DIR Question

[roakey]

Some things that are sometimes wrong with DIR:

1. the name (there's more than one way to do it right).

I never could figure out why there's so much angst over the term "DIR" while at the same time no one has problems with "Dive Rite" (everyone else's gear is wrong) or "SCUBAPRO" (everyone else's gear is not professional).

Roak

 

[Geoff_H]

I never could figure out why there's so much angst over the term "DIR" while at the same time no one has problems with "Dive Rite" (everyone else's gear is wrong) or "SCUBAPRO" (everyone else's gear is not professional).

I think people accept marketing by profit seeking firms now, and these trademarks refer to their products, rather than a way of diving.

More people get narked off by a process/training methodolgy calling "Doing it Right" applied to how people dive, as it has obvious inferences than anyone else doing it differently is therefore "Doing it Wrong". A lot of the ego driven world of cave and technical divers don't like that implication.

The effect is maybe not rational... but it sure is real for many.

 

[John_B]

I think people accept marketing by profit seeking firms now, and these trademarks refer to their products, rather than a way of diving.

JJ's/GUE's unsuccessful attempt at trademarking the term "Doing It Right" for GUE training a few years ago was pretty well documented, both here and on TDS.

 

[Bismark]

I think people accept marketing by profit seeking firms now, and these trademarks refer to their products, rather than a way of diving.

More people get narked off by a process/training methodolgy calling "Doing it Right" applied to how people dive, as it has obvious inferences than anyone else doing it differently is therefore "Doing it Wrong". A lot of the ego driven world of cave and technical divers don't like that implication.

The effect is maybe not rational... but it sure is real for many.

Bingo.

 

[Blackwood]

I never could figure out why there's so much angst over the term "DIR" while at the same time no one has problems with "Dive Rite" (everyone else's gear is wrong) or "SCUBAPRO" (everyone else's gear is not professional).

Roak

real or imagined, implications about what you think/learn/practice are more personal than those about what you buy.

 

[Bismark]

The divers I train have no concern with having their gas supply interrupted for two minutes while they fix whatever is wrong. This makes them real easy to train. The challenge is to teach them to properly evaluate what the problem is and proceed to a "guaranteed" fix. That is what (in my mind) DIR (as represented by GUE) is so good at. I want the best of both worlds.

I see serious issues with thick wetsuits and heavy tanks too. I love my DPVs, I've had them for many years (Farallon MK-6s), but I not permitted them to let my legs atrophy.

I'm just sorry to see GUE soft pedaling what I see as basic skills. They do a really good job of backfilling on items such as buoyancy control and buddy awareness and such, but I fear they neglect free diving skills because of GUE's historically cave oriented origins.

Hear! Hear!
I do see that. and applaud it.

I talked to a GUE instructor who just returned from teaching a Tech II class in which the students didn't pass. He said that in between Tech I and Tech II they purchased "$3500 trim tabs" and neglected basic buoyancy and kicking......

I believe you will see more time spent on skin diving skills in the new Recreational 1,2 and 3 classes. Just isn't time in a 4 day Fundamentals course which is very busy as it is.

 

[Nemrod]

If they truly doing it right then I should think a one mile swim in under 30 minutes without gear and an underwater swim with no gear of at least 50 yards should be part of the program along with a treading skill test of at least one hour with no gear or wetsuit to cheat. I think as well a demonstration of at least three swimming strokes be demonstrated with decent form and then maybe a free dive to at least 30 feet and of course the doff and don and blind diving without a mask etc. Basic water skills should be the basis of any advanced diver program. Maybe throw in a 1/4 mile buddy tow as well. N

 

[Bismark]

I certainly agree that a diver should be able to swim with comfort and relaxation, because I think it's absurd to participate in a sport that involves walking on docks and riding on boats without being able to swim. But, really, does being able to swim underwater impact one's diving that much? I've learned to breath-hold swim for the swim tests, but I can't do it underwater -- I'm just too buoyant.

I started working on my swimming technique because Danny told me to, but I can't say that I've seen any real changes in my diving as a result. Other than water comfort, does anybody have any real explanation as to how improving one's swimming really impacts diving?

I think there are more reasons for this requirement than you may be considering. It is not necessarily to make you a better diver per se, but also more prepared to deal effectively with an emergency (eg: OOG) while not panicking. Moreover, I would guess that a heavy smoker would have difficulty completing such an underwater swim, particularly if it came on the heels of a 300-400 meter surface swim. In combination, a couple of pretty good ways to evaluate overall fitness levels also. It is one thing to practise S-drills but unless you don't actually insert some time in the OOG scenario, you have not realistically created a closer to life scenario. What are the odds that you will be looking directly at your buddies when somebody runs out of gas? More likely, there will some delay between light signals and problem resolution. How many agencies actually train like this? While I notice that some instructors on SB include this sort of thing in their training (me too) it is not a common standard. In any case, I don't think the UW swim and surface swim components are designed to make you a better diver but rather to emphasize the points I made above. Interestingly, as you progress through the training ladder, the distances become longer.....and this includes instructor training where GUE instructors are required to re-certify in the swim tests every couple of years. These certifications need to be witnessed and signed off by two people and not just a "I did it" form.

 

[SparticleBrane]

I certainly agree that a diver should be able to swim with comfort and relaxation, because I think it's absurd to participate in a sport that involves walking on docks and riding on boats without being able to swim. But, really, does being able to swim underwater impact one's diving that much? I've learned to breath-hold swim for the swim tests, but I can't do it underwater -- I'm just too buoyant.

I started working on my swimming technique because Danny told me to, but I can't say that I've seen any real changes in my diving as a result. Other than water comfort, does anybody have any real explanation as to how improving one's swimming really impacts diving?

Underwater comfort is the big one, but there are a few other ancillary benefits as well. A good example would be streamlining (which also goes back to comfort) and the ability to know exactly what to do in the water to move yourself around.

By swimming (and just hopping in the pool and playing around), if you pay attention, you know exactly how fast you need to pull your arms or legs, what direction you need to move them, etc, to get your body to move in a certain direction. The same applies to diving -- If I already have a good basis for knowing what it takes to move my body in the water, doing it in diving gear is trivial. Students who know how to move their body in the water pick up trim and buoyancy much faster than those who don't, because they know how to position their body to achieve the goals.

Sometimes it isn't the swimming that teaches the skill, it's what you learn from the swimming. Another example would be pacing -- by having students swim slowly for long periods of time, it teaches them need to be slow and relaxed while diving. Occasionally if they do a sprint, it teaches them where their anaerobic threshold is, so they know just how far they can push it if they need to.


Unfortunately I feel that I haven't explained this very well; sometimes I have issues putting the right words down. Thal, think you can do any better?

 

[SparticleBrane]

I've learned to breath-hold swim for the swim tests

This statement tells me what I need to know.

As Bismark said, the underwater swim is a good measure of how well you'll hold up under stressful situations, to see if you can actually react rationally and calmly. The underwater swim isn't about learning to hold your breath, it's to see if you can perform the swim with good technique and keep your wits about you while under a tiny bit of stress.

In fact, we encourage our students to perform all skin-diving skills (underwater swim included) on no more than a normal-sized breath of air to perhaps something a bit larger. Taking huge breaths makes you feel like crap and generally makes you buoyant.


At school, at the end of this skill and several others, we instruct our students to perform a "clap and OK". The perfect scenario is they touch the wall after the underwater swim, calmly clap their hands once, give a double-OK sign, and then slowly surface. If the student feels they can't make the swim they are instructed to clap and OK before surfacing.

Many of our students feel that making the swim is the important part, so they'll push as hard and fast as they can to the other side and explode to the surface, forgetting the clap and OK. This is the opposite of what we want! Of course, we don't tell the students that the clap and OK is supremely important (at least not at first), because that would defeat the point of the skill -- part of which is for us to see who does it exactly like we want without being told what's important.

The clap and OK is really the most important part of the skill -- because it shows us that they can still think rationally while under a bit of stress.