Frederik Bring

How it all started

My own diving journey began when I was 11 years old, during a summer holiday in 2005 on Ibiza. One sunny, breezy day, I went on a boat trip with my mom and some friends who were already certified divers. My mom and I were just along for the ride to snorkel while the others went diving.

Shortly after leaving the harbor, the waves picked up – and let’s just say it didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t end up snorkeling that day, but there were plenty of fish near the surface to watch.

Despite everything, I was fascinated by all the gear, the divers' preparation, and their stories after the dive. That’s when the spark was lit.

Back in Germany, we immediately started looking for a dive shop – and found one. Just a few weeks later, I was doing a discover-dive in a small indoor pool. As a skinny little kid, handling all that heavy equipment wasn’t easy, and I was drifting around a bit out of control. There wasn’t much to see other than wet pool-tiles, but I was hooked and wanted more.

After all my parents and I agreed that it would be better to wait a few more years before really getting into diving. So, shortly after my 18th birthday in 2012, I went to a local dive center and booked another discover-dive to see if the passion was still there after all that time – it was.

The moment I surfaced from the cold, dark water, I knew I wanted to start my Open Water course right away. I signed up for the next available course.

The final dive took place in late November in 7°C water, wearing a rental wetsuit that didn’t fit too well.

Who are those people with double tanks and drysuits?

A few years – and a few specialties – later, some friends introduced me to the DIR philosophy. At that point, it was all self-taught:

I absorbed every article, video, and podcast I could find. We decided to take a course together to really learn the fundamentals properly. After some discussion, we chose not to take the GUE Fundamentals course, mainly because we knew you could fail it – and at the time, that seemed like a bad thing.

Now I know better: the fact that failing is possible is actually a sign of quality and real standards.

So, we took the IANTD Essentials course instead, followed by a few more classes within IANTD.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be a more structured way to learn all of this. Everyone kept talking about how good GUE courses were, but to me, it all felt like a big black box. I had no idea what to expect.

Back to square one

Eventually, I decided to check it out for myself and booked a one-day workshop with a GUE instructor. That one day was all it took – I knew I wanted to do the GUE Fundamentals course, and this time, I wasn’t afraid of failing.

From there, everything moved forward: Tech 1 in Spain, Cave 1 in France, and Cave 2 in Mexico.

Sharing the passion

In my “day job” as a software developer, I’ve always enjoyed giving talks and mentoring junior developers. That’s where the idea came from to combine my two passions – teaching and diving – and to pursue the path of becoming a GUE instructor.

Now that I’ve completed my GUE Instructor training, I’m incredibly excited to share all my knowledge and enthusiasm with other divers.