Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[Cthippo]

I would like to join a "Doing It Wrong" group.

Doing it Left doesn't have the same pull.

 

[Dave Whitlow]

If you want to critique their philosophy with information rather than dumb prejudice then I suggest a bit of research might be enlightening.

I don't dive anything that might be deemed DIR compliant but I understand the background of DIR diving and I respect their adoption of a standard that works, and I appreciate that standard has avoided many bad outcomes.

If I found myself diving with a GUE diver I will immediately have a good understanding of their equipment configuration, their gas choices, and the skills they are likely to possess. Diving with any other random diver is a bit like Russian roulette and one of the reason I often dive alone!

 

[Zach The Diver]

It was indeed a poor name that could be construed as you point out. Probably one reason why GUE doesn't use the term DIR anymore. I don't know if UTD uses it. I don't like to use it myself. But the problem is nobody has come up with an alternative that has gained any traction. Maybe something like "Team Diving," which is part of UTD's name, would be better? "Team" sounds friendly.

Good point.

 

[schuylerclark]

As a young rock climber I often took issue with other climbers who weren't "doing it right." One day an old-timer asked me if I felt the need to correct every idiot driver on the highway as well. Point made.

 

[DogDiver]

If you want to critique their philosophy with information rather than dumb prejudice then I suggest a bit of research might be enlightening.

I don't dive anything that might be deemed DIR compliant but I understand the background of DIR diving and I respect their adoption of a standard that works, and I appreciate that standard has avoided many bad outcomes.

If I found myself diving with a GUE diver I will immediately have a good understanding of their equipment configuration, their gas choices, and the skills they are likely to possess. Diving with any other random diver is a bit like Russian roulette and one of the reason I often dive alone!

A lot of the animosity goes back to the George Irving days and if you dive with Strokes you better have a body bag in your kit. After 36 years of Great Lakes wreck diving I moved to North Florida 20 years ago so I could cave dive 365 days a year. They have toned it down a lot over the years and gained my respect.

 

[tursiops]

A lot of the animosity goes back to the George Irving days and if you dive with Strokes you better have a body bag in your kit. After 36 years of Great Lakes wreck diving I moved to North Florida 20 years ago so I could cave dive 365 days a year. They have toned it down a lot over the years and gained my respect.

Maybe. But there are a lot of divers today who never heard of GI3 and have developed their own dislikes of DIR coming on too strong, too often. Hey, if you believe in something then you feel strongly about it and have no fear of proselytizing. But there is more than one true religion, and there are agnostics and atheists.
DIR folks just need to chill, lighten up, and let most of the world dive without being corrected.

 

[crofrog]

They hate us cause they ain’t us

 

[Saboteur]

They hate us cause they ain’t us

Kind of like non Harley riders.

 

[covediver]

A cynic's look at the issue
You reap what you sow...
D-I-R Doing it right, which implies that everyone else is doing it wrong.
D-I-R is to diving what Crossfit is to gyms
Its like the Noah's Arc of diving--everything goes onbaoard two-by-two
If you don't use a backplate and wings, you ain't Sh*t

I first saw a "technical diving" display at one of the Queen Mary Scuba Shows probably in the early 90s. I was mildly interested. I have often viewed scuba gear as being a vehicle for self expression, but I get the need for stanardization in caving, etc. Some of the youngsters I knew from the Marine Tech program in Santa Barbara were just starting to explore this new trend, more than sport diving, not quite commercial diving. Anyhow, I watched as a PADI instructor in a branded jacket with specialty chevrons lovingly sewn into the fabric like so many merit badges make a beeline to the display. He started to berate these folks as dangerous, like they were commiting sport diving heresy. I kind of felf sorry for them. I turned to my fellow attendee a rather accomplished NAUI instructor and commented that the certification agencies will be opposed to tec diving until they can figure out how to offer it as a specialty. Hence rec-tec was invented.

I watched tec diving develop in a sport dive shop. While I never understood their zealotry, I did admire their ability to helicopter at a 15 foot safety stop while holding onto a "Diver Below" SMB. A few times, I was the only non-tech diver onboard their dive charters, so I would pair up with one of them. Our dive profile was well withing sport diving parameters. I only met one or two that thought I was a less than reliable buddy because I did not compute my SAC rate the the third significant decimal place or stored my mask around my neck rather than facing reward on my hood. I rarely use doubles. I have used a scooter once, and I pretty much have a do-not-exceed depth limit of 90 feet-so I don't play in the same sand box that they do. So I really don't dive with them and vice versa. It works out well.

 

[lowwall]

Some observations I’ve had on some Facebook groups including- ironically- the DiveTalk one, is that people in the dive community will write off DIR-minded divers as egotistical, unhelpful, and aloof… yet when they do offer their perspective on something, it’s immediately shot down and written off as elitism.

Two points.

First is the history. A lot of the early internet proponents of DIR were as insufferable as you would expect from a group that literally named itself to make clear that everyone else was Doing It Wrong.

This has gotten far better as time went on. But it takes approximately forever for people to forget being attacked by DIR wannabes whose opinions were far stronger than their experience.

Which leads us to point two. The DIR approach is optimized for a specific set of diving tasks. While you can certainly try to apply the same approach outside those tasks, for example for warm water recreational diving, it is not always practical to do so and may even be suboptimal. Advice given without acknowledging this is likely to be dismissed as aloof or elitist because it is.

I do want to note that DIR has had 2 major positive impacts on recreational diving. The less important but more obvious one is the introduction of the BP/W and to a lesser extent primary donate to rec diving. The more important one is that it has focused so much attention on the appalling lack of emphasis on buoyancy control and good trim in for-profit OW training that the big agencies have been forced to respond, although it's a slow process.