Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[VikingDives]

They're trained poorly because heavy and knees are the easiest for the instructors, or at least they think it is. . .

FTFY.

I spent a couple of weeks this summer helping out a friend's dive shop with a bunch of open water students at a Boy Scout camp.

My friend and his instructors teach students on their knees but I teach from go in neutral buoyancy and trim. We split the groups up by instructors, so we each had between 4 and 6 students each.

It was interesting to compare how the different groups performed.

It took my group much longer to finish up with their initial skills (partial flood, reg recovery etc.) and get to swimming around - maybe 30 more minutes of work. But the gap closed as we progressed through the dives.

Because I was teaching for my friend's shop, and keeping to his timeline, I didn't teach exactly how I would have, but in the end I had most of my students hovering horizontally and there were a few who were back kicking.

It is faster and easier to glue your students to the bottom of the pool, but in my experience, well-trained divers dive more, take more classes, and spend more money on equipment.

I don't necessarily teach open water students in a complete DIR rig, but I will say one thing about training with the long hose. Multiple S drills make students much more confident and competent divers. I've had 2 OW students this summer who had the same problem, broken zip ties on their primary mouthpiece that resulted in a primary floating away with the mouthpiece still in their mouth.

Most recently, this happened in open water dive 1. I glanced away from my student to reposition, and when I looked back, she was holding her primary second stage in her right hand and the mouthpiece was in her mouth. As I had one of those "Oh ****" moments we instructors love, and move to donate my primary, she calmly removed the mouthpiece from her mouth, and switched to her short hose. No panic, just a little confusion as to what happened.

As far as recreational students not wanting to learn DIR style diving (what @boulderjohn mentioned) almost all students do not know what they do not know. When I marketed neutral buoyancy and trim no one really cared. When I started talking about small classes and personalized service, things took off. Once students get to open water, they can see what they've paid for, but before they get there, they don't understand.

 

[sea_ledford]

As to how long the anti-DIR feelings will last based on the mostly "I read it on the internet" trained DIR divers (and boy do I have some stories from the mid 2000's!), think about this:
1/4 turn back for scuba valves hasn't been a thing since the mid to late-80's. Certainly by 2000 it was widely available information. You will STILL see people that will die on that hill of 1/4 turn back or you're gonna die. So coming up on a half century, people are still arguing about it.

So on that timeline, the DIR thing will continue at least until 2050. I'll check back on this thread then.

 

[boulderjohn]

As far as recreational students not wanting to learn DIR style diving (what @boulderjohn mentioned) almost all students do not know what they do not know. When I marketed neutral buoyancy and trim no one really cared. When I started talking about small classes and personalized service, things took off. Once students get to open water, they can see what they've paid for, but before they get there, they don't understand.

My comments seem to have been misunderstood. I was not talking about OW students at all.

I was talking about a class that was essentially GUE Fundamentals, and the attempt was to market it to established OW divers. Those are the people who were not interested in it. They had more than a few dives under their belts, and they had decided that the skills they had were all they needed for the dives they were doing.

With new OW students, I very much taught them to be neutrally buoyant and in horizontal trim.

 

[boulderjohn]

I thought I would comment on the mocking tone directed at the divers who do not want to go for excellence, or however it was phrased. I know a lot of people like that in many other activities--heck, I am often one of them.

• I play golf. If I were to put in the number of hours a professional does, if I were to spend thousands of dollars a year on professional instruction the way they do, I would be on my way on a quest for excellence, but I have decided to have more modest goals. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in golf.
• I'm a pretty decent cook, and so is my wife. We have never attended an elite chef's school. When we see some of the ingredients on a menu, we often have no idea what they are, but we can whip up a pretty good meal that gets the approval of our guests. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in cooking.
• I drive a car. I have never gone to one of those special driving programs that teach you to handle a car at high speeds like a Formula One driver, but my passengers seem to prefer that I just drive safely. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in driving.

 

[KenE]

Before I took fundies, I was told "you don't have to drink the Kool Aid, just go for the skills." And that's what I did. I still dive air, solo, a Prism2 rebreather.

You had to conform to the equipment before they would let you in the Fundies class. You may not have stayed with the equipment, but you had to conform to enroll. My experience was similar, but I could not conform due to injury. I use the same LDS as you, good people, just could not meet the requirements and therefore would not meet the needs of other students.

 

[Cthippo]

I was talking about a class that was essentially GUE Fundamentals, and the attempt was to market it to established OW divers. Those are the people who were not interested in it. They had more than a few dives under their belts, and they had decided that the skills they had were all they needed for the dives they were doing.

This is a class / workshop I would be interested in. I would love to spend an hour with someone juat getting trim dialed in and then working on propulsion in an envoronment that was gear agnostic and individually focused. I don't need to be perfect, but I could be better.

 

[boulderjohn]

This is a class / workshop I would be interested in. I would love to spend an hour with someone juat getting trim dialed in and then working on propulsion in an envoronment that was gear agnostic and individually focused. I don't need to be perfect, but I could be better.

Yes, my class was gear agnostic--I would take you in whatever gear you wanted. Advice was given, of course, but you didn't have to buy a whole new set of gear for it. One of the people who talked about it was a DM for the shop. His comment was essentially, "Meh. I'm fine the way I am."

 

[lostsheep]

I think GUE has done a decent job over the years of changing the perceptions most have of GUE divers. For example, DIR is a no longer even a term and you don't hear the S word. However, bad perceptions still persist based on this past and continued on by people living in the past.

I guess I must have been surface narc’d the last couple of times I heard the “s” word

SMDH

 

[Lorenzoid]

I thought I would comment on the mocking tone directed at the divers who do not want to go for excellence, or however it was phrased. I know a lot of people like that in many other activities--heck, I am often one of them.

• I play golf. If I were to put in the number of hours a professional does, if I were to spend thousands of dollars a year on professional instruction the way they do, I would be on my way on a quest for excellence, but I have decided to have more modest goals. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in golf.
• I'm a pretty decent cook, and so is my wife. We have never attended an elite chef's school. When we see some of the ingredients on a menu, we often have no idea what they are, but we can whip up a pretty good meal that gets the approval of our guests. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in cooking.
• I drive a car. I have never gone to one of those special driving programs that teach you to handle a car at high speeds like a Formula One driver, but my passengers seem to prefer that I just drive safely. To the best of my knowledge, no one has mocked me for not striving for excellence in driving.

As much as I like what I have gotten out of GUE so far, I have always cringed at GUE's use of the word "excellence" and implication that all GUE divers strive for excellence. All I strive to do is improve from wherever I am right now. Maybe GUE sends a mixed message, because I have had instructors tell me that personal improvement is the real goal. In Fundies specifically, the message I got was never mind about passing, the goal is to make you a better diver.

I have not experienced the mocking tone you refer to. I guess maybe others have.

 

[tursiops]

I would love to spend an hour with someone juat getting trim dialed in and then working on propulsion in an envoronment that was gear agnostic and individually focused. I don't need to be perfect, but I could be better.

This is exactly the Peak Performance Buoyancy class I taught many times, sometimes as the full 2-dive specialty, usually just one dive as part of AOW. Get the weight right and distributed right, think of hovering not moving and then kicking to move the hover position around, and various kiks to make it all happen. The full 2-dive specialty allowed more time on kicks.