DIRF book

[tombiowami]

I just got through with a DIR Fund class in NC. For $300 we had an instructor fly in from California, JJ flew in from Fla. another instructor (D. Sweetin) drove up from Fla. with a videographer, and another instructor from South Carolina drove up. They taught from 6pm to 10:30pm on Friday, 8am-11pm on Sat, and 7am-3pm on Sunday. Very cheap. There are a lot of misconceptions about DIR/GUE, etc. several of them explained here very nicely. The instructors are pretty accessible from the GUE website if you want it straight from the horses mouth, or take the class. It is taught all over the world. Contact Andrew Georgitsis and he can give specifics on what is needed.

Tommy

 

[CincyDiver]

Originally posted by Jonathan
Well DIR has not made it to Japan yet (other than doing a little tour last year) so I only had the intro from the book to go where it mentions something about the instructors not being people who have other jobs and do diving as a hobby. I have not got the book in front of me so do not have the exact quote but to me that read we won't be as cheap as your LFDS.

I want to elaborate on this for those of you deciding on whether or not to purchase this book. Jonathan is referring to chapter 2, "Learning How To Learn." This chapter is a discussion of why it is so hard to find a good diving intructor in today's discounted world of recreational diving. He talks about how recreational dive shops discount their instruction to try to make diving more affordable to the masses. But the problem with this is that it encourages two types of instructors because of the abysmal pay scale. The first type is someone who can't get a better paying job and teaches out of necessity and the second type is someone who teaches because they love diving and want to pass on their knowledge. Unfortuneatly, there are not enough of the second type. He goes on to discuss evaluating an instructor's resume when it comes to choosing an instructor.

One of the points of this chapter is "you get what you pay for." I can see how people might interpret this as to why "you should pay top dollar for his instruction."

I personally think Jarrod is correct. I paid $800 to get my wife and I PADI OW certified in the Dominican Republic. OUCH! We were halfway through our vacation when we decided that sipping pina coladas by the pool was too boring. We had been wanting to learn how to scuba dive anyway and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. We wandered over to the scuba shack on the beach and signed up. When we finished that weekend, I could not believe that we were qualified to dive alone anywhere in the world. That was scary. For me, $275 seems a paltry sum of money to enhance your diving skills. I've paid a lot more and gotten a lot less. I am going to take DIRF this fall and I want to be prepared and practice a little so that I can get the most out of the class. That is why I bought the book.

 

[madmole]

Whats more worrying is its actually free to dive anywhere in the world. you dont need any qualifications at all. At least here in Europe there are NO regulations for amatuer divers

Whats worse is I've seen the training stadards plummet over the last 20 years. Our "Pool Novices" knew more theory and had more dive hours than required of Advanced qualifications today

 

[O-ring]

some of the skills are just fancy names for stuff you already now how to do.

hehe..take the class. I think the biggest revelation you will find is that you cannot do anything that you think you can do, much less do it well.

Compared to the class, the book is a ripoff (good book, just illustrating my point). The amount of useful stuff I got from the book was a drop in the bucket from what I got from the class. I read the book 3 times, watched all the videos I could lay my hands on, practiced before the class (5-10 dives of strictly practice), and I still had no clue what was going on when I got in the water with the GUE guys. You won't be disappointed with the class..

 

[jbd]

thanks for the input.

O-ring, now that you've been through this class, do you think that it is feasible given the nature of current training structure and the motivations of most divers(ala Mike Ferrara), that these skills could be taught AND mastered by new OW students?

 

[O-ring]

O-ring, now that you've been through this class, do you think that it is feasible given the nature of current training structure and the motivations of most divers(ala Mike Ferrara), that these skills could be taught AND mastered by new OW students?

Yes and No...

IMHO, these skills are not masterable by anyone that quickly. Scuba is a sport and you cannot really expect to just show up on game day and be able to perform flawlessly. These types of skills (namely buoyancy, trim, propulsion techniques, and drills) should be taught and demonstrated with the understanding that they should then be practiced, practiced, and practiced some more until a base level of proficiency is reached.

DIRF is not really about waving a magic wand and making everyone in the class a great diver (we all sucked). It is about showing you where the bar is in relation to these basic skills and what you need to work on to get there.

 

[roakey]

The point I've been trying to make is not to turn out OW students that are masters at these skills, it's simply not to teach them wrong like PADI, SSI, etc. is doing right now.

Roak

 

[MikeFerrara]

If your goal is perfect control in the water through correct technique you may have a long roe to hoe. First you must know what it looks like and then you must practice. Once you get it, the practice doesn't stop. Everyone gets rusty to one degree or another. Most of these skills can be practiced on every dive. All that is required is the knowlege and willingness to practice. These skills should become second nature. Remember that situation and buddy awareness must be there or it's all for nothing.
If you study under an instructor with lousy technique you have little chance of getting it right.

I give up! I have argued all along that training standards are not the problem and I still believe that. However, I am in the water teaching and diving every week and I have made it a point to watch and look for instructors who display and teach good technique. With the exception of a few cave, tech...divers who teach open recreational classes I haven't seen even a single one. A new OW diver will usually not look like the DIR video but they should know what it looks like and have a direction should they choose to take it.

Not only have I not seen an instructor who can dive, many of the classes look flat out dangerous to me. I don't care to blow the GUE horn but if that's where you must go to find an instructor who can dive then that's what you must do.

 

[PA/NJdiver]

There are a lot of misconceptions about DIR/GUE, etc. several of them explained here very nicely

I couldn't agree with you more. That is what really surprised me most about the DIRF class. You can read all you want about it on the internet, but it is totally different when you take the class.

Stacey

 

[tombiowami]

We discussed this a good bit in the DIR F and Andrew G is developing a GUE OW class that contains all of the skills taught with keeping trim/bouyancy. He also teaches his OW students this in there regular training from what I understand, no kneeling on the pool floor. They say that students come out pretty good, and much better than the average OW diver.

When's the last time someone lost their mask, ran out of air, etc. while kneeling on a quarry platform?

I think instructors teach that way because it is much easier to over weight someone, plant them on the ground and watch them do the skill as opposed to the much,much harder task of teaching this stuff maintaining trim.

We, as most classes do, had a wide range of students from 20 dives to thousands. No one looked remarkably better than anyone else. This seems to be the running theme in all of these DIR F classes I have read about. A lot of "been there done that" attitudes at the beginning, and then after a lot of "wow, that bar sure is high"


Tommy

Tommy