DIR: God's gift to diving or Hell spawn?

[dsteding]

Personally, I find GI3's rants quite amusing, but I take them with a grain of salt. If you put your thinking cap on you can wade through this stuff and actually find some very helpful concepts.

The dude did bring a lot of thought and innovation to diving, too bad it is packaged in a form that alienates most people. It's pretty clear he doesn't care about that, however. As the DIR principles get out and are more widespread, I think his influence will diminish, as will the negative impact of his rants.

As a side note, does anyone have a link to his latest rant, which I think is titled "Cluster-F Intervention" or something like that?

 

[Otter]

CF Prevention

Those of you who are doing ridiculous dives with the scooters need to
brush up on CF prevention. Just because a scooter has not failed does not
mean it should be used again without going through the full routine that I
have outlined so many times.

The reason I bring this up is the number of scooters I am seeing, which
are owned by people doing ridiculous dives, that I would not be seeing if
the routine were followed in the first place. The upside of not doing as I
have suggested is a simple CF and blown dive. The downside can get a lot
worse when you consider the possibility that the whole dive team may be
equally complacent and lazy.

After any dive is salt water or nasty water of any kind, the back end must
be sat in a tub of fresh water for a good while, and then CRC or equivalent
sprayed under the clutch into the tail cone to prevent salt or other
chemicals from eating the aluminum around the seal, which then causes the
back end to slowly leak directly into the motor until the motor is ruined
and fails.

After every dive you should simply stand the scooter on its nose, pop the
latches and pull the tail section back far enough to see into the motor
compartment, or to remove the port plug and hold the back end upside down to
check for any moisture ( and any burn smell). If you do not do this and the
scooter has leaked, the result will be a ruined motor and a CF at some
point. If you do find a problem, it is quite easily solved at this early
juncture.

Again, there is no excuse for not doing this if you are doing the big ones
and calling yourself a pro. I hate to use the S word here, but the fact is
that if you are not doing this, you are as good as a common garden variety
stroke and violating the trust of your dive team.

After checking the tail, put it back on, flip it over and burn test the
batteries the rest of the way down to 30 volts, noting the time left vs the
time you ran the scooter, and recharge.

Not only do I hate fixing scooter motors that have been allowed to sit
with water in them, I generally won't. I also do not want to develop a body
count on my scooters like the other guys have, and I guarantee you it is not
the "quality" of the scooter but the "quality" of the owner that has
prevented my scooters having a body count.

Please do not get complacent.

 

[Otter]

Yhea, but what do we have here? A ten year old quote and a snide comment that DIR folks don't know why they do what they do. 10 years ago the DIR folks were firing the first shots (the 10 year old qutoe makes that point). Five years ago it was about 50/50. Nowadays it's almost always (not everytime, but most of the time) the DIR folks that see the first shot sailing past their bow...

Agree and agree, but the interveaning comment about DIR and a caste system had nothing to do with my point. The point was that most folks who slam ANY system, not just DIR and not just in diving without offering an alternative really don't have sound reasoning behind "their" alternative. If they did, they'd engage in a rational discussion, rather than just insulting the "other" way.

So my comment, though in this case about someone badmouthing DIR, is about the person's mode of discussion, or, more correctly, lack thereof.

Roak

I think we are on the same page.....seems like nowadays, a question around DIR goes something like one of these....

Example 1
Q. Is <this> DIR?
A. No, because <such and such>
Q. Ya right, that doesn't apply to me. Go drink your kool-aid.

Example 2
Q. Is <this> DIR?
A. You're a stroke and you are going to die.

Example 3
Q. Is <this> DIR?
A. No, because <such and such>
Q. But what about <this>
A. Experience has shown that ....
[here one of a couple things can happen, either the answer is accepted and moved on, more intelligent discourse occurs, or those who simply want to argue jump in and the thread degenerates into Example 1 or 2]

It seems like Example 1 and 2 happen far less frequently now. Example 3 occurs with the periodic shift to 1 and 2.

 

[Thalassamania]

As the DIR principles get out and are more widespread, I think his influence will diminish, as will the negative impact of his rants.

Remember a discussion we had a while back about ear clearing when Lynne mentioned that valsalva was the only way she could be confident of clearing? Seeking a DIR answer I took that question to a DIR board. Let me share an example of why folks get pissed off with “DIR:”

I hope that you do not mind fielding another question. Something came up in discussion on another board that raised an issue that I though might have some light shed upon it here.

In imitation of my old oval Swim Master Wide View mask I glue a small (perhaps ½” x 1”) neoprene pad in the nose pocket of my current masks. My nostrils are completely, but gently, occluded by this pad. If I exhale gently, air goes by, but if I exhale more forcefully (or push my nose … well actually the nose pocket of my mask) against anything (forearm, instrument housing, back of my hand, etc.) I can close off my nostrils and equalize. I learned this using old style oval masks and commercial gear (Band Masks and Helmets). This lets me stay ahead of the need to clear by keeping slight positive pressure in my pharynx (during exhilaration) whenever I descent.

I suggested that this might help some folks who are task loaded with suit inflator, wing inflator, a scooter, etc., and find that they’ve “run out of hands.” The question was raised as to if it “was DIR” to “modify” your mask in this manner.

Any thoughts that I might share?

Response from a GUE Instrictor and board mod:

It certainly isn't DIR to do this. You are adding extra equipment to make up for something that could be solved with skill and practice.

What happens if the pad comes unstuck? What about your backup mask? What about your team's backup masks? What happens if you give a team member a backup mask with this pad added when they are not expecting it?

If you are worried about trying to clear your ears while doing other tasks, there are other ways of doing it other than by using the valsalva manouver.

Note the knee-jerk response and lack of thought followed by the snide innuendo. That’s what many experience when interacting with DIR.

And a response form a DIR type that used to play on scubaboard, but has not been heard from in a while:

Most of your equalizing is on descent. ... Personally I'd have to say a person having difficulty with equalizing teqniques while task loaded may lack the experience for the given dive.

Do you start to see a pattern?

Finally I got an e-mail back from Peter and posted it:

I can't see any problems with that modification. I sometimes use a similar technique because I let my mask slide up a bit so that the nose pocket is close to my nostrils and I can to some extent equalize the same way.

One has to remember that equalizing is different for different divers. Some can do it by just wiggling their jaws and some have to use a proper valsalva or other technique. With your modification one would just have added another way of doing it in addition to the rest - another tool in the toolbox so to speak.

To keep in mind though is that we in general strive for ambidextrous operation of our equipment, even if we have a default like light in the left hand and scooter in the right. A proficient diver should be capable of riding a scooter both left and right handed, be able to use left or right hand for operating the wing, holding the primary light, reels etc. As long as the mask "modification" is not used as an excuse to NOT develop these ambidextrous skills there are no problems. To use a favorite buzz word in the dir community we could say that we still need to be "thinking divers".

feel free to post my response wherever you see fit.?

There’s been no comment since. But look a the difffence between what Peter had to say, gentlemanly, helpful and to the point and what the other two said.

 

[Otter]

I'm not condeming DIR. I think it has a lot great ideas and well thought out planning. However, there is NEVER only one way to do something. ...snip...

I do stand by my statement that there is never a single way. Everything is a tradeoff.

FD

There is always multiple ways of doing things. However, under most situations and under close analysis there is usually a BEST way of doing something. Yes there are tradeoffs and presumably each of these tradeoffs has different weightings. Hopefully on any given procedure, we will agree on each of the possible choices...where we may disagree...and therefore come up with a different 'BEST' answer is the weighting factors.

What should NOT be lost in the entire scheme is that all of us doing it the same way has tremendous value....I am guessing you are a PSD so you know the value of teamwork. So while one way of doing something may render a weighted score of 97.1 and another 98.5, if you do the 97.1 and I do the 98.5 and problem occurs, we are probably BOTH down in the 80s.

 

[Robert Phillips]

This post just shows your lack of understanding of what George is referring to. You need to have been able to read the post in context. He is talking about can lights. George was not talking to recreational divers when he made any of these posts. He was talking to people who were trying to or were saying that they could do the same dives he was doing then.

I'm not condeming DIR. I think it has a lot great ideas and well thought out planning. However, there is NEVER only one way to do something. I also think that many of the positives of DIR have come from it's later students. I read that entire page I posted. I do not see intelligence or thinking in any of it. I see denegration, lies, and self-contradictions. Look at the the rant about the "twist-on" lights for example.

"When it floods, it shorts out in salt water" - DUH! so will all electronic, Lets flood a canister and see what happens.

A can light will continue to work if flooded...

"It is not focusable" - neither are most lights sold today

A can light with a twist on light head is not focusable. He is not talking about a standard light you can find at the local Sports Chalet...

"It puts out a blob of light rather than a beam" - this is complete and utter nonsense

No it is not (when in proper context.)

" It is very heavy" - and canisters aren't?

He's talking about a canister...

"It uses the useless type of light bulb" - wow, don't even know where to begin with that one

See above...

"Only a blithering idiot would own something like this" - see last statement.

So if this is a taste of the reasoning that went into the original configuration used, then it would seem that luck, more than anything kept the team alive.

Keep in mind, that this was posted as a historical look back. The original concepts may have been much more solid than the founding father, and much more thought seems to have gone into gear choices. I do stand by my statement that there is never a single way. Everything is a tradeoff.

FD

Keep in mind that, as stated by others, back then DIR was not about recreational diving. It was doing dives that few other people could do then or now...

 

[Otter]

Remember a discussion we had a while back about ear clearing when Lynne mentioned that valsalva was the only way she could be confident of clearing? Seeking a DIR answer I took that question to a DIR board. Let me share an example of why folks get pissed off with “DIR:”




Response from a GUE Instrictor and board mod:



Note the knee-jerk response and lack of thought followed by the snide innuendo. That’s what many experience when interacting with DIR.

[/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]And a response form a DIR type that used to play on scubaboard, but has not been heard from in a while:



Do you start to see a pattern?

Finally I got an e-mail back from Peter and posted it:



There’s been no comment since. But look a the difffence between what Peter had to say, gentlemanly, helpful and to the point and what the other two said.

It would be interesting to know WHO the original responders where -- recent fundies graduates or instructors.

 

[Thalassamania]

I think we are on the same page.....

Example 3
Q. Is <this> DIR?
A. No, because <such and such>
Q. But what about <this>
A. Experience has shown that ....

All to often example 3 is followed with, "Can you give me an example?" Often there is no example (or the diver is not aware of one) or it is a completely irrelevent one and eventually the discussion breaks down to the DIR guy quoting "authority," getting snide (as in my pervious post) or yelling "stroke," none of which are useful solutions.

 

[Thalassamania]

It would be interesting to know WHO the original responders where -- recent fundies graduates or instructors.

The first was, as I noted, a GUE instructor. I know nothing of the second save he claims to have started diving in the late eighteenth century, a claim that I think I'm willing to dispute.<G>

 

[johnkendall]

Note the knee-jerk response and lack of thought followed by the snide innuendo. That’s what many experience when interacting with DIR.

I'm sorry if you thought my response was a Knee-jerk with no thought and snide innuendo. It certainly was not sent with that in mind. This is a big issue with Internet boards, it is hard to convey meaning. It is also very easy to see what you want to see in a response rather than what the sender is trying to convey.

It is MUCH easier to have some of these discussions face to face, but when you can't I have found it's often better to try and believe that a poster is being helpful first, and only then decide that they are being snide/thoughless if I am proved wrong about the helpful bit.

John