Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[tursiops]

Go find videos of a group of DIR divers standing on a reef as part of the way the class is taught. I’ll wait.

The training emphasis precise control in the water from the recreational level up. That is not the case for any of the other legacy agencies. People want to complain about dir divers, with out saying hey maybe I should work to better myself and my students.

Just for fun, here is a picture of four divers in Rota, near Guam. Three non-DIR Americans and one Japanese instructor.

 

[boulderjohn]

Go find videos of a group of DIR divers standing on a reef as part of the way the class is taught. I’ll wait.

The training emphasis precise control in the water from the recreational level up. That is not the case for any of the other legacy agencies. People want to complain about dir divers, with out saying hey maybe I should work to better myself and my students.

The complaint that people are judging DIR divers by the actions of a few is seen here in reverse--judging non-DIR divers by the actions of a few. It all goes back to what I described before--the strategy of gross exaggeration.

I mentioned that early DIR leader Dan Volker admitted to me personally that gross exaggeration was an intentional strategy of his when promoting DIR, and this post brings one of his ScubaBoard threads to mind. He posted a picture of what was evidently a Discover Scuba class (which he erroneously claimed was OW) touching bottom. That was, of course, bad, but in his explanation, he said that PADI standards required students to stand/walk on the bottom during OW certification, which is simply absurd.

In my more than a quarter century of diving and two decades as an instructor, I never saw any class or any diver standing on a reef. I am sure they exist somewhere, but it is absurd to claim it is a norm. In the last few years I have done extended NDL dive trips to Bali, Palau, Roatan, Cozumel, Fiji, Grand Cayman, and Little Cayman. I have done many NDL dives in Florida. I must not be looking hard enough, because I am not seeing all these hopelessly terrible divers everyone keeps talking about.

 

[crofrog]

The complaint that people are judging DIR divers by the actions of a few is seen here in reverse--judging non-DIR divers by the actions of a few. It all goes back to what I described before--the strategy of gross exaggeration.

I mentioned that early DIR leader Dan Volker admitted to me personally that gross exaggeration was an intentional strategy of his when promoting DIR, and this post brings one of his ScubaBoard threads to mind. He posted a picture of what was evidently a Discover Scuba class (which he erroneously claimed was OW) touching bottom. That was, of course, bad, but in his explanation, he said that PADI standards required students to stand/walk on the bottom during OW certification, which is simply absurd.

In my more than a quarter century of diving and two decades as an instructor, I never saw any class or any diver standing on a reef. I am sure they exist somewhere, but it is absurd to claim it is a norm. In the last few years I have done extended NDL dive trips to Bali, Palau, Roatan, Cozumel, Fiji, Grand Cayman, and Little Cayman. I have done many NDL dives in Florida. I must not be looking hard enough, because I am not seeing all these hopelessly terrible divers everyone keeps talking about.

Perhaps you're finally grasping the point of my intentional hyperbole.

 

[boulderjohn]

Perhaps you're finally grasping the point of my intentional hyperbole.

Is "intentional hyperbole" the same as "gross exaggeration"?

And you, too, do it intentionally?

Good to know.

 

[Lorenzoid]

In my more than a quarter century of diving and two decades as an instructor, I never saw any class or any diver standing on a reef. I am sure they exist somewhere, but it is absurd to claim it is a norm. In the last few years I have done extended NDL dive trips to Bali, Palau, Roatan, Cozumel, Fiji, Grand Cayman, and Little Cayman. I have done many NDL dives in Florida. I must not be looking hard enough, because I am not seeing all these hopelessly terrible divers everyone keeps talking about.

Just one more data point, but I witnessed divers standing on very live coral in Sipadan, Malaysia. Maybe it is happening more in Asia as more Asians have entered the middle class and taken up diving? Nevertheless, that is the only incident of the kind I have witnessed, and I think in my profile I list a few dozen places in the world I have dived over the past 25+ years.

 

[crofrog]

Is "intentional hyperbole" the same as "gross exaggeration"?

And you, too, do it intentionally?

Good to know.

It cuts both ways. If you're going to give it out, be willing to take it.

Love us or hate us, you certainly can't stop talking about us.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

My advice for DIR proponents who wish for the bad reputation/feelings to go away is to simply stop talking about it. Threads like these are counter productive.

It took decades for the impact of GI3 to mostly die off. I say mostly as some DIR people will bring him up on occasion. Ideally, people would ignore the personality/opinions/insults and look at the validity of the actual information. That is hard for many to do. I do have on my ignore list a number of people who once in a while do have something constructive to offer. So I'm also guilty of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I'll admit it.

 

[tursiops]

Is "intentional hyperbole" the same as "gross exaggeration"?

When I encounter either I assume the writer has nothing worthwhile to say so just says nonsense as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, and I ignore it after I've called it out as such.

 

[boulderjohn]

When I encounter either I assume the writer has nothing worthwhile to say so just says nonsense as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, and I ignore it after i've called it out as such.

Back when Dan was doing it, I was on the staff and was on a personal mission to try to keep him active on ScubaBoard while he was constantly flirting with being banned. I thought that with his personal history with DIR's founding, he was an important resource and thus worth the effort. I wrote a thread about it in the moderator's forum--how do we keep such people on board even when they are violating ToS? That is why I wrote to him privately repeatedly to try to get him to cut back.

But eventually he was banned, and I haven't been on the staff for years (far from it), so I will take your good advice.

 

[EFX]

All those divers standing on and bumping into the reef, regardless of who trained them, are DIR divers!
In their case D.I.R. = Diving Intentionally Reckless.