Is Side Mount the new DIR??? Building resentment towards us as a group...
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PfcAJ
Contributor
I think at one time the general practices going on with CCRs and SM were downright unsafe. Unsafe stuff goes on even today, but some guys have it figured out. As for who called who a bad name in 1997, I won't try and defend other people's words and actions. Take it up with them.
WKPP does a lot when conditions are clear, but conditions are rarely clear. Vis in Leon Sinks is measured in inches, at the moment.
Woodville Karst Plain Project - WKPP
I'm just kidding. I was never offended by any DIR divers... just sometimes annoyed by members of the German DIR quarry commado...
If had been living in Florida in 10 years ago I would have killed to get into WKPP... but lived here and I was too broke to travel AND go cave diving. And at this point I don't what to do a Fundis anymore...
PfcAJ
Contributor
beester
Contributor
I've seen some of the ISE dudes in Belgium as well (mainly diving sidemount, but some backmount as well). The ones I saw (in a big divetank) when I was doing a workshop on stability, trim and finning techniques to a CMAS club, were squared away from a quick look at it.
If it still was this bad divers / stroke nonsense I don't think I would ever have done any GUE courses. I get a bad taste in my mouth from anybody who's EGO comes out of his ass, no matter how "leed" he is and what kind of superman diving he has done (and yes GI3 did do some amazing stuff with WKKP).
The couple of German GUE guys I know are very nice and good people (and metal heads, which is always a plus in my book). Good sense of humor so I'm quite sure they are not these DIR QUARY commando's.
If it still was this bad divers / stroke nonsense I don't think I would ever have done any GUE courses. I get a bad taste in my mouth from anybody who's EGO comes out of his ass, no matter how "leed" he is and what kind of superman diving he has done (and yes GI3 did do some amazing stuff with WKKP).
The couple of German GUE guys I know are very nice and good people (and metal heads, which is always a plus in my book). Good sense of humor so I'm quite sure they are not these DIR QUARY commando's.
LiteHedded
Contributor
I'm on my way to Germany now I'm goin to be on the lookout for these quarry characters
Ayisha
Contributor
Yes, the Quest email list is active. I get emails here and there.
KevinNM
Contributor
I find it interesting to watch some divers going 'elitist'.
In my opinion you can watch that repeat lots of times:
People take some kind of training or dive a a very challenging place and start dropping into 'selective superiority complexes'.
Most of the time they compare all other divers to some ideal and try to get everyone who seems 'compatible' to choose the same way (teacher, equipment, dive-sites,...) to progress, all others are frowned upon.
Very few divers can keep up a humble demeanor after a very small number of dives, 100-150 from my personal impression.
After 500 or so dives every diver is the local hero of some group it sometimes seems, a few thousand and nobody would mind if he behaves like he owns every dive-site in the world - would just be 'expected behavior', not respected, or liked, but still accepted and expected to happen almost everywhere.
GUE diver behavior is a prime example, but locally we have so many 'tec' diving organizations and teachers, it is hard to pin blame on GUE alone.
From personal experience GUE divers in particular are often more open and easy to talk to, but they are exeptionally hard to convince to take part in a normal rec dive.
Sidemounters, in my experience, are different:
The 'older' ones simply never appeared around here, 'nobody' ever knew it existed, even as a cave diving option.
Only exception probably where experienced DIR-Style instructors.
So those diving sidemount here have either given it a second chance with new 'technology' or adopted it recently.
Most of those are 'convinced' it is 'better' somehow than backmount, few dare talk about it that way openly, though.
The ones adopting 'the new form' of sidemount first here where people humbled by seeing their diving career ending because of an unexpected illness or injury, or people like me who like diving but never liked the equipment or some part of the concept of backmount diving - all of them 'misfits', more or less.
Most like me go into apnea diving for a few years at least, but I could not, because apnea is a real 'sport' containing contests, I could never progress there without becoming deeply unhappy with my life.
Anyway:
Sidemount divers are different from other 'elitists' and to varied in their motivations and training to put into the same simple categories.
Most are very humble and quiet and have some fundamental personal reason to be.
Those are not the worst traits to have at a dive site.
Because of that sidemount divers in general are harder to criticize than other elitist divers.
This leads to a lot of funny situations with 'dive site trolls' using 'triggers' in conversation they expect to work with every tec diver and react baffled when those just do not produce the desired reaction constantly.
New sidemount divers often try to imitate that from the beginning.
I think some even realize that this is one of the things that convinced them to try themselves.
Sidemount divers as a whole are well regarded, individually often admired but make a lot of personal enemies sometimes.
I have learned to be rather wary of the phrase 'Your trim looks great, but...'
Personally I do not have other sidemounters to imitate and made a lot of beginners mistakes socially.
I have seen an open fight break out only once when I lacked the experience to avoid that but have also learned since.
Without the internet I am sure I would have avoided a lot of bad experiences in the surface intervals, I would most likely also have never heard of sidemount without the internet - so I don't mind
On the internet we have a competely different situation:
Someone talking about sidemount is often attacked aggressively in either personal messages or more often openly and often continued later in some other discussion.
It is impossible in some forums to even mention sidemount without the topic soon becoming exclusively sidemount related.
But this post has become long enough anyway and I have to go collect my spare drysuit, so I will leave conclusions to you.
In my opinion you can watch that repeat lots of times:
People take some kind of training or dive a a very challenging place and start dropping into 'selective superiority complexes'.
Most of the time they compare all other divers to some ideal and try to get everyone who seems 'compatible' to choose the same way (teacher, equipment, dive-sites,...) to progress, all others are frowned upon.
Very few divers can keep up a humble demeanor after a very small number of dives, 100-150 from my personal impression.
After 500 or so dives every diver is the local hero of some group it sometimes seems, a few thousand and nobody would mind if he behaves like he owns every dive-site in the world - would just be 'expected behavior', not respected, or liked, but still accepted and expected to happen almost everywhere.
GUE diver behavior is a prime example, but locally we have so many 'tec' diving organizations and teachers, it is hard to pin blame on GUE alone.
From personal experience GUE divers in particular are often more open and easy to talk to, but they are exeptionally hard to convince to take part in a normal rec dive.
Sidemounters, in my experience, are different:
The 'older' ones simply never appeared around here, 'nobody' ever knew it existed, even as a cave diving option.
Only exception probably where experienced DIR-Style instructors.
So those diving sidemount here have either given it a second chance with new 'technology' or adopted it recently.
Most of those are 'convinced' it is 'better' somehow than backmount, few dare talk about it that way openly, though.
The ones adopting 'the new form' of sidemount first here where people humbled by seeing their diving career ending because of an unexpected illness or injury, or people like me who like diving but never liked the equipment or some part of the concept of backmount diving - all of them 'misfits', more or less.
Most like me go into apnea diving for a few years at least, but I could not, because apnea is a real 'sport' containing contests, I could never progress there without becoming deeply unhappy with my life.
Anyway:
Sidemount divers are different from other 'elitists' and to varied in their motivations and training to put into the same simple categories.
Most are very humble and quiet and have some fundamental personal reason to be.
Those are not the worst traits to have at a dive site.
Because of that sidemount divers in general are harder to criticize than other elitist divers.
This leads to a lot of funny situations with 'dive site trolls' using 'triggers' in conversation they expect to work with every tec diver and react baffled when those just do not produce the desired reaction constantly.
New sidemount divers often try to imitate that from the beginning.
I think some even realize that this is one of the things that convinced them to try themselves.
Sidemount divers as a whole are well regarded, individually often admired but make a lot of personal enemies sometimes.
I have learned to be rather wary of the phrase 'Your trim looks great, but...'
Personally I do not have other sidemounters to imitate and made a lot of beginners mistakes socially.
I have seen an open fight break out only once when I lacked the experience to avoid that but have also learned since.
Without the internet I am sure I would have avoided a lot of bad experiences in the surface intervals, I would most likely also have never heard of sidemount without the internet - so I don't mind
On the internet we have a competely different situation:
Someone talking about sidemount is often attacked aggressively in either personal messages or more often openly and often continued later in some other discussion.
It is impossible in some forums to even mention sidemount without the topic soon becoming exclusively sidemount related.
But this post has become long enough anyway and I have to go collect my spare drysuit, so I will leave conclusions to you.
Last edited:
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