A somewhat sad conversation last night

[grantwiscour]

I missed a day but this thread keeps rocking along...

I have run into a few "Scuba Nazis" in the past. I didn't pay enough attention to them to find out with which group they classified themselves.
Mostly I run into good people. Sometimes they get in the way, stir the silt and ruin the viz, take a long on the dock, etc. but generally they smile and say hi.
More importantly most folks I've been around would help if possible I someone needed assistance.

In extreme sports its easy to drink the kool aid and become an "expert". It can happen to the best of us in one way or another.

I dive with a Zeagle Stilleto and Atomic Reg with an SS1. Some sort of "heretic" by many standards. I've learned a lot about DIR/GUE and how to be a better diver from these DIR/GUE folks on SB. I had a paradigm shift of enlightenment when I started reading about the 5 skills and seeing the videos of divers with perfect trim and control.
After reading and learning a bit I join up with an upstart local dive club and these guys are BP/W and long hose and work practice skills regularly. All happily explained the setups and explained how the rig functions and didn't have a problem diving with BCD people.

I may eventually drink the kool aid. If it'll get me to hover like the 5thD video...gimme some and hurry.

​lI looked for a koolaid smilie but my short attention span won out...

 

[boulderjohn]

This talk about the DIR mindset to help others for some reason reminds me of a story, supposedly true, I heard decades ago. A woman was having some problems (I don't recall), and a man went very far out of his way to provide assistance. She was very grateful, and she said, "Thank you so much. That was very Christian of you."

"You are very welcome," the Rabbi replied, "and it was also very Jewish."

 

[nimoh]

Actually there is a member of the scuba club here who pulled a similar dives (it was my 3rd dive after OW). It rpretty much started out us getting in our gear setups and checking our buddy teams. I got pairs up with the diver i question. I asked how much weight how is it setup. 15lbs in 2 pockets and 20 on his belt. I was going in my head after reading the PPB portion of my AOW course materials that he shouldn't need that much in a 2 piece 7mm wetsuit. I mentioned that he saidI'm very floaty. As the others were done and it was a pretty warm day I decided to leave it at that. Now the break water walk for those who don't know can be upto 1km or .625miles we walked out to between flags 3 and 4 which is about 75% of the distance out. Along the way we noted that my buddy was lagging behind alot. One of the DM's who wasn't diving that day was walking with him. Every asked what was his problem and I said 50lbs of weight + gear... the general comment from the rest of the group was "what is he out to do skin a boat or something" I just kept my mouth shut. We had been standing out in the sun in ful gear for about 10 min by the time he got to us. So the rest of the group had jumped in the water to cool off and I just sat down on the break water with my feet in cool off ( it gets a little warm in a drysuit). He's winded doubled over by the time he gets out to us. I suggest the others to get started with the dive while we get in and give my buddy time to rest up. Every decided to wait.

The dive starts about 5 min later. I was pretty much horizontal in the water as I always have been. I note my buddy A is sitting about 75 degrees up from the horizontal and fighting to keep fro sinking to the bottom. I ask if he's ok and indicate for him to inflate his BCD. He indicates it is. As the bottom at this area of the breakwater is about 90ft below I signal to him we should go up and turn back. He indicates no and says he is fine 9the on thing he did have was good hand signals). So I choose to accept his judgement even though I'm thinking its not correct. But being fresh out of OW and him having ~30 dives over the last 5 years as he told me later I figured I'll just differ to his judgement. The dive continues and after about 10 min into the dive he signals half air. I look at mine and I'm not even at 2300 yet (we both had 2900ish to start). So we turn back and when it comes to our safety stop I end up having to give him my backup since hes' down to 200PSI.....

After we get to the surface he's like wow you look so natural you must have like 50 dives under your belt I replied no that was my 7th including my OW and my second in a drysuit. So we talk and hes like how come I burned through my air so fast... I told him in all honesty its your weighting and your trim. Your completely out of position and to be honest very much over weighted. I said here is a point to carrying an extra lb or two but there is a point to over kill. That he was in my opinion unsafe with his amount of weight as I was concerned that if something happened and he was down much deeper that 50ft where we were and could not ditch his weight for one reason or another(thinking absolute worst case here) that he might not be able to get back up. I think I went a bit over board there but I felt I needed to punch this point home to him looking back at it now. So Iwent over the weighting guidelines and with a storm blowing in we didn't have time to sit down and do a weight check. But I strong suggested he get a weight check done during his next dive and make it in the shallows. As the club has good DM's I knew they could do that and talked it over with the 2 we had there that day and they agreed to pass on the information to the rest the next time he signed up for a dive. In this case it was really diver negligence/ignorance. We have since had a few chats and he says my suggestions have all helped him out a ton either through referring him to sites with good demonstrations of skills and reason to and why for doing this as they are done. Giving him advice on how to fix some issues I have had and fixed and suggestions about picking 3 thing to work on each dive. From what I have heard he has fixed alot of these issues including dumping ~15lbs of weight from his gear. He said to me thanks for giving him a boot in the butt an getting him on a path to being a better diver.

I realize I put a happy face at the end of my post, but I wasn't actually joking, sounds like you had some great OW instruction, but also have the drive to be a better diver, which of course has nothing to do with DIR.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thank you for the kind words. Like I said: I'm kinda DIR's Strokes Person.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

whether it is DIR or Scubapro, there is a big difference between participating in a discussion and listening to a sales pitch

... except it wasn't a sales pitch ... we were on a liveaboard and I wasn't trying to buy anything. He was busily trying to tell me why he wouldn't dive anything except "the best" equipment ... and why what I was using was trash.

Not much difference at all between that and somebody telling you why their training is better than yours ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Tigerman]

Nah ... I think it has more to do with how it gets said. There's a big difference in how you'll be perceived if you're judgmental vs respectful.

This isn't a DIR thing either ... I was on a liveaboard recently with a fellow who, as a ScubaPro dealer, went on and on about how much better his equipment was than mine. It took real effort to maintain a polite facade.
...

Why? Unless he was a friend of yours or a friend of a friend, why bother being polite. I woulda just told him to stop yapping about his gear and go take a dive when I got fed up - which would probably have taken just about 2 SIs..

I once pretty muche chewed a SERIOUSLY experienced diver a new one on a SI and the bad part was his buddy came over to me and apologized afterwards.
Dont know what agency he was or wether or not he was DIR, but he was probably 65 and had more dives than the rest of the boat combined..

Why?
He kept pushing me out of the way on one of the dives and in the end I got fed up and pushed him back. He then started lecturing me when we got back on board about how I should never touch another diver and that I was staying too close to my buddy..
Ohyeah, a couple of days before I had to to abort a dive and do an air-share ascent due to the incident linked in my sig, something I did not mention to him but definetly suggest being close to your buddy is NOT a bad idea..

 

[Doomnova]

I realize I put a happy face at the end of my post, but I wasn't actually joking, sounds like you had some great OW instruction, but also have the drive to be a better diver, which of course has nothing to do with DIR.

Actually to be very honest my OW instructor had her hands full with 12 students and my OW cert dives were very rush because the shop had a school group doing their OW certs, my OW class with 12 students all getting certed all at once(worked out 27 students getting their certs in a weekend). Most of what I have learned has been extra homework I have done on the side to bring my skill up to what I think should be a passable level(reading here online guides from stuff posters have mentions, watching vids). I don't hold my instructor accountable she did what she could with me and I had my issue being control of my BCD air bladder at the start which she helped out with. I hold the shop accountable for that one and I let them know that too. The shop literally had no gear for rent for 2 weekends because it was all at the pool or in the ocean for both weekends. I'm a person with a drive for perfection. I'm not going to force others to be perfect but I will politely suggest how they can improve themselves. As i have a simple saying good is not good enough. There is always room for one to impove even if it is your best area.

 

[gypsyjim]

This isn't a DIR thing either ... I was on a liveaboard recently with a fellow who, as a ScubaPro dealer, went on and on about how much better his equipment was than mine. It took real effort to maintain a polite facade.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

While I usually feel it is best to just bite my tongue (often I say after a real rough customer, that I bit my tongue so had that time the blood is dripping out of my mouth!), your experience sounds like one of those times where I would have eventually had to speak my mind.

Sounds like you did better than I would have. I have just so much tolerance, then I either walk away (with blood dripping out of the corner of my mouth), or have to speak up.

 

[mathauck0814]

While I usually feel it is best to just bite my tongue (often I say after a real rough customer, that I bit my tongue so had that time the blood is dripping out of my mouth!), your experience sounds like one of those times where I would have eventually had to speak my mind.

Sounds like you did better than I would have. I have just so much tolerance, then I either walk away (with blood dripping out of the corner of my mouth), or have to speak up.

It would have been poetic justice had he suffered any equipment malfunction and be forced to suffer a rescue on the back of an inferior product.

 

[Cyprian]

I missed a day but this thread keeps rocking along...

I have run into a few "Scuba Nazis" in the past. I didn't pay enough attention to them to find out with which group they classified themselves.
Mostly I run into good people. Sometimes they get in the way, stir the silt and ruin the viz, take a long on the dock, etc. but generally they smile and say hi.
More importantly most folks I've been around would help if possible I someone needed assistance.

In extreme sports its easy to drink the kool aid and become an "expert". It can happen to the best of us in one way or another.

I dive with a Zeagle Stilleto and Atomic Reg with an SS1. Some sort of "heretic" by many standards. I've learned a lot about DIR/GUE and how to be a better diver from these DIR/GUE folks on SB. I had a paradigm shift of enlightenment when I started reading about the 5 skills and seeing the videos of divers with perfect trim and control.
After reading and learning a bit I join up with an upstart local dive club and these guys are BP/W and long hose and work practice skills regularly. All happily explained the setups and explained how the rig functions and didn't have a problem diving with BCD people.

I may eventually drink the kool aid. If it'll get me to hover like the 5thD video...gimme some and hurry.

​lI looked for a koolaid smilie but my short attention span won out...

Shhhhh.....Grant, don't tell people that there are GUE divers in Texas that are friendly and will dive with folks in a back-inflate or, Heaven forbid, a jacket BC. Say it isn't so! You will make the anti-GUE zealots cringe and they will be the first to point out that we aren't DIR....oh wait, isn't that what "we" are supposed to do?

Kinda funny when the shoe is on the other foot, isn't it? Oops, I wasn't supposed to say that either. Lol. Dang, I think I will just smile and go diving.