Has anyone ever? Reasons for DIR...

[RTodd]

You guys have it easy. It is much easier to figure out now because the right example is there if someone seeks it. I took some sort of deco procedures class from o'leary before nitrox was really available outside of your own garage and realized what a disaster it was. So, I went to Florida and took my cave class with JJ who was still using a benjamin manifold and diving a neoprene drysuit. So, I wrote him off as a stroke and had to go figure it out on my own. <G> (At the time, my no overhead experience course to full cave took the same amount of time as Cave 1 does now and it was the best course available by far.) Prior to GUE, JJ was about the only known quantity out there and there were only a handful of mentors (mostly WKPP gas divers) that were actually useful. You really did have to struggle through figuring all of this stuff out and talk the more experienced guys into doing dives with you that usually involved a level of harrassment that is too unsafe to be practiced today. What Halcyon did for gear was amazing too, and, if you understand the history, better explains their initial hickups in quality. Before, you had to modify everything or have it custom built to make it work properly. Now, there are numerous competitors to Halcyon that make, at least some, gear that works out of the box.

 

[lamont]

You guys have it easy. It is much easier to figure out now because the right example is there if someone seeks it.

Yeah, I didn't feel confident coming right out of OW. I took a couple months off diving after initial certification and hit scubaboard. I found a bunch of basic principles to me which made sense like "all diving is technical diving" and standardized approaches to failures and equipment made sense. When I started looking at the DIR gear it all seemed well thought out and stuff like preferring wrist gauges over consoles was something that I'd already decided on, but the fine tuning of wearing your depth gauge on the right wrist also made sense. The whole team diving approach also made sense even though I didn't understand anything about it, but it sounded good. So from post-BOW dive #1 I was already on a DIR course, BP/W, long hose, etc, took fundies with around 25 dives, etc.

We do have it pretty easy now.

The biggest problem now is that with the equipment being so good and the training being so good, and the helium leading to clearer heads, that you can accellerate through the training very fast...

I took some sort of deco procedures class from o'leary before nitrox was really available outside of your own garage and realized what a disaster it was. So, I went to Florida and took my cave class with JJ who was still using a benjamin manifold and diving a neoprene drysuit. So, I wrote him off as a stroke and had to go figure it out on my own. <G>

ROTFLMAO

 

[RTodd]

Yeah, I didn't feel confident coming right out of OW. I took a couple months off diving after initial certification and hit scubaboard. I found a bunch of basic principles to me which made sense like "all diving is technical diving" and standardized approaches to failures and equipment made sense. When I started looking at the DIR gear it all seemed well thought out and stuff like preferring wrist gauges over consoles was something that I'd already decided on, but the fine tuning of wearing your depth gauge on the right wrist also made sense. The whole team diving approach also made sense even though I didn't understand anything about it, but it sounded good. So from post-BOW dive #1 I was already on a DIR course, BP/W, long hose, etc, took fundies with around 25 dives, etc.

We do have it pretty easy now.

The biggest problem now is that with the equipment being so good and the training being so good, and the helium leading to clearer heads, that you can accellerate through the training very fast...

I was fortunate in that my original open water class was a semester long at a university and the in water was in a 25' diving (the other kind) pool. So, we really did get the opportunity to truly learn bouyancy and the other basic skills in open water. What fundamentals does now. But, outside of a university program, that is cost prohibitive.

Until shortly before GUE was started and everyone really started thinking about it, we used the same convoluted (though generally more streamlined than typical) open water gear used by the rest of the industry. The focus was on making the dives that were obviously more dangerous safer. It took much longer to bother to focus on optimizing the safety of the "easy" stuff. While I wouldn't feel unsafe diving traditional ow gear on open water dives now, there are very few, if any, dives, I would bother to do if I didn't have the right gear available. It is amazing how much some of the little things add to the enjoyment of diving.

 

[Cave Diver]

So, I went to Florida and took my cave class with JJ who was still using a benjamin manifold and diving a neoprene drysuit. So, I wrote him off as a stroke and had to go figure it out on my own. <G>

L O L!

 

[OneBrightGator]

Well, about 6 years ago, just before I got cave certified I was in a dive shop. One of my friends had recently been intro certified and being a college student didn't have a lot of money to spend on gear, in fact, the best light he could afford was a UK D8 (remember, 2001). He talked to one of the people who was working at the shop, who had helped him buy his gear and sign up for the class and was DIR, and asked if they would cave dive with him sometime. They said absolutely not, because he didn't have an HID cannister light, no offer to do cavern or an "easier" dive, just a flat out "No."

Sometime later a friend of mine was talking to a GUE instructor about cave diving, chatting for some time. The instructor asked who my friend's instructor was, upon hearing the name, he promptly turned on his heels and walked away without a word.

Because I can not act like either of these people did is why I do not believe DIR is the best nor will I ever strive to DIR. I guess your first experience has a big effect.

Sorry to pee in your coffee (std. issue black, no cream, no sugar)

 

[Rainer]

Well, about 6 years ago, just before I got cave certified I was in a dive shop. One of my friends had recently been intro certified and being a college student didn't have a lot of money to spend on gear, in fact, the best light he could afford was a UK D8 (remember, 2001). He talked to one of the people who was working at the shop, who had helped him buy his gear and sign up for the class and was DIR, and asked if they would cave dive with him sometime. They said absolutely not, because he didn't have an HID cannister light, no offer to do cavern or an "easier" dive, just a flat out "No."

Sometime later a friend of mine was talking to a GUE instructor about cave diving, chatting for some time. The instructor asked who my friend's instructor was, upon hearing the name, he promptly turned on his heels and walked away without a word.

Because I can not act like either of these people did is why I do not believe DIR is the best nor will I ever strive to DIR. I guess your first experience has a big effect.

Sorry to pee in your coffee (std. issue black, no cream, no sugar)

What does two guys being asses have to do with what style of diving you choose? That's lame. There are idiots in every agency.

 

[Rick Inman]

A much more experienced diver here on SB invited me to dive with him and his two buddies.

I watched them dive.

I signed up for fundies.

 

[Cave Diver]

Because I can not act like either of these people did is why I do not believe DIR is the best nor will I ever strive to DIR. I guess your first experience has a big effect.

Sorry to pee in your coffee (std. issue black, no cream, no sugar)

Sorry guys, but the question I asked was "What was your reason for going the DIR route?"

Lets stick to that topic.

Feel free to start your own thread about "Why I'll never dive DIR"

 

[OneBrightGator]

What does two guys being asses have to do with what style of diving you choose? That's lame. There are idiots in every agency.

Those two experiences expose a way of thinking that I have found to be germane to DIR. They are not insular.

 

[do it easy]

Sorry guys, but the question I asked was "What was your reason for going the DIR route?"

Lets stick to that topic.

Feel free to start your own thread about "Why I'll never dive DIR"

Why DIR sucks!