A somewhat sad conversation last night

[boulderjohn]

John, you do realize that the article was written well over a decade ago, and that at the time, the issues we were dealing with were quite different than the issues today....But, at least is does show I was not purposely being mean and nasty to recreational divers.... In the context of this article you found....imagine you find yourself on a boat, and the buddy you are about to be assigned to dive with, has his tank hanging 8 inches below his butt.....he has his octopus hanging behind him where he could not find it, and a console dragging on the floor as he walks on the boat. You further see that he is wearing about 30 pounds of lead, but with a shortie and little body fat, you are reasonably certain he is overweighted to a dangerous level......In fact, this was a picture we were often presented with...So what would you do? Would you say hi, I'm your buddy, and leave it at that, or would you offer more?
This was the context....for someone trying to be DIR, the idea is to find safe buddies that think along the lines you do, and wear gear you would know how to help them with, and vice versa.....In this example now, this real life charicature would really NOT be someone a new DIR interested AOW diver "should" dive with...Maybe fine if it was you, or some other DM or instructor, or long time diver with big skills....not so much for a new diver trying to use DIR to become a better diver.

Sometimes being polite, and saying "it's all good , mann " is not such a good thing. I am saying be polite, but don't ignore or lie if you see serious problems.

Your article may have been written a decade ago, but I found it today, still in use.

You describe a worst case scenario, but that is not what the article describes. If you recall the context of my post, I said it could be taken to extremes. Compare your worst case scenario with this one, which fully conforms with your advice to the DIR Diver:

A DIR diver, fresh from a pass in his Fundies class, gets on to a boat and discovers that there is not a single person there wearing the kind of gear he is wearing and has been taught is the only safe configuration. This is not surprising, since according to industry statistics, less then 1% of all BCD sales are BP/Ws. Forced to settle on the safest possible alternative, he finds he is "stuck" (your term) with a highly advanced instructor from a recreational agency with more than 3,000 lifetime dives over 20 years. This person is doing everything wrong--a bright colored octo in the "golden triangle" for goodness sake--what a stroke! He has read your article, though, and he wants to help. He has taken to heart the idea you gave him in a part I did not quote earlier: "Perhaps you can get them safer on this dive." He therefore politely introduces himself as a DIR diver and tells this diver everything he is doing wrong in the hope that he can make him a safer diver, just as you suggest he should.

Now think of yourself as this dive instructor with more than 20 years experience and more than 3,000 dives. Do you want to thank him for his help and promise to mend your ways, or do you want to hit hims in the nose as hard as you possibly can?

 

[danvolker]

Your article may have been written a decade ago, but I found it today, still in use.

You describe a worst case scenario, but that is not what the article describes. If you recall the context of my post, I said it could be taken to extremes. Compare your worst case scenario with this one, which fully conforms with your advice to the DIR Diver:

A DIR diver, fresh from a pass in his Fundies class, gets on to a boat and discovers that there is not a single person there wearing the kind of gear he is wearing and has been taught is the only safe configuration. This is not surprising, since according to industry statistics, less then 1% of all BCD sales are BP/Ws. Forced to settle on the safest possible alternative, he finds he is "stuck" (your term) with a highly advanced instructor from a recreational agency with more than 3,000 lifetime dives over 20 years. This person is doing everything wrong--a bright colored octo in the "golden triangle" for goodness sake--what a stroke! He has read your article, though, and he wants to help. He has taken to heart the idea you gave him in a part I did not quote earlier: "Perhaps you can get them safer on this dive." He therefore politely introduces himself as a DIR diver and tells this diver everything he is doing wrong in the hope that he can make him a safer diver, just as you suggest he should.

Now think of yourself as this dive instructor with more than 20 years experience and more than 3,000 dives. Do you want to thank him for his help and promise to mend your ways, or do you want to hit hims in the nose as hard as you possibly can?

Not even close.....In the article, it was referring to a diver that was "gearing up badly, and poorly configured"....there is no arguing what "gearing up badly" means...it means they are doing a poor job of putting their gear together, indicating little experience and knowledge.....if you were in the mood to argue to make your point, you might say that "poorly configured" was DIR-centric, but that was not the intent....the intent was gear that was horribly convoluted...like the console dragging on the deck, like an octopus stuffed in a holder they could not pull it out of easily, or hidden somewhere behind them, etc....it was part of a larger article on this issue where it was spelled out exactly as to what I was referring to..... It was NEVER about telling DM's or instructors or people perceived as "good or experienced" divers that they should alter their set up to DIR....Start at the beginning of the article.

 

[PfcAJ]

So is the all the butthurt about someone deciding that diving with another person who's (gear, attitude, gas, training, whatever) is outside of their risk comfort zone? If I feel that joe-diver with his 35,547 lifetime dives (reincarnated from a synergy if Sheck Exley and Jacques Cousteau) is unsafe, that's MY call. No one HAS to dive with anyone they don't want to, and that has nothing to do with GUE, DIR, George Irvine, or even Dan Volker. The difference is that someone actually came out and said "Hey, stop an incident from even happening by removing yourself from the equation". Aka don't dive with unsafe divers.

I've thumbed my fair share of dives on the surface, and that's my prerogative. I chose not to dive with unsafe divers. Its all about what the INDIVIDUAL decides is unsafe.

 

[boulderjohn]

Not even close.....In the article, it was referring to a diver that was "gearing up badly, and poorly configured"....there is no arguing what "gearing up badly" means...it means they are doing a poor job of putting their gear together, indicating little experience and knowledge.....if you were in the mood to argue to make your point, you might say that "poorly configured" was DIR-centric, but that was not the intent....the intent was gear that was horribly convoluted...like the console dragging on the deck, like an octopus stuffed in a holder they could not pull it out of easily, or hidden somewhere behind them, etc....it was part of a larger article on this issue where it was spelled out exactly as to what I was referring to..... It was NEVER about telling DM's or instructors or people perceived as "good or experienced" divers that they should alter their set up to DIR....Start at the beginning of the article.

Remember my context: comments can be taken to an extreme. Let's look at the entire quote. You talk about the joy of diving in a BP/W and a long hose. Then you say "Try to dive only with people you know are safe, and who dive the same procedures and configurations you do." OK, to me as a DIR reader, that means try to dive only with people who use a DIR-approved configuration. What else wpuld it mean? Now look at the very next sentence? "If you are "stuck" with someone you see gearing up badly, with a poor configuration, try a good natured explanation of why the "Doing it Right" system would have him/her configured differently." What is a "poor configuration"? It is not explained at all, so in the context, it the only conclusion I can draw is that is any configuration that is not yours. In your comments in your current post, you give an entirely different explanation, one that is not found anywhere in your article. Can you blame any new DIR diver for not realizing that you actually meant something entirely different from what you wrote? Can you see why a DIR diver who read that article would go into a the diving shop and tell the owner that the gear he is selling sucks because it is not perfectly DIR approved?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

If you said that to me, my first response would be "holy crap!" and then I would be looking to learn something from you.

Before I get beat up with posts about how there are a lot of divers with a lot of experience and haven't trained with a bunch of different agencies, I'm looking to learn something from every diver I get paired up with.

I have learned more from people I've dived with than I've ever learned in classes ... and sometimes from people who were far less experienced than me.

If you look to learn, you will ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Centrals]

I have learned more from people I've dived with than I've ever learned in classes ... and sometimes from people who were far less experienced than me.

If you look to learn, you will ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Because you have an open mind rather than those who just follow certain rules blindly!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Your article may have been written a decade ago, but I found it today, still in use.

You describe a worst case scenario, but that is not what the article describes. If you recall the context of my post, I said it could be taken to extremes. Compare your worst case scenario with this one, which fully conforms with your advice to the DIR Diver:

A DIR diver, fresh from a pass in his Fundies class, gets on to a boat and discovers that there is not a single person there wearing the kind of gear he is wearing and has been taught is the only safe configuration. This is not surprising, since according to industry statistics, less then 1% of all BCD sales are BP/Ws. Forced to settle on the safest possible alternative, he finds he is "stuck" (your term) with a highly advanced instructor from a recreational agency with more than 3,000 lifetime dives over 20 years. This person is doing everything wrong--a bright colored octo in the "golden triangle" for goodness sake--what a stroke! He has read your article, though, and he wants to help. He has taken to heart the idea you gave him in a part I did not quote earlier: "Perhaps you can get them safer on this dive." He therefore politely introduces himself as a DIR diver and tells this diver everything he is doing wrong in the hope that he can make him a safer diver, just as you suggest he should.

Now think of yourself as this dive instructor with more than 20 years experience and more than 3,000 dives. Do you want to thank him for his help and promise to mend your ways, or do you want to hit hims in the nose as hard as you possibly can?

LOL ... that ain't a far fetched scenario. Back around 2004 or so I was helping do a cleanup of a boundary rope strung along the bottom of one of our local dive sites ... for the purposes of keeping divers away from a water taxi lane and a fishing pier. My dive buddy ... Randy ... has been diving since his Coast Guard days more than 40 years ago ... he's also spent some time as a commercial diver, and has logged well over 8,000 dives. We're gearing up and my friend Dave pulls in. Dave's a GUE-trained diver ... and he's meeting up with someone who's currently taking a Fundies class for some skills work. He saunters over to chat with the two of us while we're getting our gear together. Dave's a friendly sort, pretty non-judgmental, and knew us both ... so it was all good. His dive buddy pulls in ... a well-meaning fellow with maybe 50 dives to his name. He wanders over to join the conversation ... takes one look at Randy's setup, and helpfully tries telling him how he can set it up to work much better.

Randy took it politely enough ... probably because Dave and I were standing there and he didn't want to put this young pup in his place. After Dave and his buddy walked away to go set up their own equipment, Randy looks at me and says "I really f*#king hate it when they do that."

I'm sure the kid was just trying to be helpful ... but he just hadn't yet learned that not everybody wants that kind of help ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[nimoh]

Because you have an open mind rather than those who just follow certain rules blindly!

I don't follow any DIR guidelines blindly, I think for myself and happen to agree with a lot of the DIR principles.

 

[lv2dive]

I have learned more from people I've dived with than I've ever learned in classes ... and sometimes from people who were far less experienced than me.

If you look to learn, you will ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Love this Bob!

For some reason, brought to mind one of my favorite quotes, "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." (Henry Ford)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Because you have an open mind rather than those who just follow certain rules blindly!

I try ... but I learned a great deal about that mind from a mentor who is very much a DIR diver. He's the most influential person I know in terms of what he taught me ... not only about skills and gear, but also about my mental approach to diving. He's one of the least judgmental people I've ever known. He used to be very active on ScubaBoard ... I wish he still was ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)