An Attempt at Understanding DIR

[lamont]

If you don't care if you communicate what you are saying, why say it? Not just with respect to a particular term but with respect to any aspect of a conversation.

Some people listen, some people don't. There isn't enough time in this life to try to convince all the people who don't want to listen of the way I view things. I had enough fun in my 20s in college trying to convince the whole world I was right. These days, I post stuff for those who have the insight to be able to look past all the superficial garbage around the "DIR" acronym and have little patience for those who stumble over something that trivial. So, I'm a DIR diver, and if that offends anyone, they own those feelings, they're not my problem.

 

[Thalassamania]

Respectfully disagree. Anyone can be stressed to the point of panic. At that point the only thing they have to rely on is an ingrained response to a set situation to get to a point where things become manageable again. It's totally not a equipment solution, its a conditioning solution.

Actually I don't think that you do since I don't disagree with what you just said. The question is where is your threshold of panic and are you well enough trained/conditioned, to put it far enough away that the situation that would put you over the line is one that you're not going to be able to solve no matter how you are equipped and drilled. It's an optimizing equation problem.

I think you missed the point here. A solider is trained to familiarity to at most 5 or 6 weapon systems and then he is conditioned to one weapon system. You dont hand a SAW to a Pvt. that has been humping a M203 before a mission unless you have to. In Somalia I was stuck as the assistant gunner on a mission even though I usually carried a M16a2. I was so poorly conditioned both physically and technically for that role I was functionally combat ineffective. In a nutshell train how you fight.

You want to do tech dives then dive rec in functionally the same gear until it's intuitive. I doubt this applies to you but for those going down the tech road I think it is critical and I think it is one of the things that separates GUE/UTD from most other agencies.

I think, honestly, that the "separation" is one very defensible route to a given point, but that there are alternative routes to the same place, some easier, some more difficutl, some involving different, but equally rigid equipment based protocols and some that take a more Zen like, "bend like the grass" kind of approach that rely more on personal water skills and mental discipline. I will grant you that the latter take a very different outlook and approach, but in the final analysis are more effective because they encompass a broader sweep of equipment and situations.

That said, on particularly difficult and hazardous undertakings I tend to avail myself of both approaches, selecting personnel with the more Zen like outlook, but rigidly standardizing the procedures, drills, and equipment selection, placement, and use. I like to have everything possible going for me when it might come down to the last small fraction of a percent that makes the difference.

Sounds more like one should go the GUE/UTD route to start with and avoid all the downgraded training idiocy inherent in the industry.

I think that you'll find that that is exactly the advice that I'd give your average diver who is looking to learn how to dive the best that he or she can within the confines of an "agency."

 

[lamont]

I don't know you, but you sound super pretentious in the above post. I'm sure you are probably better than what you just posted, so I would go back and think about what you just said, and how many potential additions you just soured.

RTodd isn't trying to proselytize or convert people and I'm positive that he doesn't care that he pisses anyone off.

You can get butt hurt all you want, but just being whiny about it is not going to fix anything. You are right, the only long threads in the "DIR" sub-forum are the ones arguing about "DIR". Why don't you leadership types...lead. Conspire with Lamont (he seems friendly enough) and make it a better forum

RTodd used to be one of the moderators. Everyone else got tired of it and quit, I'm the last one with the patience to keep on going.

, create more stickies, set up events, and educate people.

My paycheck (all $0.00 of it) from GUE is nowhere near enough to cover the amount of time that would take.

If someone is conducting guerrilla warfare against you, then win the support of the people (so to speak). Instead of sounding like you got your drysuit underwear stuck in your butt crack, become a Mao or a Che in your community. The fact that your community is small and people complain about it on here means that your community as a macro level entity is doing something wrong. If you would like any creative suggestions on how to conduct an effective counter-insurgency campaign I would even be willing to assist.

"Learn from the masses, and then teach them."
-Mao

DIR/GUE isn't actually a cult looking to convert the masses over to it. And largely GUE is achieving the objectives that it wants to achieve, so there's no need for COIN tactics.

 

[TSandM]

In general, people for whom the system works will find it, and they'll know it's right for them. I think threads in general in the DIR forum serve an enormous purpose, because as they get pages and pages long, people with no interest in the headline will open the thread to see what's got folks so wrought up -- This, in fact, is how I first learned much about DIR. As I read, I thought, "Hey, this sounds GOOD!"

The people who begin reading such threads and think it's insane that we argue about how many deco bottles you can clip into the head of a pin, aren't people to whom the system appeals, anyway.

DIR is what it is. A whole bunch of pretty smart and amazingly courageous people have found it works for what they do. I have found it works for what I do. You get to choose. I would just prefer you choose on some kind of factual basis, rather than the observations of someone who has run into a couple of people with long hoses he thought were obnoxious.

 

[Sloth]

I think, honestly, that the "separation" is one very defensible route to a given point, but that there are alternative routes to the same place, some easier, some more difficutl, some involving different, but equally rigid equipment based protocols and some that take a more Zen like, "bend like the grass" kind of approach that rely more on personal water skills and mental discipline. I will grant you that the latter take a very different outlook and approach, but in the final analysis are more effective because they encompass a broader sweep of equipment and situations.

That said, on particularly difficult and hazardous undertakings I tend to avail myself of both approaches, selecting personnel with the more Zen like outlook, but rigidly standardizing the procedures, drills, and equipment selection, placement, and use. I like to have everything possible going for me when it might come down to the last small fraction of a percent that makes the difference.
I think that you'll find that that is exactly the advice that I'd give your average diver who is looking to learn how to dive the best that he or she can within the confines of an "agency."

I don't want to characterize you but you seem to be an intellectual, scientific type. To you solutions to problems are just another potential tool in the tool box. Very much self reliant by default and critical by nature. Professionally I am the same way but my limited time in the military has shown me the advantages to a more holistic "the sum is greater then the parts" approach for activities that have any inherent risk.

Yes some components of the GUE/UTD approach are meaningless in certain situations but in my mind and a lot of others the holistic approach is extremely beneficial to new tech divers and those wanting to go that way.

An holistic approach isn't superior to a systemic approach but where it trumps in spades is the ability to get someone to a proficient enough level to actually be a solid diver. As you say in the final analysis a more systemic approach might make for a more well rounded diver but how many "near misses" does he have to go through to get there? Also, there is no reason to think a diver that goes through a holistic approach cant come to the decision to start deviating. There are a lot of Tech2/Cave2 divers that have done just that and now dive CCRs. How many of them do you think regret having gone down a more holistic approach from the onset?

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't want to characterize you but you seem to be an intellectual, scientific type. To you solutions to problems are just another potential tool in the tool box. Very much self reliant by default and critical by nature. Professionally I am the same way but my limited time in the military has shown me the advantages to a more holistic "the sum is greater then the parts" approach for activities that have any inherent risk.

Characterize away, you seem to be a pretty good judge and are not far off base. I do find your terminology a bit confusing, in as much as I'd describe my favored approach as the holistic one, stressing the idea that, "the sum is greater then the parts," and the GUE/UTD approach as the one that tends toward the mechanical, the equipment based, and the inflexible. But that's neither here nor there.

Yes some components of the GUE/UTD approach are meaningless in certain situations but in my mind and a lot of others the holistic approach is extremely beneficial to new tech divers and those wanting to go that way.

I'd argue with you about the first half of that. I do not think that any of what I've seen of GUE, UTD, NAUI-Tec, IANTD, etc., approach(es) are meaningless. They are part of an integrated whole; and each and every piece has been carefully thought through by the "powers that be" (and they are rather bright and capable people) to reach what they think are optimum solutions to specific issues. I think those approaches are so far superior to what is available to the average diver that I would encourage anyone trying to better their skills to (at least for some period of time) adopt one or the other and embrace it wholeheartedly until they find it somehow limiting. If they never experience that feeling, then great ... they will have had an incredibly successful and fulfilling diving career, and what could be better? If they do have that feeling ... drop me a line and I'll try and show them an alternate path, better in some ways, perhaps worse in others, but one that I have never found to be limiting in that fashion.

An holistic approach isn't superior to a systemic approach but where it trumps in spades is the ability to get someone to a proficient enough level to actually be a solid diver. As you say in the final analysis a more systemic approach might make for a more well rounded diver but how many "near misses" does he have to go through to get there? Also, there is no reason to think a diver that goes through a holistic approach cant come to the decision to start deviating. There are a lot of Tech2/Cave2 divers that have done just that and now dive CCRs. How many of them do you think regret having gone down a more holistic approach from the onset?

While we can (once again) argue about who has the better claim on "holistic" diving, for the sake of the discussion I will give preference to you. There is no question in my mind that for the average diver your preferred approach will, in a about three times the PADI and half of my course time, produce a highly proficient diver.

But in about twice the time (without a series of "near misses" to learn from) I think that I can produce a much more well rounded and capable diver. Let me advance a trivial, but telling example: every one of the divers that I am talking about can hold his or her breath for two minutes and can, without any trepidation at all, cover at least 50 yards underwater on a single breath, and 100 yards underwater surfacing no more than twice. GUE requires a swim of 16 yards, which implies the ability to hold one's breath for no more than 15 seconds.

Now please bear with me for a slight and temporary diversion. The way in which I usually model diving safety is to describe a set of coordinates where the y-axis is depth, the x-axis is a measure of the risk due to (or reduced by) equipment and the z-axis is a measure of the risk due to

(or reduced by) skill. The safety surface is a hyperbolic cone that goes to a radius of zero at the depth at which you are guaranteed to die. As long as you can (figuratively) maintain youself so that some part of your body and/or gear is inside the cone, you will live, but the second that you (and your gear) get entirely outside of the cone, as they say, "you're gonna die!" So it is critical for you to know how much "wiggle room" you've got, and to apply all of your technology and all of your skill, to maximize the part of your body and gear that are inside the cone by altering the shape of the cone with said skill and gear, while also keeping yourself as close as possible to the exact center of the cone because there's an additional problem: movement away from the central vertical line brings into play a positive feedback function that tends to drive you further away at a rate that varies directly with both your current dislocation and your depth.

So, all other things being equal, who do you predict would be better able to maintain that central position? A diver who can confidently hold his or her breath for two minutes whilst confidently traversing 50 or more yards underwater or a diver who is hesitant about even covering 16 yards underwater and holding his or her breath for one eighth of the time? And it's not about superhuman, macho-jock crap to accomplish this, I've successfully shared these techniques with nerdy scientists, flabby engineers, even the seventy year old wife of a college President.

Now take that same concept and expand it to all the "standard" skills a diver has to have, from mask clearing on though dealing with equipment failures and supporting his or her buddy through any crisis that they might experience. Who will be better able to deal with the issues?

So ... what's the drawback? What's the problem? If what I am suggesting is so all-fire wonderful, why has it not taken the diving world by storm and why is it not the dominant form? Partly it is for the same reasons that DIR (and its offshoots) is an ant crawling up the leg of an elephant with rape on its mind: too much time required, too much energy and training to get instructional staff to the level that they can teach it, etc., etc., etc. And there have been other factors; especially my inability to deal with GI III, (as I discussed earlier: 1 2) and the ill chance that cost Parker Turner his life, because we had talked about this at some length, he understood where I was going with this, and appreciated it's potential.

I think that GUE and UTD (and similar approaches, be they NAUI-Tec , or IANTD, or whatever) are wonderful things, I think that they present the only reasonably available training to adequately prepare a diver. I've been diving for over fifty years, I've been teaching for almost forty, I've had the great luck to be able to be paid to go study at the feet of any of the masters whom I felt had something important to share with me. I've had the time, the facilities, and the support to be able to take what I've learned from those encounters and synthesis it into a cohesive and comprehensive whole, and I want to assure you that, yes Virginia, there is life after DIR.

 

[Sloth]

Characterize away, you seem to be a pretty good judge and are not far off base. I do find your terminology a bit confusing, in as much as I'd describe my favored approach as the holistic one, stressing the idea that, "the sum is greater then the parts," and the GUE/UTD approach as the one that tends toward the mechanical, the equipment based, and the inflexible. But that's neither here nor there.

I most apologize as I think we are have some terminology differences and I am not using "systematic" in the right context. In my mind if you say that a new tech diver should have one system for rec and another for tech then it is not a holistic system at best it is a collection of mini holistic systems for various situations. Im not sure how you can have a holistic approach to diving without it being equipment based and the real beauty of the GUE/UTD approach isnt really in the equipment but in the standards and protocols that most similar trained divers adhere to. Yes it can have mechanical and inflexible components but not everyone looks at that as a negative.

I'd argue with you about the first half of that. I do not think that any of what I've seen of GUE, UTD, NAUI-Tec, IANTD, etc., approach(es) are meaningless. They are part of an integrated whole; and each and every piece has been carefully thought through by the "powers that be" (and they are rather bright and capable people) to reach what they think are optimum solutions to specific issues. I think those approaches are so far superior to what is available to the average diver that I would encourage anyone trying to better their skills to (at least for some period of time) adopt one or the other and embrace it wholeheartedly until they find it somehow limiting. If they never experience that feeling, then great ... they will have had an incredibly successful and fulfilling diving career, and what could be better? If they do have that feeling ... drop me a line and I'll try and show them an alternate path, better in some ways, perhaps worse in others, but one that I have never found to be limiting in that fashion.
While we can (once again) argue about who has the better claim on "holistic" diving, for the sake of the discussion I will give preference to you. There is no question in my mind that for the average diver your preferred approach will, in a about three times the PADI and half of my course time, produce a highly proficient diver.

But in about twice the time (without a series of "near misses" to learn from) I think that I can produce a much more well rounded and capable diver. Let me advance a trivial, but telling example: every one of the divers that I am talking about can hold his or her breath for two minutes and can, without any trepidation at all, cover at least 50 yards underwater on a single breath, and 100 yards underwater surfacing no more than twice. GUE requires a swim of 16 yards, which implies the ability to hold one's breath for no more than 15 seconds.

So, all other things being equal, who do you predict would be better able to maintain that central position? A diver who can confidently hold his or her breath for two minutes whilst confidently traversing 50 or more yards underwater or a diver who is hesitant about even covering 16 yards underwater and holding his or her breath for one eighth of the time? And it's not about superhuman, macho-jock crap to accomplish this, I've successfully shared these techniques with nerdy scientists, flabby engineers, even the seventy year old wife of a college President.

Now take that same concept and expand it to all the "standard" skills a diver has to have, from mask clearing on though dealing with equipment failures and supporting his or her buddy through any crisis that they might experience. Who will be better able to deal with the issues?

So ... what's the drawback? What's the problem? If what I am suggesting is so all-fire wonderful, why has it not taken the diving world by storm and why is it not the dominant form? Partly it is for the same reasons that DIR (and its offshoots) is an ant crawling up the leg of an elephant with rape on its mind: too much time required, too much energy and training to get instructional staff to the level that they can teach it, etc., etc., etc. And there have been other factors; especially my inability to deal with GI III, (as I discussed earlier: 1 2) and the ill chance that cost Parker Turner his life, because we had talked about this at some length, he understood where I was going with this, and appreciated it's potential.

I think that GUE and UTD (and similar approaches, be they NAUI-Tec , or IANTD, or whatever) are wonderful things, I think that they present the only reasonably available training to adequately prepare a diver. I've been diving for over fifty years, I've been teaching for almost forty, I've had the great luck to be able to be paid to go study at the feet of any of the masters whom I felt had something important to share with me. I've had the time, the facilities, and the support to be able to take what I've learned from those encounters and synthesis it into a cohesive and comprehensive whole, and I want to assure you that, yes Virginia, there is life after DIR.

I removed your visual and figurative example of the incident pit as I don't see the necessity for it.

The rest of this is a really, really bad strawman argument. You cant disprove a system, theory or holistic approach to something by refuting or devaluing individual components. It would be like me stating that since evolutionists got human evolution so wrong in the early 20th century do to the bogus piltdown man skull then all evolution theory is suspect. As im sure you know this is a strawman used commonly by some creationists. Most people dont know when they are making a strawman argument but I know you know better (by the way I loved reading your responses to creationists in some other thread on here a while back... it was a thing of beauty.)

Anyways it is cool to see that you put such a strong emphasis on breath hold and horizontal breath hold swimming. It was a chink in my armor that I thankfully rectified through the help of a dear friend of mine. She holds the continental female record for static breath hold and is now an instructor for performance freediving. If you never heard of them you should check them out. They are like the GUE of freediving so you might not like them They can coach any couch potato to a 3 min breath hold. Learning the proper technique I was able to develop a 4 min breath hold during one pool session which really isn't impressive in the freediving world. Another thing they teach is an empty lung breath hold. To me this has a lot more relevance to a tech diver then a static breath hold as Murphy will dictate that you will run out of air on an exhalation instead of an inhalation. This is something that you should incorporate if you already don't.

Last point I'll make is that working on static breath hold can have a direct impact to a divers ability to remain calm underwater and can possible stop a diver from sliding further down that slippery slope but I don't see it being much of a training aid to help divers cope with truly stressful situations. When the sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive dumping epinephrine causing the heart rate to jack up close to 200 beats a minute no one has a 2 min breath hold. The only thing you have to rely on is muscle memory and stress simulating training to condition the body to recover more quickly from stress related symptoms. This is something GUE/UTD places a heavy emphasis on and from your other posts sounds like you do to so kudos there.

 

[b1gcountry]

That's just the kind of humorless response to a lighthearted post with a twinge or irony that gives DIR a bad name. It's almost a perfect example of the problem.

Thal, all your lighthearted jabs have a knife concealed underneath them.

What is it about a group of folks who choose to dive a certain way, using a system that fits their needs better than the one you expouse that makes you so mad? I've read and respected your posts in many other areas of this board, but when it comes to DIR, you are admittedly ignorant, with no wish to understand this system, yet overly willing to criticize these things you don't understand.

What is your sig line again: "Too often ... people enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought"

Personally, I've begun to suspect that you don't really mind the 'proscriptiveness' of DIR, just the fact that its adherents are not all following what you proscribe.

Tom

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

That's not entirely fair, Tom ... Thal trains divers a specific way for a specific reason. But most members of ScubaBoard don't need a 100-hour OW class because they're not training to be icthyologists.

Sly Stone summed it up pretty well some decades ago ...

Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a blue one who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo-bee
Oh sha sha - we got to live together

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me you know me and then
You can't figure out the bag l'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a long hair that doesn't like the short hair
For bein' such a rich one that will not help the poor one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo-bee
Oh sha sha-we got to live together
There is a yellow one that won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one that won't accept the white one
And different strokes for different folks

Given all that ... I still can't figure out why people like Thal and Dumpster Diver like to hang out in this forum. They have their own set ways of doing things and aren't the least bit interested in what or why DIR divers do what they do. They just seem to like to come here to stir things up. That's not why this forum is here.

If you're not the least bit interested in DIR, please just go enjoy your diving the way you like to enjoy it. Because what you're doing here does amount to trolling, and whether they're enforced or not you are violating the rules for posting here.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Anyways it is cool to see that you put such a strong emphasis on breath hold and horizontal breath hold swimming. It was a chink in my armor that I thankfully rectified through the help of a dear friend of mine. She holds the continental female record for static breath hold and is now an instructor for performance freediving. If you never heard of them you should check them out. They are like the GUE of freediving so you might not like them They can coach any couch potato to a 3 min breath hold. Learning the proper technique I was able to develop a 4 min breath hold during one pool session which really isn't impressive in the freediving world. Another thing they teach is an empty lung breath hold. To me this has a lot more relevance to a tech diver then a static breath hold as Murphy will dictate that you will run out of air on an exhalation instead of an inhalation. This is something that you should incorporate if you already don't.

Last point I'll make is that working on static breath hold can have a direct impact to a divers ability to remain calm underwater and can possible stop a diver from sliding further down that slippery slope but I don't see it being much of a training aid to help divers cope with truly stressful situations. When the sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive dumping epinephrine causing the heart rate to jack up close to 200 beats a minute no one has a 2 min breath hold. The only thing you have to rely on is muscle memory and stress simulating training to condition the body to recover more quickly from stress related symptoms. This is something GUE/UTD places a heavy emphasis on and from your other posts sounds like you do to so kudos there.

Thal and Sloth,

This is an interesting argument developing and as both a DIR trained diver and a freediving instructor, I'm now very intrigued...

Sloth, before you believe there is a "proper" freediving technique, you may want to discuss the subject with Dr. Neal Pollock at DAN.

However, your observations about breath holding ability during times of stress is true. Cutting through all the freediving world BS, relaxation, in any form, is the secret to being able to hold one's breath. Arguing about freediving techniques would be like arguing about what pocket a back up mask should be placed. A diver who can do a 6 minute breath hold will not be able to do it when he or she is unable to relax. In an emergency, one's breath hold time will drop. Of course, the longer one's average times, the more likely that diver will be able to hold his or her breath under duress. The more comfortable and capable the diver is at doing breath hold dives, the greater chance that diver will be able to stop, think, act and find the ability to somewhat relax and slow the heart rate down prolonging a breath hold need in an emergency.


It has been my experience that Performance Freediving is like the "old guard DIR" of the freediving world with one HUGE exception - freediving is unsafe at any speed! I've found the same attitude from many Performance Freediving people as I have with GUE divers with two very interesting exceptions - neither Jarrod Jablonski nor Kirk Krack have ever been the ones with the attitude problems.

Thal, I, like you, believe in the merits of freediving ability for every diver and there are other very sound and safe methods besides DIR. However, the strength of DIR that no other system has met, until now, is the massive amount of divers who can be placed in the water with the incredible ability to be on the exact same page and support one another efficiently from recreational teams to technical teams to true explorers. GUE created an "army of one" with higher standards than the industry has had in decades. While some confidence-building and self-survival techniques may be missing, the quality and standards for trim, buoyancy, propulsion and gas sharing have never been performed with such precision by so many and rehearsed so often under high stress situations. I have needed my freediving breath hold ability in both my Tech 1 classes, first with Andrew Georgitsis, then Bob Sherwood. The GUE swim standards are pathetically low according to some, but I promise you, my friend, that higher standards for breath holds somehow creep into Tech 1 even if you think you are so close to your buddy that you are sharing DNA.

But, please, gentleman ... continue ...