nor were my muscles very happy. It was so much more annoying to watch Duncan glide effortlessly through the water only to discover my legs simply didn’t want to cooperate. Thank goodness for my frog kick—one small saving grace. I loved the day, enjoyed learning the new kicks, but was extremely frustrated with my own inability to get it right.
We worked to truly bring it home, and our efforts were videoed. We returned to the classroom for a full debrief. I prepared myself; I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Watching yourself on screen, the struggle is obvious (not to mention hilarious). You can literally see, in graphic detail, all of your mistakes. It’s a brilliant training tool, allowing Duncan to explain exactly what was working, what wasn’t, and to supply helpful tips and ideas to facilitate improvement.
In comparison to the kicks, the “Basic Five” skills (Reg replacement / Reg Swap / Long hose deployment for sharing air / partial mask clear / full mask removal and recovery) were bliss! I loved this, even though I did forget a few of the steps, for example, clipping off the first stage and not pulling the long hose out until my buddy was calm. It was great to simply learn and practice.
After the amusing, but sobering, reality of my kicking prowess settled in, we tackled the math of surface consumption rates, and minimum gas (aka dive planning and gas management). I went home determined and exhausted. I had five days before we were back in the water.


For some inexplicable reason, Ming and I chose to take our Fundies on the two weekends prior to Christmas! Go figure. My week was chaotic. No leisurely dive practice for me. I was left with the carpet. After all, logic told me that if skill practice worked in the car park, why not on the carpet?
Trust me, when attempting to keep your knees together, and up, the carpet made perfect sense (not to mention, it was more comfortable than the asphalt). It’s physically impossible to drop your knees while lying face down on something solid. Keeping them shut is more challenging. I simply concentrated on the motion and proved to my own legs that it WAS physically possible. Much to my husband’s amusement, I practiced everyday, even if it was a quick five minutes.

Five days later, I returned, feeling optimistic but unsure how good my carpet skills would translate to open water.
Day Three: On To The Divesite
After the usual friendly greetings and a quick brief, we loaded our gear, headed to the dive site for an onsite briefing, a practice session prior to the official class, and then, the real McCoy. Apart from practicing our fin kicks (A LOT!), we covered S-drills, ascents (with stops), descents, and more Basic Five, all with the GUE mantra in mind:
- Team (where are your team members/situational awareness etc)
- Buoyancy
- Trim
- Skill (the skill being the least important if all the others go to pot)
Thank God for carpet practice. Day three was a vast improvement. Definitely not perfect, but both Ming and I felt better about our performances. There was less self-deprecating laughter (an invaluable skill in any situation), more determination, more accomplished smiling, and a light at the end of the tunnel was clearly visible. I really started to enjoy myself.
After two practice sessions and two class dives, where we spent over four hours underwater, things were going great. Reviewing the video was easier too. In fact, we were eager to see it, and the difference was obvious. Very gratifying. Despite small errors, we were on the way.
It was a long day; four hours underwater, a de-brief followed by a classroom session on partial pressures and gas planning (yes, there is an exam at the end). I dragged myself home and fell into bed dreaming of the perfect flutter kick.
Day Four: Our final classroom day

There it was on the board: our final reminders. Keep those knees together. I grinned.
After the success of day three, wewere raring to go. We’d agreed to start off early. Today was a big, final day. With tea and coffee assistance (plus a deliciously indulgent cinnamon bun), we had our final theory lecture on gas dynamics.
As well as successfully completing all the underwater skills including ascents and descents, today heralded the anticipated (and very specific) Surface Marker Buoy (SMB) deployment, along with an unconscious diver recovery. Our no-mask swim was unpleasant (especially with my contact lenses), but it’s one of those exercises that needs to be done, and is especially valuable if your mask does happen to get dislodged one day.
Note to contact wearers: Opening one’s eyes underwater in the ocean is NO problem. Don’t however, try it in a swimming pool or freshwater. Contacts do not like it, nor will you.
We had a lovely day at Camp Cove. Our SMB deployment and land practice, prior to trying it underwater, was a joy. Both Ming and I showed further improvement. Ming’s valve drill was impressive to watch. I was pleased with my Basic 5 and didn’t forget anything this time. The hours in the water flew by. We headed back to the shop for more video debriefing and the final exam.
Because of GUE’s policy of keeping all videos shot during class private, we all agreed to do a fun dive on the following Monday morning to enjoy our newly developed skills and take some video footage for me to use in this story. (Thank you team).
It wasn’t quite over yet, but I’d spent four intense days with Duncan and Ming. We’d had loads of fun and laughs, shared the lows and the wins. I felt sad it was coming to an end, and I’d have to go back to the real world. Sigh.
In Conclusion
I loved every minute of this course. I laughed. My teammate was awesome. Duncan was a brilliant instructor, immeasurably patient, good fun, and nothing was too much trouble for him. It was obvious he genuinely wanted us both to improve, learn, and prevail.
I’m sure a lot depends on the individual instructor; in diving it always does. However, GUE consistently tests and stretches its instructors, and the bar for admission is very high.

Certainly the scope and skill level for the course was excellent grounding for any diver.
Not that this is NOT a ‘learn to dive’ course. I, with Ming, who is a PADI Rescue Diver, were a good combo. We both had fun and learned new skills. The atmosphere of this class was open and honest. We were encouraged to admit if things weren’t working as expected, and we were given feedback and advice. It was a safe, no-blame environment which both Ming and I responded well to.
After such a long time out of the classroom, as either an instructor or student, I had forgotten what a joy it is to learn. I’m still working on the perfect backward kick, but my course objectives were well and truly met. To top it off, I made two new friends.
Forget a 20-minute refresher course if you want to get back into diving or want to feel more confident. Go and tackle GUE Fundamentals–a truly welcoming, friendly environment where it’s safe, and you’re encouraged to learn. Any diver, no matter how ‘skilled’ or experienced, would benefit from this course.
What’s next for me? Apart from my coming trip to Antarctica (see my vlogs & blogs—an unrepentant plug), I’m determined to complete my GUE doubles primer and nail that Tech Pass within six months! The ocean is a big place – plenty of room for expansion. Maybe this is my own private middle-aged crisis, but it’s certainly better than a fast car (IMHO) 🙂 but I certainly don’t intend to stop learning new things anytime soon.
Note: GUE has a policy not to allow any class video footage to be used for anything other than training purposes. ALL footage used in this article was taken in practice sessions prior or after ‘official training’ with an additional day diving after the course, for the specific purpose of shooting video. Any shots shown have the express consent of all participants.

A journalist by trade, Sue was the Editor of Scuba Diver Australasia, has driven her own marketing consultancy and been Director of Tabata Australia. Today, Sue owns and operates OZTek Advanced Diving Conference and OZDive Expo, Australia’s most successful diving show. Passionate about diving and all those in it, Sue is a member of the Dive Industry Association of Australia, long time member of the Australian Marine Conservation Society and is Webmaster and Australasian Co-ordinator of the Our World Underwater Scholarship Society. Although not actively teaching today, Sue, a PADI OWSI since 1993, has been an active diver since 1990.
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Why It’s Okay To Make Mistakes
To err is human. To trimix is divine? Instructor evaluator Guy Shockey examines the importance of learning through one’s mistakes, and most important, being willing to admit and share them with others, especially for those in leadership positions. It’s the only way to create ‘psychological safety” within our community and improve our collective diving safety and performance. Wouldn’t that be divine?

By Guy Shockey. Images by Andrea Petersen
A few months back, I read an article about a club where members talked about failure and making mistakes. This club required that members freely discuss their mistakes and failures without fear of judgment. The goal was to destigmatize failure and recognize that we learn by making the very mistakes we are afraid to talk about! Moreover, to become truly high performing and develop unique and creative solutions to problems, the article argued that we needed to be free of the worry of failing—to understand that “to err is human.”
The article went on to mention that for high performing teams to be successful, they needed to operate in an environment of “psychological safety.” This term was originally coined by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, and Gareth Lock has written about the concept extensively. In his work with The Human Diver, Lock identifies psychological safety as a key component primarily missing in our diving culture. As a full-time diving professional and someone who delivers The Human Diver programs, I couldn’t help but reflect on the failure-destigmatizing club in the context of our diving culture in general and, more specifically, dive training.
Consider the humble Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. The Roomba learns how to clean a room by bumping into nearly everything in the room and, with some nifty software, creates a “map” of all the “vacuumable” space in the room. Then, it goes about its business efficiently and repetitively cleaning the room. The Roomba has learned by making multiple mistakes—much like humans do.
Now imagine being able to transfer that new “map” from one Roomba to another so a new Roomba doesn’t have to repeat the mistakes of the first as it sets out to vacuum the room. Finally, imagine this transfer of data to be less-than-perfect—perhaps, occasionally, the new Roomba will make some mistakes (from which it will learn). But it will make far fewer mistakes than the original Roomba had to make.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Humans learn the same way Roomba vacuums do (hopefully without running into as many hard surfaces), and we can transfer information between each other. Because the transfer process is less than perfect, we still make some of the same old mistakes. This is particularly interesting because, despite drawing specific and repeated attention to these common errors, students often still make the same errors! One of the most important parts of instructor training is educating future instructors to recognize where these common mistakes will occur and encouraging them to ramp up to being hyper-vigilant rather than regular-vigilant.

Learning Through Mistakes
One way we learn is by making mistakes, talking about them, and sharing the experience in the hopes that future divers don’t have to make the same ones. At its core, this is the very essence of learning. Incidentally, this is also what makes experience such an important characteristic of a good teacher. The more experience the educator has, the more mistakes they’ve made and, consequently, the more information they can transfer. Fear of owning our mistakes keeps us from learning from them; perhaps more importantly, it means that others will miss out on these important lessons.
Yet, in diving culture, we (for the most part) shy away from discussing the mistakes and errors we (hopefully) learned from for fear of being considered a less than capable diver. When divers in influential or leadership roles do this, it is a tremendous loss for the diving community in general—it robs future groups of divers of the opportunity to learn. Sadly, because this commonly happens at the leadership level, it is hardly surprising that other divers further down the line copy that behavior, and we ultimately end up with a diving culture that emulates the example of the leadership.
I advocate for taking the opposite approach. In my teaching, I am very open about the mistakes or errors I have made while diving. I recognize that I am basically a smart Roomba, and I learn by making mistakes. Thus, it would be disingenuous to pretend that I don’t make mistakes—I had to learn somewhere! I believe this approach lends authenticity to my instruction and starts to create psychological safety in my classes. Ultimately, my goal is to encourage students to recognize that, “If the instructor can admit they make mistakes, then it is okay to talk about the ones our team made during the training dive.”
I have found that there is a remarkable change in the relationship between student and instructor when this happens. Learning becomes more of a collegial activity, and stress and performance anxiety significantly decrease. This leads to more successful learning outcomes and happier students. I am a firm believer that, while training can be serious, it should also be fun!
Creating Psychological Safety
Creating psychological safety in our diving culture is a daunting task, but every flood begins with a single raindrop. The first thing that needs to happen—at all levels—is an acknowledgement of failures and mistakes among those in positions of influence and leadership. Sadly, this is not as easy as it sounds, and there is frequent pushback. Ego is one of the most dangerous aspects of a personality and it frequently causes people to overreach, crippling growth and learning. The irony here is that every single one of us has made a mistake. We all understand that no one is perfect, yet many in leadership positions cling to the view that vulnerability is weakness—that demonstrating imperfection will cause others to stop trusting them (or revering them).
I propose that the opposite is true. I should also note that I believe every dive professional is acting in a leadership role. This means that, while creating psychological safety can best be started by those in senior leadership roles, it must also be encouraged at all levels of leadership, including anyone in supervisory or teaching roles. In a perfect world, every diver would embrace this approach and enable psychological safety within their team.
There are a few things you can do to help develop psychological safety. First, facilitate a debrief at the end of the dive and begin with “something that I as the leader did wrong or could have done better was…” This immediately creates fertile soil for psychological safety to flourish. When the leader is the first person to say, “I made a mistake,” it establishes that this is a safe place to discuss mistakes and errors with the intention of learning from them. This opens the door to follow-up discussions.
On the subject of transparency, in any organization it is often the voice of dissent—a contrary position—that is the most valuable. This voice causes the group to reflect on original assumptions and decisions and offer a perspective that “groupthink” does not. This means that we need to be open to different solutions to problems lest we be blinded by our own cognitive biases—ones that have been developed over thousands of years of evolution in order to make us more efficient Roombas.
We are essentially fighting against our own brains, and it takes a significant amount of effort to think outside the box. We are hard-wired to think in terms of “evolutionary” rather than “revolutionary” ideas, and we need to make a conscious effort to consider the voice of dissent and understand why it is so hard to do so.

In Conclusion
In psychologically safe environments, we experience a significant increase in “discretionary effort,” or shifts on the “need to do” and the “want to do” curves. If a team has a high degree of psychological safety, they are motivated to perform higher than the minimum standard. If you create a high degree of psychological safety, your team will perform better as a result.
This is where it all comes full circle. We want our dive teams to perform at a high level. We want them to have a high degree of discretionary effort. We want them to embrace our “commitment to excellence.” Therefore, we must be the ones to create the psychological safety necessary to facilitate this growth.
One of the most effective things you can do as a leader is to be open and willing to share that, in the end, you are human too. You make mistakes, you admit to them, you learn from them, and you share them with others so they can learn too.
One of the most effective things you can do as a leader is to be open and willing to share that, in the end, you are human too. You make mistakes, you admit to them, you learn from them, and you share them with others so they can learn too.
DIVE DEEPER
Other stories by Guy Shockey:
InDEPTH: Reflections on Twenty Years of Excellence: Holding The Line (2019)
InDEPTH: Situational Awareness and Decision Making in Diving (2020)
InDEPTH: The Flexibility of Standard Operating Procedures (2021)
InDEPTH: How to Become an Explorer: Passion, Partnership, and Exploration (2022)
InDEPTH: Errors In Diving Can Be Useful For Learning— ‘Human Error’ Is Not! by Gareth Lock
InDEPTH: Learning from Others’ Mistakes: The Power of Context-Rich “Second” Stories by Gareth Lock

Guy Shockey is a GUE instructor and instructor trainer who is actively involved in mentoring the next generation of GUE divers. He started diving in 1982 in a cold mountain lake in Alberta, Canada. Since then, he has logged somewhere close to 8,000 dives in most of the world’s oceans. He is a passionate technical diver with a particular interest in deeper ocean wreck diving. He is a former military officer and professional hunter with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science. He is also an entrepreneur with several successful startup companies to his credit.