Wikipedia article on "Doing It Right"

[boulderjohn]

I have been away for a while, and come back to find that this thread has slipped into surrealism. I somehow never dreamed this would turn into a snorkel debate. And then there is this:

WTF is a TDI Intro to DIR (Fundamentals Course)???
Are we talking the same TDI founded by Brett Gilliam? The same one who's been GI3's best buddy throughout the decades? What's next? Dogs and cats lying together?

I think the quotation you were looking for might be from Woody Allen: "The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep."

As surprising as this may seem, there is a serious point related to this. The term DIR is not registered anywhere that I know of, so there is nothing stopping anyone from teaching it and advertising it as such. I had no idea that TDI had an official DIR course, but the concept is intriguing in what it suggests might be the future of the term.

It also shows something about the evolution of the agency since those early days.

If you read the TDI Trimix course manual, which was written in 2002, you will see at least two sections that are clearly mocking DIR without saying so directly. One is almost funny if you know the context, when it talks about macho people thumping their chests and shouting about using 100% O2 for deco instead of 80%. (No, the phrase "baker's dozen" does not appear, but...) The course has several teaching points in it that would not be consistent with DIR. In contrast, the Advanced Trimix course manual, which was written two years later in 2004, has no such mocking references, and the parts that are not consistent with DIR are pretty much toned down to the point of near agreement.

My first tech training was TDI, from an instructor who had been partially GUE trained under AG. He made it clear to us that we were learning DIR, although unofficially so. I later dived with the TDI IT who had certified him as a TDI instructor, and this man was the most thoroughly DIR diver I have ever met. I don't feel comfortable naming him here, but I will say that many people who are devoted DIR divers and EE customers know him very well.

I think it would be a mistake to assume that the wars of the 1990s are still so much in effect today.

 

[TSandM]

Those paragraphs look good to me, Rob.

 

[rlynch]

Thanks TSandM - its slowly getting there.

 

[boulderjohn]

.....this is a tedious process since i am citing sources throughout to eliminate personal opinions from polluting the article.

...and well done on that.

If nothing else, it will put the burden on those who simply have an axe to grind to do the same.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Cascasa although my snorkel is aluminum and also a bangstick no need to beat the shark.

And not sure on the snorkel and DIR but if in shallows the fish will get closer without scuba like on dans vid.

 

[lamont]

My first tech training was TDI, from an instructor who had been partially GUE trained under AG. He made it clear to us that we were learning DIR, although unofficially so. I later dived with the TDI IT who had certified him as a TDI instructor, and this man was the most thoroughly DIR diver I have ever met. I don't feel comfortable naming him here, but I will say that many people who are devoted DIR divers and EE customers know him very well.

I think it would be a mistake to assume that the wars of the 1990s are still so much in effect today.

One of the core principles of DIR is a global, team-based methodology with everyone operating off the same page. TDI doesn't. Doppler doesn't. AG no longer does either. Its only when you start getting fuzzy and rationalizing that DIR just means being a good diver that it starts getting perverse like that.

DIR is, fundamentally, a single system. The biggest point was to get everyone on the same page and not have a dozen people showing up with a dozen different ways to dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

One of the core principles of DIR is a global, team-based methodology with everyone operating off the same page. TDI doesn't. Doppler doesn't. AG no longer does either. Its only when you start getting fuzzy and rationalizing that DIR just means being a good diver that it starts getting perverse like that.

DIR is, fundamentally, a single system. The biggest point was to get everyone on the same page and not have a dozen people showing up with a dozen different ways to dive.

I understand your point fully, and I agree with the concept. I think, though, we are not talking about quite the same thing in these posts.

Back in the day, TDI and DIR were at times at each other's throats. As you say in your post, a big difference that still remains is the TDI belief that divers can make decisions about a number of items (like 80% v. 100%) that DIR does not allow. On the other hand, TDI's belief in individual decision making extends to its instructional corps. According to that philosophy, a TDI instructor can demand 100% adherence to DIR principles in his or her instruction. The manual can say whatever it wants--the instructor can override it as long as the instruction meets the minimum TDI requirements. I know that because I was originally pi$$ed when I was told I had long ago completed the TDI requirements for my first tech courses, and we were waiting for me to complete the GUE requirements. I contacted TDI, and they saw no problem with this. If the instructor wanted to conform to GUE/DIR 100%, then that was fine with them, as long as it met TDI standards as well.

 

[Jaques-Yves Costco]

First, I did not begin this discussion....so ideas or questions about DIR and also GUE are mixed throughout this....
What I was talking about in this case, was that originally, the DIR that was being disseminated across the internet in the 90's, was meant to make gradual changes in how people saw dive safety, and how they dived....it was not anticipated that these changes would be all or none, or that divers would instantly become pure DIR...

Do you share a cubicle with Winston Smith?
So the DIR disseminated across the internet in the 90's was trying - in between the masses of homophobic invective, offers to settle scores with fists, bodybuilding claims and sad, macho attempts at wit - to let the neophytes in gently?
This is as revisionist as your claims that the above insults/invective were a Guerilla/viral campaign in the cause of DIR.

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Back Plate
...The back plate is a rigid plate with minimal padding ^[37] bent from flat stainless steel ^[38] or aluminum ^[39] plate and slotted for straps, or formed from other materials with similar rigidity characteristics ^[40].

I have a couple of questions about this section:

1) What about Kydex backplates, since they are not stainless or aluminum, and do not seem to me to be "similarly rigid" (although "DIR type" divers seem to use them and find them plenty rigid, from what I have read). (I might not have asked this, but I have seen a similar requirement in other GUE/DIR places but without the "or similarly rigid" part; in other words, specifying stainless or aluminum only.)

2) Does the "slotted for straps" refer to the harness-webbing slots (I'm thinking this is the case), or to cam-band slots (probably not?).

Thank-you for clarifying,
Blue Sparkle

 

[danvolker]

Do you share a cubicle with Winston Smith?
So the DIR disseminated across the internet in the 90's was trying - in between the masses of homophobic invective, offers to settle scores with fists, bodybuilding claims and sad, macho attempts at wit - to let the neophytes in gently?
This is as revisionist as your claims that the above insults/invective were a Guerilla/viral campaign in the cause of DIR.

I have no idea who or what Winston smith is....and don't really care to know....If you can't see that the campaign in the 90's was extremely successful at pushing DIR ideas out accross the internet, it either means that you were horribly offended and will never "get" DIR, or that you don't have much of a grasp on marketing with mass media. Either way, with your attitude I'd rather see you in 4 heavy steels, a thick wetsuit and bungie wings Read that as a smile, but I'm not really kidding. No one is paying me to be nice to people like you.