I enjoyed reading this - for various reasons - but I will start off by saying that I know a number of divers who started off on the DIR route and have long since abandoned it as mostly, male cow poop.
I can honestly say I don't know anybody who's gone that far ... and I do know a lot of people who have been trained as DIR divers.
Far more common are those who receive the training, and as they develop and try new things, they retain some of what they learned and implement other things into their regimen. I'm one of those ... as are a great many people I dive with.
What DIR is not ... it is not an equipment configuration ... and it is not about specific brands and colors.
It is, for the most part, about a mental approach to diving that happens to use specific "tools" to meet the objectives of the diver. Those tools may or may not meet the objectives of other divers ... depending on goals, preferences, and diving environment.
My beef with the DIR posse has always been that those who believe they are Doing It Right treat their philosophy as if it were gospel and therefore all other diving that is not DIR must logically be Doing It Wrong. The analogy between DIR diving and religion is apt - we have the right faith, and everybody else is to be condemned as unrighteous and unworthy, and we must convert them to our way of thinking.
It's been many years since I've run into someone in real life with that mentality ... for the most part, that's just Internet talk.
And even back when I did occasionally meet someone like that, it always turned out to be someone who was just newly Fundified, and were so excited about this "new" way of diving that they tended to act like little puppies ... peeing all over the floor in their excitement. But they eventually grew up and that initial excitement waned as their experiences came into contact with the real world.
There are some types of diving where certain techniques, equipment configurations and gas mixtures are not only correct, but essential - and that's great. Diving though deep caves where the margin for error is so much slimmer than floating about with the fish in warm tropical water requires a great deal more control and just like a cave diver would be horrified if an AOW certified diver on a single air tank tried to do what they do - I also have to admit to a loud underwater guffaw when I see DIR-style divers attempting a basic tropical recreational dive all fully geared out in what is next-to-useless equipment.
But see ... that's showing exactly the same intolerance you claim to dislike above. I happen to enjoy diving in warm tropical water as much as I do in a cave, or on a deep wall or wreck in the Pacific Northwest. The same rig works well for me in each situation. Granted, I won't be wearing a drysuit or heavy steel cylinders in Bonaire ... but the backplate and long hose work quite OK in that environment ... I see no reason to switch to some other configuration just because others find it more acceptable.
Like any activity, the only way you can Do It Right is to take the best advice from as many different sources as you can, learn from your experiences, and figure out what is Right For You. Proselytising egomaniacs serve only themselves.
pfft pfft my two bar
C.
Making up colorful names for those who don't dive like you serves no one ... so why do it?
Frankly, there are plenty of egomaniacs in the anti-DIR crowd. I find it a huge turnoff, regardless of how they dive. My OW instructor advised me to "leave my ego on the beach" ... and over the years I've found that to be some of the most useful advice I've ever received about diving ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
- when I say I laugh at DIR trained divers on shallow recreational dives - I mean; I've seen guys on twinsets with stage bottles and a pony and all the lights and bells and whistles and whatnot to do what most people do on a bog-standard recreational configuration - and they tell me that I am wrong for not doing it this way - seriously.
