Is Side Mount the new DIR??? Building resentment towards us as a group...

[Razorista]

That's the thing:
Proper (enough) trim is default.
We do not discuss it.
Even a trim that looks ugly from the outside is good enough most of the time, so we just dive and laugh about the tilted pics in debriefing.

There is nothing to talk about except equipment knowledge, not some 'procedures'.

We dive solo, we dive with our own concepts, we dive with selfmade never tested equipment.

We do things like that:

DIR can adapt, or will be left in the dust.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

DIR doesn't need to adapt ... you can either choose it or not, but those who do seem almost universally competent, so I see no reason for them to adapt to anything.

People are free to dive however they like. The only thing that really frosts my cookies is people demeaning things they don't understand, or have never tried. It's one thing to try something, at least enough to learn something about it, and decide it's not for you. It's something else to slap a label on it because of some perceived deficiency and go on spouting off like you know what you're talking about. That's just ego masturbation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Razorista]

Hard for me to understand, but I get your point I think.

Personally I have trouble understanding how anyone diving could not love every aspect of it.
Even if I will never dive to 500m in a hard-suit fixing pipelines....: wow

Even the really bad aspects like people grabbing onto a reef and animals and breaking off coral or silting where animals die from that.
You can be sure, with even the most drunken and undisciplined divers as their group, they will have to explain themselves someday and also can be sure nobody will really 'hurt' them in misplaced 'zeal'.

 

[bamafan]

Sidemount doesn't really lend itself well to standards. Proper trim in a Nomad or Contour isn't going to be the same as proper trim in a Stealth or Razor.

I don't understand this statement. Are you saying that proper trim isn't being horizontal and that the bottles should not be parallel to your body no matter what rig you are diving? I disagree with this premise and think that some rigs are easier to achieve this in than others. Some work well with aluminum tanks while others work better with steel tanks. I am of the mindset that there are 2 basic rigs. One for aluminum tanks and the other for steel tanks. Can you do both with either? Yes you can but I don't think it is optimal. There are people diving cold water who use minimulist rigs with smaller steel tanks and because of the drysuit lift they look pretty good. Take that setup to Florida or Mexico and it doesn't work as well. I think a basic set of standards can be written where some things are standardized such as the long hose on the right tank and having the bottles and diver in proper trim without spg's pointing down and such.

 

[The Chairman]

The only thing that really frosts my cookies is

I kinda like frosted cookies, but I know what you mean. However, it's a person's right to not want to try something new. When I go to a restaurant, I ask the waiter/waitress to bring me their favorite. I would almost always like it to be a surprise. Why? I love trying new things whether it be diving or eating. It keeps life interesting.

 

[The Chairman]

I think a basic set of standards can be written where some things are standardized such as the long hose on the right tank and having the bottles and diver in proper trim without spg's pointing down and such.

Who's going to enforce this? The Side Mount Police? I have a long hose on both bottles. I use a double reg bungee. I put weights on aluminum tanks (when in Mexico or the ocean). There are a lot of strategies I employ that I would be most happy for someone to come along and tell me to do it differently just to make you happy. The brilliance of Side Mount is that there are a plenty of ways to bake this cake. Conformists need not apply.

 

[bamafan]

Who's going to enforce this? The Side Mount Police? I have a long hose on both bottles. I use a double reg bungee. I put weights on aluminum tanks (when in Mexico or the ocean). There are a lot of strategies I employ that I would be most happy for someone to come along and tell me to do it differently just to make you happy. The brilliance of Side Mount is that there are a plenty of ways to bake this cake. Conformists need not apply.

It is no different than the GUE / DIR crowd back in the day. There is no enforcement of that either outside of their projects and classes. Basically the other agencies followed suit. I spent almost 2 years working up in the NYC area and I did a few wreck dives up there. I saw dm's on the boats with dual consoles clipped off to their chest drings that looked like bandeliers. Their hose arrangement was atrocious too. Their is no one to police this and that isn't what I am saying. If you want to strap weights to your al 80's and in my opinion take one of the advantages of diving al 80's away go ahead. Dual long hoses on both tanks okay. But have you tried donating the left hose and swimming out in single file. With the oog diver in front the hose will be crossing over the oog divers legs unless you have a left hand reg on it. My premise is that cave instructors should be teaching sm where the diver is horizontal without their knees dropped down and the tanks should be parallel to the body. There are several ways to get there but from my experience some rigs lend themselves to this better than others. The rigs with the door handles on top of the wing have to much continually changing to keep the tanks parallel. Also with steel tanks they are heavy and will generally be horizontal and the diver will unknowingly drop their knees to compensate.

People no longer tolerate the crazy setups you saw years ago in backmount why would people tolerate the same bone headed stuff in sm. Some standards by a leading organization such as GUE in my opinion would hopefully do away with some of the bone headed things you see at some of the tourist caves.

 

[Razorista]

...People no longer tolerate the crazy setups you saw years ago in backmount why would people tolerate the same bone headed stuff in sm...

Because nobody is interested in who 'tolerates' anymore.
People who don't tolerate are just ignored altogether.

Diving isn't something anyone has to be allowed to do, we will all just do it.

 

[The Chairman]

unless you have a left hand reg on it.

Which I do. No hose goes over my neck either.

People no longer tolerate the crazy setups you saw years ago in backmount

Who doesn't tolerate what? I see people still trying all sorts of weird crap on side, back and no mount. They're quite proud of their handiwork. just as I am with mine. I don't have to dive their way. I dive mine.

 

[bamafan]

So you are saying the GUE / DIR crowd did nothing to standardize bm diving? I disagree with this and maybe we are diving in different places. I don't dive Peacock or Ginnie much and at best I do a handful of ow dives a year at best.