Ground-up DIR divers and preparation for the real world

[kanonfodr]

With the introductions of both GUE's and UTD's Recreational curricula, divers can now be started from the bat down the DIR path. I believe these steps open amazing possibilities for the advancement of basic OW diver training right from the start to create a better class of "new guy" who won't suffer from the many learning curves divers from other, more mainstream, curricula may. This thread is not a jab at either curricula as both organizations are known for producing top-notch training programs, more a jab at the archetypical OW diver.

That being said, I question if the training that both DIR organizations are offering prepares the diver for the real world, where your buddy may or may not give a darn about you, other divers will be running you over, and the split fins and Air2s seem to rule the roost. I won't even start on poodle jackets, lack of a long hose, or other non-DIR equipment choices.

I feel that, coming from the non-DIR world into the DIR world, I can always fall back on my experiences pre-DIR to help me through the tough spots in insta-buddy vacation diving because it's not a new thing to me, it was how I started. A diver that didn't have those experiences may find themselves overwhelmed or worse disenfranchised with diving as a whole from what the rest of the diving public considers "the norm."

Bonus points for first-hand experiences as such, I understand that few divers have been trained by either organization in the manner of which I am speaking.

Peace,
Greg

 

[lobstah]

I question if the training that both DIR organizations are offering prepares the diver for the real world

Can you be more specific, which real world diving skills are missing from UTD or GUE Rec curriculum?

 

[AndyNZ]

Can you be more specific, which real world diving skills are missing from UTD or GUE Rec curriculum?

I think he means the "wake up and smell the coffee" real world, where people don't respond in a trained way during a situation - or they have some hokey gear set up that is so far away from what we would consider standard. I don't see it as a criticism of the content of the courses - just saying that they aren't "mainstream".


Saying that, I don't see this really being an issue - all GUE trained divers that I have dived with are calm enough under stress to just work it out (can't comment on UTD divers, never dived with any - but I have no reason to think it would be any different).

I guess the only real experience I can give you is the other way - so I will occasionally pick up an AOW student (or similar) who dives a BCD and short hose reg, but a short briefing is enough to know how to respond during OOG etc. And they do it... so these are the divers that are criticised by a vocal few as being inadequately trained - yet they can adapt and change with little or no practise. So anyone who has received the quality of training that GUE (and UTD) offer should just be in more control.

And then you just moderate your dive plan so that you avoid any situations anyway. I just don't see it a big deal for a Rec 1 diver to go out and dive with non-similarly trained divers, or in a rental BCD with short hoses. It's just a total non-event.


EDIT: I thought long and hard before editing to add this. Back in the day, there was the phenomenon of "the newly DIR-F'd", who had completed Fundies and became very devout, even evangelical about DIR. I am not saying that you fall in to this category, Greg, but the whole issue of integrating a DIR diver with "mainstream" was done to death..... with the newly DIR-F'd saying that it wasn't possible, that it was better to not dive at all than to dive with a "stroke", that BCDs were the invention of the devil and so on. The real world, as you call it, is simply not that complex. Variations in gear configuration (for recreational divers) are not that big so as to be unfathomable, and yes maybe a newly minted Rec 1 diver will get buddied up on a dive boat with someone who isn't looking out for them as much as someone with a team focus. It's not the end of the world, moderate your dive plan, dive a bit shallower, pick another buddy.... there are loads of options open, and the world will still keep turning.

It's important to remember, hundreds of thousands of so-called poorly trained divers are doing millions of dives every year.... yet the fatality rate is very low. So maybe the newly minted Rec 1 diver will have a bit of a scare - but the chances of it being fatal or leading to serious injury are pretty low. For every dive where there isn't a scare, there is one more diver out there showing that you can be a better diver. For me, that is gold.

 

[herman]

Andy, thanks for the edit. I have seen what you are talking about over and over, including many times on this board, although it has been a while since I have seen it thank goodness. It is most likely the main cause of the bad blood between DIR divers and the rest of the diving community. I hold a DIR-F (expired) and had little trouble passing the class but found in total DIR just did not mesh well with my personal style of diving. What I learned in DIR-F has greatly improved my diving and I will always be thankful to the GUE instructors who taught me. What has always confused me about those who are DIR-F'd (I like the term ) was they seemed to think that somehow not diving a BP or a long hose is dangerous and those who do not are unsafe to dive with. I can deploy my 36 inch octo hose just as effectivley as a 7ft hose in open water and odds are I have better buoyancy skills in my back inflate BC (or for that matter when wearing no bc at all) than many that are DIR-F'd. Instead of DIR-F'd, I came away from DIR-F with an improved situational awareness, better team (buddy if you will) skills and much improved dive skills. With those, I think I am better prepaired to handle the problems I may encounter in the average diving enviroment. Lets face it, if non-dir diving was really that unsafe, we would have divers dying in great numbers. I enjoy diving with divers who have the DIR mindset as long as they were not DIR-F'd in the process and refuse to realize there are divers out there who are just as good as they are, just not dressed all in black.

Rereading the above post, something did occur to me and kanonford may have a point. Consider a new diver that started DIR style from day one, remember most of the DIR divers today started diving as a PADI/NUAI/SSI/whoever diver and then moved into DIR. He is expecting everyone to kit up exactly like he is, do what he does and react the same way he does. Now thow in a buddy who is 180 deg out from what he expects. His training has been narrowed to include only those things which are DIR- granted this may be an unfair accessment of the training, I have not reviewed it. He is in perfect trim diving along and has a reg failure, he signals OOA and expects to see a long hose deployed from a horizonal position but instead his buddy goes vertical, speads his arms and allows him access to his octo somewhere on his body. A diver who grew up in a non DIR enviroment would not likely have an issue with this senerio but how would a ground up DIR newbie diver react?

 

[Blackwood]

The "DIR answer" of course is not to dive with a buddy who is just "thrown at you."

And before some gets upset and accuses me of myopia, per the rules of this forum I will not share the remainder of my thoughts other than to say that if you pass the "DIR class", you should be somewhat independently competent and able to handle yourself in the water (if nothing more than aborting a fubar dive) regardless of your buddy's actions.

 

[rjack321]

Andy, thanks for the edit. I have seen what you are talking about over and over, including many times on this board, although it has been a while since I have seen it thank goodness. It is most likely the main cause of the bad blood between DIR divers and the rest of the diving community. I hold a DIR-F (expired) and had little trouble passing the class but found in total DIR just did not mesh well with my personal style of diving. What I learned in DIR-F has greatly improved my diving and I will always be thankful to the GUE instructors who taught me. What has always confused me about those who are DIR-F'd (I like the term ) was they seemed to think that somehow not diving a BP or a long hose is dangerous and those who do not are unsafe to dive with. I can deploy my 36 inch octo hose just as effectivley as a 7ft hose in open water and odds are I have better buoyancy skills in my back inflate BC (or for that matter when wearing no bc at all) than many that are DIR-F'd. Instead of DIR-F'd, I came away from DIR-F with an improved situational awareness, better team (buddy if you will) skills and much improved dive skills. With those, I think I am better prepaired to handle the problems I may encounter in the average diving enviroment. Lets face it, if non-dir diving was really that unsafe, we would have divers dying in great numbers. I enjoy diving with divers who have the DIR mindset as long as they were not DIR-F'd in the process and refuse to realize there are divers out there who are just as good as they are, just not dressed all in black.

Rereading the above post, something did occur to me and kanonford may have a point. Consider a new diver that started DIR style from day one, remember most of the DIR divers today started diving as a PADI/NUAI/SSI/whoever diver and then moved into DIR. He is expecting everyone to kit up exactly like he is, do what he does and react the same way he does. Now thow in a buddy who is 180 deg out from what he expects. His training has been narrowed to include only those things which are DIR- granted this may be an unfair accessment of the training, I have not reviewed it. He is in perfect trim diving along and has a reg failure, he signals OOA and expects to see a long hose deployed from a horizonal position but instead his buddy goes vertical, speads his arms and allows him access to his octo somewhere on his body. A diver who grew up in a non DIR enviroment would not likely have an issue with this senerio but how would a ground up DIR newbie diver react?

Ummm you do realize that most dive shops actually hosting a "rec1" course (by either agency) sell jacket BCs, octopus holders, dangly wrist lights and all manner of other "non-DIR" gear. And that students might actually conduct their course dives at sites where other divers & classes are present. And thus they have seen other students both in the real world and in the pool. That they themselves might have gone vertical on their first airshares etc. And that in general they might not be so insulated and clueless about the big bad non-DIR world out there.

 

[TSandM]

kanonfodr, I think you do have a point, but I think it's not a big issue.

I dive probably 90% of the time with other DIR divers. When I don't, I have to make a conscious effort to remember to do some things in the predive briefing and check that I don't do with my usual buddies, simply because things are understood. (For example, going over buddy separation protocols, number signals, and checking weight release systems.) For someone who has always dived with other people with the exact same equipment, it might be easy to forget those steps. Of course, one could also say that the non-DIR buddy should remember them, but it has been my personal experience that very few people on boats in resorts do buddy checks of any kind.

The Rec 1 diver might also be confused by his buddy's behavior underwater, in terms of folks not making much effort to stay together, but again, it's been my experience that, although it impacts the enjoyment of the dive, keeping a team together can be done by one person even if the other isn't helping.

I think the most likely issue would be that the instabuddy would be annoyed at the Rec 1 diver's insistence on a dive plan and a buddy check. But then, some of my DIR buddies get annoyed with me about those things, too

 

[pedo]

With the introductions of both GUE's and UTD's Recreational curricula, divers can now be started from the bat down the DIR path. I believe these steps open amazing possibilities for the advancement of basic OW diver training right from the start to create a better class of "new guy" who won't suffer from the many learning curves divers from other, more mainstream, curricula may. This thread is not a jab at either curricula as both organizations are known for producing top-notch training programs, more a jab at the archetypical OW diver.

That being said, I question if the training that both DIR organizations are offering prepares the diver for the real world, where your buddy may or may not give a darn about you, other divers will be running you over, and the split fins and Air2s seem to rule the roost. I won't even start on poodle jackets, lack of a long hose, or other non-DIR equipment choices.

I feel that, coming from the non-DIR world into the DIR world, I can always fall back on my experiences pre-DIR to help me through the tough spots in insta-buddy vacation diving because it's not a new thing to me, it was how I started. A diver that didn't have those experiences may find themselves overwhelmed or worse disenfranchised with diving as a whole from what the rest of the diving public considers "the norm."

Bonus points for first-hand experiences as such, I understand that few divers have been trained by either organization in the manner of which I am speaking.

Peace,
Greg

This should only be a problem if they fail to follow the first rule of Fight Club, I mean DIR.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Given the relative lack of instructors in general, and of entry level students in particular, compared to other organizations, I wonder if the real problem won't be more with the other people on the boat -- from the DM/Instructors, captains on down -- wondering what the heck is up with DIR trained rec diver rather than the other way around.

And I don't mean that from just an equipment point of view. The idea of team diving on a rec dive where the dive plan is presented as "jump in, go to rope, follow me, back on boat at 500 psi" is simply non-existent.

 

[piikki]

Let’s assume that the brand new diver chose to take their first ever scuba course from DIR-provider comes from a vacuum (I would think some level of investigation and choosing has already been performed particularly in cases where one chooses this route)… One would expect that if not as official as a module in the curriculum, there would be some addressing these scuba virgins about what DIR diving is vs how the rest of the world dives during the course itself.

I see the OP worrying that new diver would enter the diving world innocent and ignorant about the ways of others. I would not underestimate the agencies this much. I would say it’s fairly easy to build up the teaching so that things get introduced by comparison fairly quickly (why we do this when you will see a lot of others doing that). No biggie… add a few videos, go do the dives and bump into other divers etc… You’ll already have material and don’t need to panic on your first independent dives.

This is not much different from basic OW course where we were told we might meet people who dive different or curious set ups (horsecollar, doubles, Air2, ponies, stuffed hoses everywhere etc), and the important thing is to decide whether we want to dive with a person - AND ask the questions about equipment before you enter water.

I would hope it’s not the instructors idea to grow new DIR divers in a barrel but keep them open to the world. I also do not believe most new divers wish to be this clueless, especially if you chose this intense way to start. Most are probably actively aware of the differences already.