Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[lermontov]

Like it makes any bit of difference.

not to the likes of the poster, theyre too arrogant to see others views but to the many new divers that are absorbing the apparent wisdom it does

 

[The Chairman]

At the same time, a quality team shouldn't be undersold.

I have nothing against Team Diving. Even though I appear in one GUE infomercial, I am not DIR nor GUE. I love what you guys do, but I don't have a need to execute dives at a team level. I do know a few people who train like they're about to do a Mission Improbable dive. Personally, I have no delusions of anything but mere adequacy.

he had people like BCDC and beanojones fully supporting him throughout.

Perhaps, but I doubt they adopted his POV from what he wrote. They simply heard someone with their perspective and jumped on the bandwagon. The users and lurkers read far, far more than they post. I trust their ability to discern zealots from normal people. It's too easy for a noisy few to appear to be more influential then they are. Reasonable people opt for reasonable explanations.

Like it makes any bit of difference.

Personally, I'm not trying to change their minds, as I can't. I just don't want those following the discussion to not read the opposing and hopefully rational viewpoint.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

not to the likes of the poster, theyre too arrogant to see others views but to the many new divers that are absorbing the apparent wisdom it does

people place too much value on what goes on social media. Maybe I'm wrong as it was a trend with kids to eat dishwasher detergent. Unless something is stated by an actual expert (which probably eliminates everyone on this thread), statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Any argument over standards are not settled here. Instructors should resolve those with their agencies.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I bet lots of ScubaBoard readers have similar beliefs, following the guidance they got here.

Long time SB members may remember the raging debate related to this after PADI published our article on teaching students while they are neutrally buoyant in 2011. Andy Davis (DevonDiver) raged against it, devoting untold thousands of words warning PADI instructors that if they actually did what PADI published in their professional journal, PADI would expel them. I wrote to PADI headquarters, and they responded with a clear and explicit statement saying that there were no standards violations for teaching students that way. When I published that, Andy replied that the representative of PADI headquarters who wrote that perfectly clear statement was just giving his personal opinion, and he was wrong. In fact, any statement from anyone at PADI headquarters that disagreed with him, including the President and CEO, was wrong. Only he could correctly interpret PADI rules.

There are people in all walks of life who so desperately want to believe something is true that they simply will not accept anything that contradicts their firmly held beliefs.

Sounds like Devon Diver was an absolute ego maniac and blow hard of the hardest core. He's the one you'd want with you on a hot air balloon ride in case the propane ran out.
Circling all the way back to the beginning of this thread on why some people still hold resentment towards the DIR movement.
Well, there's a similar parallel to the story you describe above about Andy Davis and his little pet followers.
Back in 1999-2002 or so on diver.net there was a few new DIR zealots that very much had an attitude and were very combative. They came in like it was a Shock & Awe campaign.
Michael Kane, Johnny Walker, and a few others would get on the board probably with an adult beverage of choice by the keyboard and begin bashing anybody and everybody at will, pretty much open season on anybody and everything that didn't agree with them. Their PADI bashing got so bad that PADI actually caught wind of their shenanigans and filed a libel lawsuit against about 25 individuals.
Suddenly it was quiet.
Prior to the lawsuit pretty much the same thing happened as with the Andy episode, people began leaving in droves and it pretty much killed the board, until Chris banned all of them, but I feel it was too late.
I left the board myself. Nobody could post anything or do a dive report without getting bashed and ripped apart. screw that!
I guess finally there was a row between them internally within their group and just like that they self destructed.
The interesting part is none of those guys even dive anymore.
The @The Chairman mentioned about the GI3 wannabes, bombastic A-holes, combative, belligerent, etc.
This has to be the group that he was talking about.

 

[Umuntu]

Long time SB members may remember the raging debate related to this after PADI published our article on teaching students while they are neutrally buoyant in 2011. Andy Davis (DevonDiver) raged against it, devoting untold thousands of words warning PADI instructors that if they actually did what PADI published in their professional journal, PADI would expel them.

Is this a different Andy Davis from the guy who teaches Sidemount based in the Philippines and runs scubatechphilippines.com ?

 

[boulderjohn]

Is this a different Andy Davis from the guy who teaches Sidemount based in the Philippines and runs scubatechphilippines.com ?

Same guy.

 

[rddvet]

I have nothing against Team Diving. Even though I appear in one GUE infomercial, I am not DIR nor GUE. I love what you guys do, but I don't have a need to execute dives at a team level.

I know you don't. Trust me, I'm not doing crazy complex dives. I'm not doing anything more special than you or any other non-exploration level cave diver. But it can be nice to know someone you're diving with will think things out similarly to you is all I was getting at.

 

[DCN]

.

 

[The Chairman]

the water will be there tomorrow.

Indeed, it will.

 

[Allen-1]