Disadvantages of DIR ?

[detroit diver]

But you have personally claimed that DIR is, in your word "flawless".

What's your point?

 

[jbd]

But you have personally claimed that DIR is, in your word "flawless".

Is there a relavent point to this comment :06:

 

[Mandy3206]

:dazzler1:

 

[boomx5]

Is there a relavent point to this comment :06:

There is no point...he's just trying to argue.

 

[OE2X]

OE,

Excellent post. I just wanted to add a comment that I thought was important.

There have been many posts from the NON-DIR crowd stating that "so and so told me that if I didnt' do it their way that I would drown" AND "They all call us strokes".

In the 3+ years that I've been on this board, I cannot recall any instances (other than in kidding around) that anyone was told they were going to die if they didn't follow DIR protocols. As for anyone calling another a stroke, the instance is VERY rare.

My point is that sometimes a myth gets perpetuated, and the DIR folks get the blame for something that never (or rarely) happens. At least on this board.

Dive safe.

I think this is an excellent point and I made my point a bit incorrectly.

Some DIR divers tend to be very strident and unyielding in their perspective on how to dive. I think this thread is a perfect example of how defensive we can be about our style of diving. We circle our collective wagons at the simplest of threats. IMHO - I think this is the wrong response. It perpetuates a holier than thou' attitude which has a negative effect upon the diving community.

The DIR divers that I dive with lead by example and none of them are so full of themselves to condemn other styles or approaches. This was particularly true of my fundies instructor Brandon Schwartz. Never once did I hear him condemn another agency. He explained the differences between the styles of teaching or diving and let the student decide which was the most appropriate for themselves.

As DIR divers we should abide by the old cliche: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

 

[cornfed]

There is no point...he's just trying to argue.

Maybe that's the point...

 

[detroit diver]

I think the problems begins because we are discussing diving on the internet. If we could physically show someone what we do, and how we do it, I think it would be fantastic. But this is a print medium, and we have to work around that restriction. If someone asks a question, we try to answer it. That doesn't always work as we all know all too well! You have to remember, our style of diving (if you want to call it that), is very set in it's ways. So to try to explain it to the uninformed, sometimes we sound holier than thou. That's really only the case when someone doesn't explain the "why" behind the DIR method.

As for "circling the wagons" I think you mostly see that when either someone is trolling, or blantantly miscommunicating what we stand for.

As for Brandon Schwartz, I could not agree with you more. He has been my OW instructor, AOW instructor, and mentor. He leads by example, and knows how to teach and motivate students. You got a great instructor!

Dive safe!

I think this is an excellent point and I made my point a bit incorrectly.

Some DIR divers tend to be very strident and unyielding in their perspective on how to dive. I think this thread is a perfect example of how defensive we can be about our style of diving. We circle our collective wagons at the simplest of threats. IMHO - I think this is the wrong response. It perpetuates a holier than thou' attitude which has a negative effect upon the diving community.

The DIR divers that I dive with lead by example and none of them are so full of themselves to condemn other styles or approaches. This was particularly true of my fundies instructor Brandon Schwartz. Never once did I hear him condemn another agency. He explained the differences between the styles of teaching or diving and let the student decide which was the most appropriate for themselves.

As DIR divers we should abide by the old cliche: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

 

[-hh]

I would agree that the comments that "you will die" are rather strident. Obviously, that's not the case.

Fortunately, its not the case as much today, but unfortunately, this was not always so. The real underlying problem that this is alluding to is the unfortunately all too common tendency for some people to believe that there is such a thing as a perfect system that contains no risk whatsoever, or that they must listen to the opinions of others for what's an acceptable level of risk.

Both of these are choosing to take the easy way out with a pat answer/response , rather than to holistically see the overall problem for what it is: a highly complex set of interactions with primary, secondary and terciary contributing factors.

However, I still prefer to know that the reg I'm getting is working when I get it. I would also prefer to not need to stay close to the other diver due to hose length restrictions.

Sure - having functional gear tends to be important to the enjoyment of a dive.

However, the question of which reg to donate and what hose lengths to use become irrelevant if there is no buddy to provide the context for why certain things are necessary. To dive with a buddy is an accepted constraint of the DIR system for risk management: it is not a constraint because it is some immutable law of physics. Amongst other things, this means that other possibilities are possible, although its likely that they'll result in different levels of risk.
And because of that complexity again, since there's proverbially a million contributing risk factors, its also possible for one "shortcoming" to be compensated somewhere else, resulting in the same net risk. It can actually be quite hard to maintain perspective objectively.

I'll happily acknowledge that I have a definite comfort level diving with buddies whose gear configurations, training and attitudes are similar to mine.

Sure, and so do I. But here's one of the important questions to ask: of these three variables (gear config - training - attitude), which one is the most important?

IMO, there should be absolutely no hesitation in being able to realize what the right answer is here...

As the complexity of the dive increases, there comes a point where I am not willing to dive with people with whom I have not trained and who do not have the same type of configuration as me. Not because "they are going to die" because their octo is stuffed into a retaining ball or dangling somewhere behind them, but because differences in training and gear configuration increase the possibility for errors at the same time that the margin for error is decreasing.

Sure, and this mindset is the proper approach to risk management.

The Devil's Advocate Question is to ask who taught you this? Because even if your answer happens to be GUE, why couldn't someone learn this a lot sooner, such as during OW-I?


FWIW, its also quite possible that they learned and knew this long before they even became a scuba diver....


-hh

 

[boomx5]

Fortunately, its not the case as much today, but unfortunately, this was not always so. The real underlying problem that this is alluding to is the unfortunately all too common tendency for some people to believe that there is such a thing as a perfect system that contains no risk whatsoever, or that they must listen to the opinions of others for what's an acceptable level of risk.

Both of these are choosing to take the easy way out with a pat answer/response , rather than to holistically see the overall problem for what it is: a highly complex set of interactions with primary, secondary and terciary contributing factors.

-hh

As long as there are humans involved there will never be a perfect system. We mess up, we make mistakes, we overlook things; even if we've done something 1000's of times we will never be perfect.

 

[RiverRat]

I just want to put a plug in for DIR. I've been diving about a year and a half. I'm starting to adopt DIR configs to my gear (some of which I already had prior to knowing what DIR was) and I'm currenty migrating to the long hose etc. It wasn't until I bought the DIR 3-cd set that I understood that DIR is a complete concept, not just the gear config so many people focus on. While I don't agree that calling people "strokes" is the best marketing concept out there, if you "read through the lines" you get an idea where these guys are coming from. They're just sick and tired of the industry BS out there spreading false info. As an example when I was shopping for a BC fresh out of OW I was told a BP/W would drowned me if I was not in double steels. Total BS. I'm now diving neutral, hit the sweet spot after several dives in that rig. Just came back from NC wreck diving. Another diver commented on my "minimalist" rig. Guess she seemed to think you need all kinds of crap hanging on you to be a diver. Anyway, I like being "different" In spite of all the BS out there DIR is producing good, safe divers and is helping to change some of the crappy practices in the industry.