Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[Celt]

Most of our dives are just for fun rather than work, so I guess from that perspective it's all a "waste". But it's sure nice to have your teammates right there in the water with you to point out interesting animals or catch your navigation errors or cut off the loose monofilament line that got caught around your fin.

Major exploration or research projects run on DIR principles might have multiple separate teams of 2+ divers each on staggered schedules with different assignments like setup, push, support, cleanup, etc. Plus a dedicated surface crew with a supervisor to keep everyone on track. For safety reasons they generally wouldn't send anyone into the water alone. Maybe that's less efficient. We can always return another day.

The procedures you describe with rotating a single diver down at a time are more typically used in commercial, military, and public safety diving. They could perhaps benefit from adopting a subset of DIR elements but really it's a whole different world.

Thanks, rotating pairs of divers would be a good way to get good use of available time. An advantage would be a less experienced diver could tag along with a more experienced and learn the ropes so to speak. I can see how a project would be enjoyable with a large group of buddies run by an experienced supervising diver. We would sometimes bring along a friend when we worked on private jobs and they’d tag along once the dive didn’t include deco. Divers have different aims and motivations to dive, some like the company of other like minded people and others prefer to do their own thing.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'll take a crack at some of the recent replies.

The bulk of this is no different than the buddy system taught by all the other agencies.

I always understood team to mean that the whole works as a unit that’s why all the standardized everything, and the reliance on another team mate in the event of an OOG that’s why the long hose to swim single file out of a restriction.

Ken, I believe you're absolutely correct, and Eric, no, it's not that, at least as far as the OW recreational diving context. So many times I have seen negative comments about the prospect of "team" diving on plain ol' rec dives, and what I don't think they appreciate is that for OW rec dives "team" diving IS essentially just the buddy system that all the other agencies promote.

In tech and cave contexts, sure, team members may be assigned specific duties, but in the OW rec context, yes, it really is little more than the buddy system that should be familiar to all of us. I took Fundies in a single-tank configuration with other rec-only divers, and I can say that what I was taught about being a "teammate" was in fact essentially what I recall being mentioned in my PADI OW course. One difference, though, is that while such other agencies teach the buddy system, when the newly minted OW diver goes out on their first dive they discover how loosely adhered to the buddy system is in reality; they discover that out in the real world, people who took the same class they did--indeed, sometimes instructors--blow off some of the aspects that steinbil listed in his post. The difference is that GUE makes it clear in the Fundies class that this buddy system that GUE calls "team" diving is a big deal--a pillar of the system--and isn't something to be casual about out in the real world. (IF the diver goes on to tech or cave, then the buddy procedures taught in those courses build on what was taught in Fundies.) That goes to your other point:

I understand that the GUE teaching implies that they are better than all other agencies, this is just marketing and unfortunately bad divers come from all agencies.

GUE does unfortunately give that impression in some marketing materials, and in the opening chapter of that darned Jablonski book, the Fundamentals of Better Diving, he explicitly asserts that other agencies' training falls short. But even if every instructor with every other agency taught the buddy system just as it is taught in Fundies, the problem remains of the disconnect between what is taught in class and what the newly minted OW diver sees out in the real world.

And, reliance does happen for GUE divers, I have seen it with my own eyes. A diver who could not get into and under water by him/herself without a team to help them, and they had over 100 logged dives, but only with a team. All of the items you indicate that are associated with not team diving happens with team diving as well. One would like to think is doesn't but it does, maybe not your team, but it does happen.

I'll take your word for it, though I haven't seen an instance of this myself. I'm curious exactly what you witnessed when you saw a GUE diver who "could not get into and under water by him/herself without a team to help them...." Do you mean they were improperly weighted, or were they just taking a long time to get something done, and someone else offerered help? As steinbil mentioned, we do try to help each other when we see someone struggling with something. That doesn't mean the person could not do it without help, but rather that helping them may be expeditious for everyone. My wife would take forever to get her fins off, so I or someone else often help her with that. That is exactly the sort of little thing a teammate is hoped to do. There is an aspect of general helpfulness that my GUE instructors have tried to instill. But all in all, I would agree with you if you said that a good buddy would do that regardless of which agency taught them.

Your last bullet really made me laugh. I would not be having fun if I was forced to use the equipment that works for some but not all. Each individual is different and a Hogarthian BP/W does not fit and not comfortable for everyone, so it would not be enjoyable.

Fair enough. Anyone who is bothered by the Hogarthian rig or anything else about the system would be silly to try to force themselves to dive with those who are not bothered by the DIR equipment configuration and choose to dive that way. But for those who choose to use the DIR equipment configuration and be good buddies to each other, I agree with steinbil that knowing what is where on their rig and knowing they were trained to do X when Y happens, etc., frees your mind to just relax and enjoy the dive. I have dived with buddies who used other equipment and who knew nothing about DIR, and I will say I felt I had to be a bit more vigilant. It is possible some such buddies were more skilled divers than I, but that did not change how I felt; I could not control how I felt, because there were variables I did not know. I feel more relaxed when I know more of the variables.

As I said before, Team diving has a place for certain dive profiles. However, it is overkill and sometimes just not fun when used exclusively for recreational diving. Arguing that there is only one right way to dive is ridiculous.

As for your last sentence, has anyone here argued there is only one right way to dive? What usually draws me into these discussions is when someone's comment evidences they are mistaken about some aspect of how we "team divers" dive. (I find the term "DIR" uncomfortable, and I don't speak for GUE, so let me simply call myself a team diver.) Team diving in the rec-only context or profile is really little more than the buddy system by another name, where the diver adheres to all its bullet points and views it as central to the dive.

I would argue that while there is not "only one right way to dive," there are only two ways that the buddy system should apply: (1) strictly, as the agencies promote it in their OW courses, or (2) not at all (i.e., proper solo diving). Applying the buddy system half-heartedly is not as safe as either (1) or (2).