So you'll compare them somtimes because there might be a discrepancy, but the other xx number of times in your dive, it doesn't matter? Its good enough, right? If you can't trust the gauge in your brain enough, you might want to put those 'demanding dives' on the backburner a little bit...
To me it's a simple question of probabilities. If I never compare it (either with my own or other's gauges) I increase the probability that I don't notice a problem, so I will compare it. But I won't do so all the time, leaving me in no worse shape than if I were using a single SPG (and my brain).
Bottom line is that these types of practices aren't DIR for all the reasons myself and others have stated. Its right up there with gauge retractors; just a quick fix (although an expensive quick fix, in your case) for a fundamental skill issue.
Expensive quick fix? And here I am with a couple of hundred dives using an ex-rental Suunto Favor that was god knows how old which I bought off eBay, along with a mechanical depth gauge that I got for free when a member of my dive club died and his family gave away what dive gear they couldn't sell. I have never looked for the quick fix, and definitely not for the expensive one, although if the only way to get the features I want is expensive, then I don't mind spending the money. I keep my gear for decades, so I never begrudge paying up front for high quality gear that meets my needs, but I'm perfectly happy to use something cheap if its reliable and does what I want.
And since only a month ago you were a self professed frequent solo diver
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/4934769-post11.html, I'd venture a guess that your total understanding of DIR is what you've read on scubaboard. Give us all a break and quit trying to call your style of diving 'DIR', because its not.
Please point to a single place on SB or elsewhere where I stated or implied that my style of diving was DIR
I have adopted a Hogarthian rig because it makes sense to me, but to my knowledge I have never once claimed to be DIR. Obviously, when I'm solo diving I am not even attempting to dive DIR. I plan to take Fundies in a couple of months because I think it's excellent training, but that in no way means that I will automatically join the cult, shave my head and start selling flowers in airports. I have talked to, and watched in-water and on video, quite a few local GUE/UTD trained divers, have read JJ's book, and have investigated as much as I can here and elsewhere to see if this was for me. The jury's still out on that, and will remain so until after I take the class.
DIR is a philosophy that emphasises standardization at the expense of optimization; having participated in both team and individual sports over the years I lean toward the individual ones, so have always tended towards optimization over standardization. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and I will make a choice once I have more direct experience of the training as to whether the benefits of the DIR approach outweigh its disadvantages _for me_. I suspect the answer will most likely be 'No', but won't pre-judge things.
Now, when I ask questions or comment here, I do so because this is the best place I know of, short of class (where there may not be time to answer my questions), to explain the reasoning behind what I see as inconsistencies or questionable decisions in the DIR approach (like the lack of unit standardization). If anyone wishes to convince me that their method of doing something is superior, they'll have to do so by the strength of their argument, and not the passion with which they advance it. I was a thinking person long before I became a thinking diver, and I accept very little just because a self-proclaimed authority says it's so, especially when I have contrary experience.
Now, this discussion is in the DIR Forum, not the DIR Practitioners sub-forum, where my (non-DIR) opinions would definitely be out of place. Here seems to me to be the most appropriate place to ask my questions re: the rationale behind DIR procedures and decisions; I also freely state my opinion when it contradicts DIR, and state why. If this is not the appropriate place, my apologies, and I will happily ask them in whichever forum is the appropriate one.
Guy
