I think there are lots of people who violate what GUE teaches, after they take Fundies. I dive with some of them.
The big difference, for me, between my GUE training and my PADI training is that my GUE instructors walk the walk. THEY do the dive planning, the pre-dive checks, the pre-dive drills, and the debrief for their own dives. They set an example of compliance. And when I want to follow the "rules" myself, I don't get any resistance or resentment from fellow DIR divers.
As far as carrying a can light and two backup lights all the time, here's a picture from Cayman Quest 2006:
I carry my can light with me all the time because I actually often find it useful, even in high ambient light. It brings out colors, and lets me look in nooks and crannies. I don't necessarily carry a backup light for high viz/high ambient light dives (unless I forgot to take it off the harness) because a light is not necessary and a small one is not very useful in that setting.
You are allowed to think.
The compass thing is strange . . . I use my compass quite a bit, it's on my left hand, and I can't remember it being a big deal to see it. I think, when you have a team of three with can lights, there's enough scatter that you can read a compass. At least, I can't remember ever putting the light in my right hand to do it. Maybe I do and I don't even realize it, in which case it's obviously not much of a nuisance.
You know, the thing about DIR is that, for any specific thing, you can probably come up with a situation or an argument why some other way of doing things would be better, or at least as good. The people who put the system together made choices, and sometimes they chose among multiple acceptable alternatives. But they made the choices that built a system that has certain characteristics -- It works as a system; it works for divers who operate as a team; and it's absolutely scaleable. If you discard any of those principles, you open the door to a whole host of other ways of doing things. But then you've discarded the system.
The big difference, for me, between my GUE training and my PADI training is that my GUE instructors walk the walk. THEY do the dive planning, the pre-dive checks, the pre-dive drills, and the debrief for their own dives. They set an example of compliance. And when I want to follow the "rules" myself, I don't get any resistance or resentment from fellow DIR divers.
As far as carrying a can light and two backup lights all the time, here's a picture from Cayman Quest 2006:
I carry my can light with me all the time because I actually often find it useful, even in high ambient light. It brings out colors, and lets me look in nooks and crannies. I don't necessarily carry a backup light for high viz/high ambient light dives (unless I forgot to take it off the harness) because a light is not necessary and a small one is not very useful in that setting.
You are allowed to think.
The compass thing is strange . . . I use my compass quite a bit, it's on my left hand, and I can't remember it being a big deal to see it. I think, when you have a team of three with can lights, there's enough scatter that you can read a compass. At least, I can't remember ever putting the light in my right hand to do it. Maybe I do and I don't even realize it, in which case it's obviously not much of a nuisance.
You know, the thing about DIR is that, for any specific thing, you can probably come up with a situation or an argument why some other way of doing things would be better, or at least as good. The people who put the system together made choices, and sometimes they chose among multiple acceptable alternatives. But they made the choices that built a system that has certain characteristics -- It works as a system; it works for divers who operate as a team; and it's absolutely scaleable. If you discard any of those principles, you open the door to a whole host of other ways of doing things. But then you've discarded the system.
