Well, I appreciated the stroll down memory lane ... particularly the post (#9) by my friend Terkel (Wet Dane). That was posted about a month after I got certified ... and about two months before somebody passed him the kool-aid.
Well, they finally pried that heavy, lead-acid canister with the clunky 75W halogen bulb from his cold, wet Danish fingers. He makes and sells his own lights now ... I own one and it's a fine piece of gear.
I first heard about, and learned about DIR from Terkel. Oddly, he rarely mentioned gear at all. It was more the mindset ... buddy awareness, finning without kicking up silt, managing the gas, using light signals, that sort of thing. Sure, we talked about most of that stuff in OW class ... but the DIR folks can actually show you how to do it.
I've since been thru a succession of DIR-trained dive buddies ... several of whom are active on this board. One thing I've noticed ... the good ones don't possess the "attitude" people seem to get so hung up on. They just want to dive ... and if you're willing to learn, they're more than happy to show you things. Yeah, there's vocal ones out there ... but they're really just people who need to be part of a "club" ... and if you're not DIR you're better off letting them do their own thing and ignoring their comments.
I'm not DIR. Oh, my kit is mostly (but not entirely) similar to theirs. My diving habits have evolved to the point where we're mostly compatible ... although the DIR "purists" would still find plenty to fault. But I'm just enough of a "rebel" to want to do a few things my way. For that reason, I'll probably never be DIR. But I have to say I'm glad it's something I got exposed to. People like Terkel, Uncle Pug, Kalvyn, Snowbear, David Evans, and others have all taught me things that have made me a better diver ... things I'd have probably picked up eventually, but diving with them put me ahead of the curve. And they did it not by shoving some philosophy down my throat, but just by diving and setting the example. I didn't learn this stuff because it was DIR ... I learned it because I thought it was cool, and wanted to have those skills myself.
People get too hung up on the attitude ... or on the inference of what DIR stands for. Who cares ... I think that stuff gets generated more on the Internet than it does in real life. In real life, most of the DIR folks I've met are pretty genuine people who just want to dive and have fun ... kinda like me.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
