DIR wars...Is it the name?

[Kim]

Uh, have you ever taken a GUE course? If not, how can you compare the them? It works both ways....

Soggy-
No - I haven't - due mainly to the fact that I'm a smoker (as I already posted). However I have taken an IANTD course where my instructor made us do an awful lot of fundies work - mainly bouyancy: holding horizontal position with no hand/fin movement 1ft off the silt for 5 minutes/ idem at a given depth in blue water: fin kicks: reels: lift bags: streamlining etc. Now I'm sure it wasn't identical - but it was a lot more than PADI ever taught me - and I KNOW that it improved my diving/diving awareness vastly. The problem here is simple - I have GUE DIR/F divers telling me that what I learnt was not good (or at least my agency - IANTD - quoted by Detroit Diver) : whereas I am personally quite prepared to accept that GUE gives as good a training from what I have read from JJ's book and from what I have read here on SB. I do agree though that it works both ways and while I don't have any information from (for instance) an IANTD trained diver who then did GUE courses - I also don't know any GUE DIR/F divers who did IANTD courses - so I simply ask: what is the comperison based on?
On a side note - an GUE instructor, Sonya Tittle, recently gave some DIR/F courses in Japan in Tokyo and Okinawa. As far as I know she is also an IANTD instructor and after thet GUE courses also did some IANTD ones (at least as far as I understand). This suggests to me that the animosity that seems to exist at a lower level is not always repeated at a higher level.

 

[tachyon]

Ignoring the fortan gibberish at the beginning,

The logic expressed in the beginning of my first post in this thread is a direct response to similar logic posted by dweeb. If you don't understand it, don't worry. Logic isn't for everyone.

I think you're completely misstating an important part of what DIR is about and how it evolves.

All I'm doing is restating, from my viewpoint, what's been stated in this thread. I'm not unreasonable. If my perception of DIR is skewed, it's in large part due to the failure of it's proponents to present it as an optional form of advanced training in a nonthreatening manner. If they truly believed it was a safer and better way to dive, they would want to present all of it's positive aspects and not treat it like a feather that distinguishes them from the other peacocks strutting around the yard. Some people have tried in this thread, but the signal to noise ratio isn't very good.

Your AIR2 and lack of spring straps are a different story....

:laughing:

tachyon

 

[detroit diver]

Hold it. Don't put words in my mouth. Where did I ever say that what you learned was not good?

Soggy-
No - I haven't - due mainly to the fact that I'm a smoker (as I already posted). However I have taken an IANTD course where my instructor made us do an awful lot of fundies work - mainly bouyancy: holding horizontal position with no hand/fin movement 1ft off the silt for 5 minutes/ idem at a given depth in blue water: fin kicks: reels: lift bags: streamlining etc. Now I'm sure it wasn't identical - but it was a lot more than PADI ever taught me - and I KNOW that it improved my diving/diving awareness vastly. The problem here is simple - I have GUE DIR/F divers telling me that what I learnt was not good (or at least my agency - IANTD - quoted by Detroit Diver) : whereas I am personally quite prepared to accept that GUE gives as good a training from what I have read from JJ's book and from what I have read here on SB. I do agree though that it works both ways and while I don't have any information from (for instance) an IANTD trained diver who then did GUE courses - I also don't know any GUE DIR/F divers who did IANTD courses - so I simply ask: what is the comperison based on?
On a side note - an GUE instructor, Sonya Tittle, recently gave some DIR/F courses in Japan in Tokyo and Okinawa. As far as I know she is also an IANTD instructor and after thet GUE courses also did some IANTD ones (at least as far as I understand). This suggests to me that the animosity that seems to exist at a lower level is not always repeated at a higher level.

 

[Kim]

Soggy - Keysdriftdiver454.
Give me a few minutes as you both posted while I was typing. I'll list what we did for the IANTD course.

 

[O-ring]

Sounds like we got sidetracked.. Isn't this about the name DIR causing ill feelings? Yes, I think the name is a problem and tends to imply that others are "doing it wrong", but that is the name it has at the present time and there's not a lot I can do about it.

GUE doesn't take smokers, period. There are other agencies out there (TDI, IANTD, etc.) that have lower standards (yes, I said it) and will take you if you are a smoker, have a dangerous cowboy attitude, enjoy solo diving, push ppo2s with the "best" mix in order to avoid deco (decoweenieism), like to bungie jump without a bungie cord, enjoy a mid-morning puff on the crack pipe, or have other dangerous character flaws that are contraindicated to safe diving.

 

[novadiver]

With all due respect, virtually every objection you have listed has absolutely nothing to do with DIR itself, but the personalities and more specifically the emotions, involved.

If you've been diving Chattanooga (ChooChoo divers) a while, no doubt you and I have shared water in Loc Low Minn many times together.

If you ever passed a guy by himself skip breathing while reading a paperback (3hrs10m my personal best with an al80 at 3K) on the 20' platform, that would be me (not very DIR, especially when you tend to nap).

There's a lot of different ways to put this, but, your main problem with DIR is that you're offended by their prejudgment and ostricism of you as a diver.



But why would you care?

I did the math on that three hour and ten min. dive. I didn't take into account water temp or gas left in the tank at the end of the dive .( figured there was none ) and your sac rate turned out to be .23 (quite impressive) and I added the fact that you were skip breathing ( CO2 build up) and I came to the conclusion that .23 gas consumption is not enough gas to keep the human body alive ( much less the human brain) and the CO2 build up compounded the brain damage.

So just to let you know , those were not naps, you have given yourself unreversible brain damage.

I'm very sure that this is not DIR , but I could be wrong.

 

[Soggy]

No - I haven't - due mainly to the fact that I'm a smoker (as I already posted).

Except for the fact that you've admitted to being a smoker in a public forum, you could probably 'get away' with taking the course if you can chew on some nicorette gum for a couple days.

Not that I'm suggesting that, but there are ways to get the education if you really want to.

And quitting smoking certainly wouldn't kill ya

 

[cornfed]

Except for the fact that you've admitted to being a smoker in a public forum, you could probably 'get away' with taking the course if you can chew on some nicorette gum for a couple days.

Because Kim is such a common name in Japan that he would easily be identified...

 

[cornfed]

I did the math ... and I came to the conclusion that .23 gas consumption is not enough gas to keep the human body alive ( much less the human brain) and the CO2 build up compounded the brain damage.

Brain damage may not be an issue for the subject in question...

 

[Kim]

EANx Overhead Environment. IANTD.
Bouyancy: Already posted - 5 minutes 1 ft off the bottom with no discernable hand or fin movement. Repeated at any given depth holding depth to within +/- 1 ft.
Fin kicks: Frog kick, Dolphin kick, Modified Frog/Dolphin/Flutter. Helicopter turn.
Gas management - rule of thirds.
S-Drills. OOA drills including breath hold swim to donating buddy.
Valve shutdowns/drills
Line laying - Ist person/2nd person
Team responsibilities - 1st/2nd/3rd person
Line swimming - without mask/without mask sharing air/without mask 15 meters breath hold
Lift bag deployment
SAC determination
Non visual buddy signs

That covers most of it - unfortunately my wife has had two babies since we did the course so we haven't had a lot of time to practice some of it. She's diving again now so hopefully that will change. I would actually really like to do DIR/F as a refresher but as a smoker that isn't allowed. We'll probably go back to IANTD and continue from there