I arrived at the quarry after a healthy breakfast of pork rinds and YooHoo, ready to explore this strange new realm of DIL diving. After the events of the evening before, questions were swirling in my brain. A few of my classmates (or maybe I should call them group members) were already milling around near a picnic table, so I went over to join them. Mr. Weight was nowhere to be seen, so we started swapping hair-raising dive stories, each trying to come up with a more amazing adventure than the last. We were trying to decide how we could measure which of us had really been the "most narced," when we were startled to see Mr. Weight emerge out of the misty waters of the quarry and make his way toward us. We saw no one else emerge with him, and began to question him closely.
"Mr. Weight, why are you diving alone? Do you not fear to brave the depths without an intrepid buddy at your side?"
"Intrepid buddy in a pig's eye!" he replied with some heat. "Buddies are just one more thing to worry about. Completely useless, for the most part. Especially on what amounts to no more than an intermediate reef, where it is well known that nothing unduly untoward can ever occur, as my friend Lawman has pointed out may a time and oft." With that, he stepped out of his split fins and began to gather us around him for our next level of indoctrination into the secret practices and arcane knowledge of DIL initiates.
Two of the engineers were sporting shiners, and some of the Sandal People were missing . When I asked the engineers about their bruises and contusions, they explained that they had continued their discussion with the Sandal People after our class had broken up the night before, and since it appeared that not everyone involved was going to make bail, perhaps we should just go ahead with the class without them. Mr. Weight was far from gruntled to hear this, but decided to go ahead anyways.
First Mr. Weight explained to us how we should be more relaxed in the water. This involved yoga. He had each of us get into the "warrior" pose, and explained that this was the optimal position to channel our chakras while under water. Many of us had trouble getting into the right body position, so Mr. Weight passed around some small plastic figures of divers in the correct posture for us to look at. When we asked why the figures presented such an unusual appearance, he eventually explained, with some sheepishness, that they were his plastic army men that he had softened up in the oven and reformed into the appropriate poses. He had stretched out their little feet like fins and had even glued on little AAA cell batteries to their backs to serve as scuba tanks.
Meanwhile, the engineers had found the rest of the army men in a shoe box, and had set up a formation of the tan ones in the dirt. When all the tan army men were lined up pointing at the remnants of the Sandal People, the engineers got down behind them and started making little "pow" and "blam" noises. The Sandal People tried to ignore them for a while, but the next time I looked over at them, they had built a little fortification and set up the green army men in a defensive position. An exchange of mud bombs had decimated the opposing forces before Mr. Weight, employing what amounted to weapons of tiny mass destruction, kicked all the army men into the quarry.
"Very well, " said Mr. Weight, panting heavily. "It appears we all know how to achieve centeredness through controlled breathing and clear thought. Now I will inspect your equipment to ensure it meets DIL standards."
We each donned our gear and stood before him as he inspected us. He looked at each of us carefully, then spoke one of only two words, "yes" or "no. " The yeses gathered on his right hand, while the nos were cast out into the outer darkness, where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. None of us could discern what criteria Mr. Weight used to make the Selection, and we clutched at his drysuit with piteous questions on our lips, our hearts heavy for our excluded comrades. Was it the BC they used? Was it their mask, their fins, their tanks, their knife, their reels, their spare airs or their pony bottles? No, it was none of these, Mr. Weight sighed. DIL allowed every diver to choose whatever they liked for all these things. Finally he explained - the excluded divers all had had AIR IIs. These alone were forbidden by DIL.
The excluded divers quickly tore off their AIR IIs and clamored to be readmitted to the class. We were amazed when Mr. Weight immediately agreed. "How are they going to inflate their BC's, let alone donate air, without their AIR IIs?" we asked. He soon set us straight. "They can inflate their BC's by blowing into them. And you better not run out of air if they are the only ones nearby. It's all fine, as long as they don't have AIR IIs. DIL means the ultimate in freedom and relaxation in the water, and you can't have that with a lot of nit-picky rules about equipment. Whatever makes a diver feel good is fine. Except AIR IIs." With that, we jumped in the water.
Two people immediately kicked back to the surface with panic in their eyes, having forgotten to turn on their tank valves before jumping in. Mr. Weight later explained that they would never be DIL divers, because if their chakras had been properly aligned, they would have "felt" that something was wrong before they jumped in.
The rest of us stood on the bottom of the quarry, attempting to get into the "warrior" pose we had just learned. Although the water had been clear when we first jumped in, for some reason the visibility soon became quite limited, and I found I had a hard time seeing my hands with my arms held out in front of me. Straining to maintain the correct warrior pose, I found it increasingly difficult even to see the numbers on my wrist-mounted dive computer. I confess that I was a little intimidated by the whole process, and I began to wonder how the rest of the class was doing. I knew they were nearby, but I hadn't seen any of them since I had hit the bottom. Growing a little nervous, I decided I wanted some company, so I started hopping along the bottom in the direction I thought they were. I was proud that I was able to keep myself in the classic warrior pose for eight or ten hops in a row, but eventually my arms grew weary and I had to drop them. Was I embarrassed when I finally found my way to the edge of the strange zone of bad visibility, only to see a group of DIR divers videoing our class in their heroic warrior poses. I was horrified that the infidels would learn our secrets, but Mr. Weight later reassured me that the DIR crowd had no interest in emulating us, and that they were best ignored. I was much easier in my mind after that.
Well, after practicing our poses some more, almost all of us made it back to the shore, where we went through what Mr. Weight described as our post-dive debriefing. First, Mr. Weight explained that we need have no concern for the class members who had not rejoined us. They were free, he explained, to continue their "oneness" with the water, and all us were ultimately responsible for our own diving decisions, so we should just put them out of our heads. Then he asked us if we had felt more relaxed in the water after our training. Reluctantly, I confessed that I had not, and after I spoke, most of the other class members expressed similar sentiments. Mr. Weight accepted this with good grace. "At least I have shown you what to shoot for. With practice and meditation on the lessons you have learned today, you will eventually learn the Fivefold Way." When one of the engineers complained that he had never told exactly what the Fivefold Way was, he just smiled. "That's in the next class. You have to learn the fundamentals of DIL before you are ready for our more advanced classes."
This class has changed my diving, and my entire life. I can hardly wait to get back into the water to start practicing all I have learned.
