DIZZY once bubbled...
Are you allowed to dive with him ? Do your rules not say that you cannot dive with someone, who is essentially, a stroke !
No insult intended diverbrian.
Though you were probably just joking, I'll answer as seriously as I can. And I would also like to offer an apology to the experienced DIR divers that post on this board; I am not as experienced, and I'm still coming to DIR with fresh eyes and committing to it on every dive. My efforts to explore and explain DIR to non-DIR divers might be incredibly annoying. Please forgive me and please tell me if they are.
So, here goes.
There are alot of divers who are unsafe divers, and there are alot of divers who it would not be safe for me to dive with because I dive DIR. There is a distinction there that is subtle but important.
DIR diving is not something that just one person can do. There is an overarching shift in orientation to the sport of diving that is based on the relationships between you and the other divers in your team. You can't dive alone, or with someone who is not diving the same way you are, and dive 'DIR'. 'DIR diving' doesn't make any sense unless you're talking about more than one DIR diver, because most of what it is to be DIR is about how you communicate with, rely on and provide redundancy and safety for other divers.
It also has to do with the standards that DIR divers hold themselves and each other to; I get (and give) direct, critical feedback from my buddies alot. To dive DIR you need to be diving with your brain on at all times. When you mess something up, your buddy lets you know about it.
Why? Because if you're diving DIR, they are your lifeline, and you are theirs. You hold each other to a very high standard of skill and awareness for that reason. It's a nice system that way, it makes you want to be a better diver for your buddy, not just for you. It also creates at least the potential for honest, straightforward, direct relationships, many opportunities for the ego to be put back in its proper place, and alot of self-awareness.
As a sidenote, GUE is not for everyone and not everyone could make it through a GUE course, not even Fundamentals. I think that just pisses some people off who know that they would have to change how they dive, and how they live, in order to be able to dive the way GUE teaches.
The question is whether it is 'safe' to dive with a non-DIR diver. Considering that your level of safety underwater is largely dependent on your buddy, it has less to do with whether that diver is 'good' or not and more to do with whether that diver has the orientation to diving that you have. If they don't dive DIR, they probably don't have the same orientation.
Alot of non-DIR diving equates 'safety' with independence, being your own redundancy. That's not a judgment; it's just a fact. But DIR divers make their buddy their redundancy, and alot of the skills and discipline of DIR diving revolves around that basic premise. That makes a huge difference in every aspect of being underwater that I think alot of other divers just don't get unless they take a Fundamentals course and start to dive DIR and see what a huge difference it makes.
DIR has its own language and different orientation to what being a buddy means. Diving DIR takes alot of practice and discipline to achieve. I haven't achieved it yet myself.
So, if I believe in and practice the DIR approach to diving, could I dive with a non-DIR diver and still dive DIR? No. Could I dive with a non-DIR diver and still be safe, according to the premises underlying DIR?
It's a question I guess I would pose to you. What do you think?
I hope that wasn't too long an explanation and that it was clear.
Margaret
