DIR-F Report - Sault Ste. Marie CANADA

[MXGratefulDiver]

You started off by asserting that the purpose of the class is to sell gear. The only "question" you asked was why Scott was thinking about buying new gear. Your later points in this thread were based on similar assertions that GUE set up the Fundamentals class to push Halcyon gear. I think those issues have been adequately addressed.

As I said Bill, I started my post with a question. You conveniently neglected to reproduce the first paragraph of my post ...

Politics or economics? Does your dive shop happen to sell the undergarment, drysuit, and fins that this instructor showed you were crap? If so, perhaps your LDS simply doesn't want you telling her customers that the gear she's selling them is "crap". And in fact, perhaps for the type of diving that the majority of folks do, it isn't. There's a big difference between telling someone that their gear is "crap" versus explaining that the gear is not appropriate for technical diving.

Furthermore, I didn't say anything about Halcyon, except to point out that the President of GUE and the CEO of Halcyon are the same person ... I've already made that statement twice, and I defy you to show me otherwise. You guys are making claims about your interpretation of what I said ... not what I said. Show me where I made the statement you claim I made.

Look, I really don't want to be contentious ... but I find it telling that you'd pull such a cheap trick to make it appear that I'm not telling the truth here.

I also find it telling that so far three of you guys have decided to resort to flames and insults ... are you so insecure about your training that you cannot respond to my comments in any other manner? You may not like what I have to say, but I have tried to be respectful of you as a person in how I said it. A pity you can't see the value in that.

I thought honest assessment is one of the things the DIR-F course was supposed to be teaching you guys ... how about walking the talk?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Dan MacKay]

ABQdiver once bubbled...


So Scott, what was actually "wrong" with the drysuit you were diving? To tight?

Just tell me to mind my own business if you want, but I'm really curious.

Hi ABQdiver,

Acutally there were two Scott's on the course. ScubaScott actually lucked in and had an off-the-shelf suit that fit him just about perfect from a mobility stand point. The other Scott was literally in a straight jacket. There was another minor issue with both suits - inadequate pockets for storage but this could have been recified. My main point to the class for this particular item of kit is that if is rare that off shelf works as you are at the mercy of the manufacturers best guess as to what works for your body type. Each of the stock sizes has an optimal size/shape/weight form. It is so very easy to vary in any one of these dimentions and have a suit that just does not work. A diver pays a great deal of money for one of these items - the short story is to pay the extra and always get a custom cut suit. The second and what I consider the most important aspect is the underwear. Get it custom cut as well and stay away from high loft. 200 - 400 gram low loft preferably stretch thinsulate is optimal. It is what makes the suit work properly.

 

[Dan MacKay]

NWGratefulDiver once bubbled...


As I said Bill, I started my post with a question. You conveniently neglected to reproduce the first paragraph of my post ...

...And some other stuff in the middle cut out...

I thought honest assessment is one of the things the DIR-F course was supposed to be teaching you guys ... how about walking the talk?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Hi Bob,

Please call me Dan. It seems as if a lot of folks have been beating on you a little. Discussion is good and if done in the proper manner brings a lot of good information to the table and everyone learns. I believe that one of the reasons that the new Fundamentals student gets so defensive is simply that this is the first course they have taken in the SCUBA world that has demanded something meaningful of them and that they were not buying a card. Sort of tough on the ego coming up short on a Fundamentals course would you not agree? However the attitude displayed by Scott the folks from the Soo shows me that they did not come up short. I have taught this course to divers with as few as 17 dives and as many as a 1000+. Everyone walks away with something different. Now that the Fundamentals is a certification course when my name goes on a 'C' card I am saying that this student is squared away enough to have the potential to move on to Tech I or Cave I within 25 dives from the date of certification (min) and that is a big deal.

Whether or not JJ is the President of GUE and the CEO of Halcyon has little bearing on the equipment recomendations that I made while teaching a Fundamentals course that I taught in Sault St. Marie a couple of weekends ago or any Fundametals course taught on any given weekend anywhere. I am honest with students. I am part owner of a store and am a Halcyon dealer. I would be thrilled to death if all my students came and shopped at my store but this is not what the course is about and if you ask folks I encourage students to shop at their LDS where possible. This is not the issue. The equipment that the students had, had everything to do with the course and to one degree or another affected their ability to complete the course. ScubaScott was at one end of the spectrum where his gear had little effect on his performance while Scott 2 was at the other end where his gear actually impeded him to the point that it would have been impossible for him to complete the requisite drills. Everyone else was some where in the middle.

You highlighted the response that I made in my earlier post about reasonable explainations but then down played the drysuit issue in the same sentence. The issue for Scott was one of safety and potentially life or death safety - no hope of getting to his valves in any type of emergency. I do not believe that I used the word crap to describe any of the gear and I will have to remember to beat Scotty the next time I see him for his unfortunate choice of words but what would would you attach to gear that is designed and cut to potentially hasten your shuffle off of this mortal coil? I would not say that it was less than adequate just for the Tech enviroment I would say that it be best left on the shelf for any enviroment.

This is a huge part of the problem that we have in the industry today. A diver is a largely uniformed consumer. They walk into a shop and ask a lot of questions and recieve a lot of answers mostly ones that center around what ever specific gear the shop is selling. The problem is that for the most part the venders are uniformed as well and don't know what the consumer needs. From the vendor's stand point the consumer needs what they have to sell them no matter how ill suited to the task at hand the item is. We have the blind leading the blind driven by marketing and the need for the LDS to make a buck. As the students from any Fundamentals course will tell you that they also learn how to be a much better consumer.

I have a garage full of gear that likely represents the cost of my morgage that I am just too embarassed to E-Bay. It is amazing how little money I have spent on dive gear since I have started paying attention to simplicity, form and function and insisting that I get what I want rather that someone else's determination of what I need.

That being said lets give the gear thing a rest and talk about what is far more important that of skill and attitude. I will pose a question to you and the rest of the group. It is a fairly suble one and the core of what I teach. I spend about and hour or so during one of my presentations to discuss the physics of buoyancy, trim and the effects of hydrodynamics. It is one of the best presentations that I like delivering because during the course of the discussion I can watch light bulbs going off and one of the common questions I get is "why hasn't anyone ever taught me this before?" I'll toss the same question out on the floor and lets kick it around for a while and see if we can actually come up with some reasonable conclusions as to base suit/uderwear and BCD purchases on. PS sell your ankle weights now.

 

[Waterlover]

NWGratefulDiver once bubbled...
Where to start ...


That is true. However, I can also get excellent technical training through my NAUI rep. When I decide to take that kind of training, I don't doubt for a moment that Peter DenHaan can be every bit as effective at teaching me to be an effective technical diver as anyone currently teaching over at 5th D. He can do it by assessing me personally, my goals, my preferences, and my personal style of diving ... rather than trying to stuff me into a "one size fits all" philosophy that has, at it's foundation, a "my way or the highway" approach to diving. Different strokes for different folks ... if you'll pardon my use of the term.


Isn't this the guy who advertises "Just Doing it Right"......so now he is saying everyone is doing it wrong too.......real creative approach on his part.......another point about gear sales, every dive shop you walk into is selling gear as a part of the training. Get over the selling of gear and training together......It's the way the industry is set up....even though it is a major conflict of interest to the student...

 

[Aquamaniac]

Dan MacKay once bubbled...


That being said lets give the gear thing a rest and talk about what is far more important that of skill and attitude. I will pose a question to you and the rest of the group.............................................................<snip>........................................I'll toss the same question out on the floor and lets kick it around for a while and see if we can actually come up with some reasonable conclusions as to base suit/uderwear and BCD purchases on. PS sell your ankle weights now.

Top idea.......

1. What effect can underwear have on hydrodynamics?
2. How does the thickness of the suit effect mobility?
3. If I was purchasing underwear, what should I be looking for in a lining, A plush fleecy lining, or something thin and flexible.
4. Do certain "inners" effect bouyancy? if so how?

Dave

 

[Dan MacKay]

Aquamaniac once bubbled...

Top idea.......

1. What effect can underwear have on hydrodynamics?
2. How does the thickness of the suit effect mobility?
3. If I was purchasing underwear, what should I be looking for in a lining, A plush fleecy lining, or something thin and flexible.
4. Do certain "inners" effect bouyancy? if so how?

Dave

Some Great questions.

Question 1: If the underwear is such that it has excessively high loft it will have a tendency to trap air in the worst of places, typically around the upper body which will put you in a naturally heads up positions, which affects trim, drag and actually causes lift, which in a nutshell is hydrodynamics.

Question 2. If the suit is a trilaminate the thicker the suit the sitffer the material is to move when you are wearing the suit properly.

Question 3. Lining should be comfortable but once again just of minumim thickness. Some inners act as a moisture barriers and some just as a liner.

Question 4. Any time you add another layer you will affect buoyancy. Let the underwear do the work that it was intended to do. If you require heavier underwear for therma protection get two sets. I use two sets of underwear. In the summer I use a 200gm strecth thinsulate and in the winter a 400 of the same. The weighting difference I make up by switching from an AL backplate to a steel back plate. I use no other weight.

In reqards to question 1 what do you think the in water effects of being heads up are?

 

[wetman]

I can attest to good undies making quite a bit of difference - i just got a new set that are thin but quite warm (i think they're 200 weight). They are also very stretchy and have an outer layer of thin nylon shell. I had the Bare underwear up to last year - in just the underwear alone i could barely even do knee bends because of its lack of stretch. I've got a CF200 and have been wearing just regular fleece for a while this year - the cf200 material seems to slide over the new underwear better than the plain fleece and since the new undies are stretchy i'm much more mobile even though my suit doesn't fit as well as it should. My knob reaching issues are now completely because i'm the most inflexible guy in the world and not due to my suit. This set of undies saved me from having to buy a new suit so i was quite pleased with that. Why can i say "knob reaching issues" without even cracking a smile...

steve

 

[large_diver]

I'll add 2 cents here....

I took DIRF last August with Dan, MHK and Andrew. Great class.

I think that NWGrateful has a point -- from an outsider's point of view, the close relationship between Halcyon and GUE exists and presents what seems like a conflict of interest. Of course, this is the same conflict that exists in all too many dive shops -- they are training you and are also telling you what to buy. Whether or not GUE is using their training to promote gear -- this perception exists in many people's minds.

Whether this represents a conflict or not is debatable. Internet flame wars certainly haven't helped this situation -- too many folks walking around like they are God's gift to diving spouting off about DIR and yelling "GIVE ME HALCYON OR GIVE ME DEATH" obviously rubs folks (me included) the wrong way.

I agree with Dan's and ScubaScott's comments about DIRF and gear recommendations -- no one told me to "buy Halcyon" during the course. The instructors focused on the the skills they were trying to teach and why certain gear was OK/not OK for this type of diving. I presented my self as a rec diver who has no intention of pursuing technical diving. As a result, the instuctors critiqued my gear with this in mind (i.e., they did not nit pick my gear nearly as much as someone pursuing tech diving -- lower risk diving = more leeway in gear selections). For example, I was using Mares Quattros with the ABS buckles during the class. No one told me to get rid of them or that I was going to die. Did someone mention that the buckles are entanglement/failure hazards -- yes (both of which I have since experienced).

One comment to the contrary -- during the exposure suit discussion, Andrew did talk about the supposed sub-optimal design of DUI drysuits due to seam placement and the effect they have on mobility. This was rather funny, since the majority of the class including most of the instructors were wearing DUIs -- and of course it seems that most of the WKPP including George Irvine wear DUI as well. As he talked about the "right" suit design, he pointed to his own suit -- the Fifth Dimension private label drysuit made by Andy's. He didn't mention the suit by name...he just focused on the characteristics of the suit and why it was a better choice. Again -- he could have been hard sell, but was not. Not a big deal, but it smell like subtle advertising.

Whether intended or not -- this relationship exists and looks somewhat conflicting. I think having folks like Mike and Dan around here is helpful to help dispel some of the rumors; unfortunately, given the ongoing polarzing conversations that happen with DIR, there will continue to be accusations that GUE is nothing more than a Halcyon marketing ploy.

Thanks again to Mike, Dan, Bob Sherwood and other GUE folks who stop by now again to set the record straight.

-Chris

 

[Aquamaniac]

Dan MacKay once bubbled...




In reqards to question 1 what do you think the in water effects of being heads up are?

#1 Reason.....Resistance.

I was once asked this question on the way to the quarry.
When the person asked the question, this is how I answered it...

Stick your hand out the window of the vehicle at an angle of 20 degrees or so, in effect, a heads up position.
Now hold your hand in a perfectly horizontal position.

There is the answer as to why heads up is a no-no

Dave.

 

[knives]

QUOTE]Dan MacKay once bubbled...
Hi all,



So to make a long story short it is not about equipment but is all about skill, attitude and honesty. If I can provide you a with a road map of where to go and how to get there then I have done my job and it is up to the student to do the work. It is not about 'C' cards. I personally have a horrendous pass/fail ratio but have an awful number of very happy divers who have accepted the challenge laid down as goals towards personal improvement in many facets of life. [/QUOTE]

As a former student of Dan,s I would like to say that this is what impressed me the most about the DIR course. As someone who was a new recreational diver, I was not famiiar with tech diving, I simply had atrocious bouancy skills and had no idea how much I could improve (naive of me) I certainly did not do the weekend course and imerge as a skilled diver, but it is the roadmap you get that is the key ,
I improve on every dive ...It takes time , skills don't just happen ,you have to work on it...I am a safer ,better diver and keep improving on every dive....I enjoy the challenge of constant improvement .

Dan is an awesome teacher .Honest and thorough.

Thanks Dan!!!!

Not to mention the awesome dive skills these guys have , I can not believe wha they can do in the water...
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