Lessons learned- embarrassing but true

[Diver0001]

I know... I know... I had to make the choices I did when I made them because the DIR community in the Netherlands wasn't welcoming when I started technical diving. This makes the job harder now and makes it all the more painful to say, "you were right".

Sheesh. it's starting to sound like you're my wife. I hate being told, "I told you so".

R..

 

[LiteHedded]

That sounds so much like you . . . and sounds like a great way to address the issues.

Can I be a bit smug, and say that, in my niche of the diving world, these issues nowadays get ironed out early, way before somebody is permitted to step up to technical training? . (You know I'm teasing you.)

and issues like this encountered in a tech 1 class would all be handled by the instructor. there wouldn't be all of this struggling to sort it all out on your own.
anyway it sounds like a good plan going forward

also, it's quite easy to make a set of tables ranging from 5 minutes to 40 minutes (about the tech 1 range) that will fit into wetnotes. i do this on excel and laminate them

 

[Diver0001]

Actually, I'm happy that we're being put in the position of working this through. Having the instructor think it out for you isn't what I want. I decided to take this course because I wanted to be the student again and I was hoping to be challenged in some way to push myself. Having someone else think it through and be assertive for me on my behalf would have been a big disappointment to me. Who is going to think it through and be assertive for you on your behalf when the course is done?

R..

 

[LiteHedded]

Actually, I'm happy that we're being put in the position of working this through. Having the instructor think it out for you isn't what I want. I decided to take this course because I wanted to be the student again and I was hoping to be challenged in some way to push myself. Having someone else think it through and be assertive for me on my behalf would have been a big disappointment to me. Who is going to think it through and be assertive for you on your behalf when the course is done?

R..

you misunderstand me. there is no thinking it out for you in a GUE tech course I assure you. you would most definitely still be working it through yourselves.

but it would be the instructor stopping the progression of the course after major issues like this and he would work with everyone to sort it out before proceeding. this would likely have been found on a shallow dive (i'm not sure there were any of those in your course?) and no one would have been allowed to proceed to tech depths before it was sorted. you would also have proper decompression tools so that surfacing early would have been a non-issue.

 

[TSandM]

It's not too late . . .

 

[Diver0001]

JP wouldn't want me now. I'm damaged goods and my internet footprint is too big.

R..

---------- Post added January 15th, 2015 at 07:41 PM ----------

it would be the instructor stopping the progression of the course after major issues like this and he would work with everyone to sort it out before proceeding.

This instructor was steering us to this conclusion but he has strong opinion that someone other than him has to "own" it and take the initiative to put the brakes on.

In this case I did it. I didn't only do it because I am me and I am a perfect student. I was also responding to hints that something is amiss and *someone* has to stand up and take responsibility. He had discussed the last dive thoroughly with all of us, together and individually, and I'm sure he had reached this conclusion for himself already.

He sees his role as instructor as teaching us how to take responsibility and propose solutions.

He wasn't doing anything until all the divers had submitted their plans. I was the last. I asked for a couple of days to consider it. Initially I said to one of the other divers that we needed to plan the dive so the whole dive could be done on the bottom..... after which I started thinking.... "Rob, you're nuts! If these divers can't conduct part of the dive in mid-water then we have an issue". The previous dive seemed to confirm this opinion. I seemed to be the only diver in the team who was completely at ease in mid-water and our local lake makes it difficult to conduct the whole dive on the bottom.

I have no doubt whatsoever that our instructor would have put the brakes on. Why do I know this? Because when *I* put the brakes on and said that we needed to take a step back, he said, "Finally"

Turns out he was lined up to blow off this weekend's dive on the waterfront.

So yeah.... stop the progression of dives... or teach students to take responsibility and stop the progression of dives? I'll take the second every day. Ego's assumptions and habits. turns out he's in our heads and doesn't need to do it for us.

R..

 

[LiteHedded]

ok
good luck with the rest of the class. sounds like you have it sorted.
if you're looking for someone with a GUE mindset to do some diving with after the class one of my RB80 classmates is in the netherlands and i'm sure would be open to some diving. (you mentioned some issues with the DIR community there)

 

[TSandM]

The biggest issue between Rob and the Netherlands GUE community is that I can't seem to get the two together . . . I'm convinced that, if he met JP and A-M, he'd change a lot of his ideas, which date back to a GI3 type culture there (which JP deplores). But I've been trying to facilitate this for several years, and I eventually just gave up and figured if it was meant to happen, it would happen

 

[LiteHedded]

oh yea. these aren't george type guys. there really aren't any of those left outside florida these days

 

[Diver0001]

Lynne mentioned that I should contact JP Bresser. I did actually mail with him a few times but I have to admit that I feel like the little kid who doesn't really have the right to roll with the in-crowd.

It's my own fault. During the "DIR vs. the rest of the world" wars that we had in the 1990's there was a lot of push and shove on the internet. Dan Volker knows about it. I was involved too. The horrific arrogance of George Irvine was embraced by the Dutch DIR community to the point that if you had *any* ... what I would assume they saw as "deviant" ideas, you were completely written off. At that time, one of the main voices in the Dutch DIR community was Robert Leenen (or ... van Leenen). He and I hit it off badly. We fought like retards possessed by the devil on internet. I met him once although he didn't know who I was. The arrogance of the DIR movement and the arrogance (I hate to admit) of the "anti-DIR" movement met. A irresistible force and an immovable object.

We ended up in trenches. Fact is, I was never anti-DIR. During the 1990's I integrated a lot of their "best practices" into my own diving. I liked the ideas, just not the delivery. In the Netherlands, the DIR crowd continued on until about ... I want to say 2004 with the same attitudes. It made DIR a dirty word here and made anyone associated with DIR pretty much an outcast in Dutch diving, including among elite divers... even though they saw themselves as the elite.

So in that period of time, from the mid 90's for about 10 years after that there was no way for me to reach or to connect with DIR divers in the Netherlands. The only DIR divers I really know are people who *tried* to be part of the club but who ultimately walked away frustrated because they (in their own words) were "tired of talking intelligently about diving and just wanted to dive".

Their words, not mine. Of those buddies I saw a few with outstanding skills. It was really eyebrow raising. One of those I saw make an ascent from 23 to 10 meters inverted in a drysuit through a vertically situated drainage pipe that was standing upright on the bottom. I also saw him doing a Michael Jackson dance on the underside of a suspended platform. He was hysterical to dive with. A lot of fun.

It wasn't until I spent much time talking to people on Scubaboard, Lynne chief among them, that I started to realize that the Dutch condition was not typical of the DIR community as a whole. I've even dived with Lynne and some of her buddies and fit in perfectly, if I do say so myself. Lynne is one of the few people I've ever met with whom I clicked immediately and felt as though I had been diving with her for years, even though we had only "met" on the internet. In some sense this was confirmation of both her assumptions and mine. I was convinced that her DIR experience made her a good buddy and she was convinced that my (tenuous) affinity for DIR made me a good buddy. The fact that we are (if I do say so myself) both pretty good divers was confirmation on both sides that however you get there, it's a good place to be.

That said, I have to admit that I've seldom met another diver with whom I had such a clear and pure connection under water. It was outstanding.

R..

It does make me listen to her. When she said I had to approach JP then I did. I also backed off