Actually, yes.
3 of us recently (February '04) took the DIR-F course with Joe Talavera. Our experience ranged from newly certified in August '03 with 10 or so dives, to being OW certified in 1986 with a wopping 30 dives. To say the least the 3 of us had very little experience before taking the DIR-F course.
We still learned a lot from the class though, and have seen a huge (to us) improvement of our skills since taking the class. You have to keep in mind that the DIR-F course focuses more on education rather than passing the course. This is a big difference since instead of pushing us through all of the skills to pass us, Joe held us back and focused us on the basics.
To give you an idea of the in water experience of the DIR-F course, it's broken down into 4 dives that focus on different skills.
1) Kicks, trim, and buoyancy
2) The 5 drills: Mask flooding, Mask removal, Regulator Switch, Modified S-Drill, and S-Drill
3) Controlled ascent/descents while maintaining a horizontal trim, and shooting a bag.
4) Make up session to focus on anything that still needs work
On our DIR-F course, we spent 3 dives on session #1, and we were able to get to session #2 on our 4th dive.
Throughout this entire fiasco of ours that I lovingly refer to as a choreographed circus clown act underwater, a second group of divers with more experience than us were able to complete the DIR-F course. Which means Joe was able to organize the class in a way that didn't hold back the more advanced divers.
Joe has setup a DIR-F Make Up Day on May 9th for us in Monterey, Ca, and we're hoping to make it through the rest of the skills this weekend. My wife and I have been practicing with other DIR type divers in our area, and have come a long way since February. I'm not trying to say we'll pass the course this weekend, but we are definitely improving.
There are many subtle things in the DIR-F course that if you've never noticed before, then you're likely going to have a challenging time in the course. For instance, I've heard from other divers that you can control your buoyancy by listening to your body and your ears to changes in depth. However, it's a big difference between listening to your body, and teaching yourself to act when those changes occur. With some practice, I'm now able to some what instinctively dump or add air when I realize these changes in depth are occuring. Now I need to learn how much air to add or dump based on the way depth changes affect the way I feel.
My wife and I knew going into the DIR-F course that our skills needed a lot of work, but that was our entire reason for taking the class. To help us to remain composed and present during the class, we focused on the primary skills that were important to us, and realized at the begining of the course that we might not get to all of the skills. So we focused primarily on trim, buoyancy, and kicks, and the class was a complete success based on our priorities. And now that we've had a bit more practice, we're looking forward to seeing how far we get during the make up session.
With regards to the learning curve, keep in mind that the DIR way of diving is a holistic approach. They really mean it when they say that. Buddy team skills, excersize, mental awareness, dive planning, learning the new gear configuration, the dive skills, and everything else that's taught in the course all work together. More experienced divers sometimes have more experience with putting all of these skills together. At the same time, many of the experienced divers have never dove this way before. I guess what I'm trying to say about the learning curve is that there's a lot to learn, and a lot of time the more experienced divers have a harder time with the course because they have to un-learn those dive skills that go against the DIR way of diving. That's a huge thing for many, and it often means that the experienced and in-experienced divers will have a similar learning curve to work through.
Hope the above helps.
~ Jason