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

[MXGratefulDiver]

This conversation is very much like the "nitrox is the latest fad", "dive computers are the latest fad", "backplates are the latest fad" and "split fins are the latest fad" discussions of years past ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[toby43]

This conversation is very much like the "nitrox is the latest fad", "dive computers are the latest fad", "backplates are the latest fad" and "split fins are the latest fad" discussions of years past ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

your point is?

 

[kensuf]

This conversation is very much like the "nitrox is the latest fad", "dive computers are the latest fad", "backplates are the latest fad" and "split fins are the latest fad" discussions of years past ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Split fins were a fad.

 

[PhatD1ver]

What do your students do with their shiny new c-card? Do they go on pacific dive vacations, or do they stay home and beach dive? I haven't met a Caribbean liveaboard (or any liveaboard for that matter) that supplies more than one tank, so I assume your students don't travel much, or if they do, they are restricted to land based operators. I agree that it is easier and faster to trim out in sidemount rig. Are you hobbling them by showing them only the easy way to dive?

Nowhere? I dove in Saba this last summer and there was no issue getting two tanks for each dive.

 

[Wookie]

Nowhere? I dove in Saba this last summer and there was no issue getting two tanks for each dive.

On the CEX?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Split fins were a fad.

They're a bad idea for cave diving ... or any kind of tech diving. For basic recreational diving, they have their benefits for certain demographics ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TONY CHANEY]

This thread has gone sideways. The OP was never needed and after all the postings it has brought to light that there really is no bashing between SM and BM. We all live and dive together in order to see what the rest of the world will never get a chance to see. RB, SM Hard Hat and BM all have their place in diving and we should embrace all aspects of diving. If you want to go around and think that your diving style is the best or greater than all the other styles and try to talk bad about the other styles then please do not get offended when others shout back.

 

[toby43]

This thread has gone sideways. The OP was never needed and after all the postings it has brought to light that there really is no bashing between SM and BM. We all live and dive together in order to see what the rest of the world will never get a chance to see. RB, SM Hard Hat and BM all have their place in diving and we should embrace all aspects of diving. If you want to go around and think that your diving style is the best or greater than all the other styles and try to talk bad about the other styles then please do not get offended when others shout back.

Exactly, it's the vanity of small differences..

 

[Colliam7]

This thread has gone sideways. The OP was never needed and after all the postings it has brought to light that there really is no bashing between SM and BM. We all live and dive together in order to see what the rest of the world will never get a chance to see. RB, SM Hard Hat and BM all have their place in diving and we should embrace all aspects of diving. If you want to go around and think that your diving style is the best or greater than all the other styles and try to talk bad about the other styles then please do not get offended when others shout back.

OK, this theme has now been reiterated several times. And, I agree - there hasn't been any bashing' of SM by non-SM divers to any significant extent - maybe a couple of suggestive posts, but that is it.

However, that wasn't what Netdoc was originally saying, anyway, from what I read.

It's apparent to almost anyone, other than the converted, that Side Mount has become a religion for a number of us. We've become overly exuberant about our new found passion, convinced that it will save those poor lost back mounters. Maybe it's time we re-assessed our fanaticism?

He was really addressing a level of irrational exhuberance within the sidemount community, and there have been quite a number of posts that support that premise, including some by at least a couple of SB members who are on, for the present, a temporary vacation from posting on SB. The question / issue was, 'Has SM become like DIR, within the SM community?' Have we helped create a band of zealots, and prostletizing evangelists? Pete was reflecting on a recent, personal experience he had with other sidemounters - not BM divers criticizing SM divers, but SM divers seeing the world through a somewhat narrow field of vision. If the thread has gone sideways, is it because there seems to be a misunderstanding, that he was trying to suggest that SM is being somehow 'bashed' by BM divers? And, reading his OP carefully, that was not at all the point. But reading a few posts in the thread - which, admittedly, may not be representative of the larger SM diver community - there is a degree of zealotry that does smack just a bit of some former DIR days.

Maybe the thread has run its course. But, I think it was useful for Pete to put up a straw man for the purpose of discussion.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

OK, this theme has now been reiterated several times. And, I agree - there hasn't been any bashing' of SM by non-SM divers to any significant extent - maybe a couple of suggestive posts, but that is it.

However, that wasn't what Netdoc was originally saying, anyway, from what I read.He was really addressing a level of irrational exhuberance within the sidemount community, and there have been quite a number of posts that support that premise, including some by at least a couple of SB members who are on, for the present, a temporary vacation from posting on SB. The question / issue was, 'Has SM become like DIR, within the SM community?' Have we helped create a band of zealots, and prostletizing evangelists? Pete was reflecting on a recent, personal experience he had with other sidemounters - not BM divers criticizing SM divers, but SM divers seeing the world through a somewhat narrow field of vision. If the thread has gone sideways, is it because there seems to be a misunderstanding, that he was trying to suggest that SM is being somehow 'bashed' by BM divers? And, reading his OP carefully, that was not at all the point. But reading a few posts in the thread - which, admittedly, may not be representative of the larger SM diver community - there is a degree of zealotry that does smack just a bit of some former DIR days.

Maybe the thread has run its course. But, I think it was useful for Pete to put up a straw man for the purpose of discussion.

And you would be wrong! Read this again: "I was at one of the favorite gas stations (no, not petrol) and happened upon a couple of great friends. Mind you, we like to tease each other and it shows. But then, my teasing took it just a bit too far when I made a comment about their (shudder) two sets of back mounted doubles in their car. I didn't mean for it to do that, but all of a sudden ice was in the air and I was wearing shorts.

To say I was perplexed was putting it mildly. Like I said, teasing is such a part of our friendship and I couldn't really figure out what I had done. So, I prodded them. Wow. They dumped on me. They dumped on me hard. But as I thought about it, I really couldn't blame them. It was obvious to me during the conversation that Side Mount had become the defacto current DIR. What? Side mount? That free stylin' no holds barred method of diving has gone all gestapo on us?