My DIR F Class Report

[Raven C]

I took my fundementals course taught by Cody Gardner along with SeaJay and decided to post about it. Here goes...

Part One

Well, I did it. I completed my DIR F course. Being an over achiever and expecting high standards of myself I was surprised, pleased, disappointed, and excited all at the same time with my personal performance. Never having seen a fundies course before, I read Jarrod’s book, asked lots or questions of other DIR and DIR wanna be divers, watched videos, and practiced my skills to try to lean about DIR diving and techniques in order to improve my diving skills. I went into this class with high expectations and often felt I was not meeting those expectations while at the same time hearing my instructor tell me “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” “Most people get here and have none of these skills.” While at the same time he was busting my chops and making me feel like such a pathetic diver. Funny how that went. One minute I felt like he was totally disgusted and really letting me know it yet encouraging me when I needed it. I guess he felt that he knew I knew when I was screwing up. I will tell you he must have thought I was crazy chewing myself out for not getting some things just right. I remember asking him if he was serious when he said we were ready to move on to the next level in the ocean and put all this to work for real. I wasn’t sure if that was good??? Or bad???

I was so excited about finally taking my class. I had next to no sleep the night before and had to work on Friday before traveling many many lonnnnng hours to get to Cody's house. We arrived during the wee morning hours on Saturday and I was so pumped. Running on adrenaline I really wanted to get right to it when we got there and Cody wanted to go to bed. We did our greetings, unpacked the car, and settled into our rooms. SeaJay and I slept in til 10 AM the next morning but it took a couple hours to get showered, fed and to get SeaJay's paperwork in order.

Let’s start at the beginning. The first day we spent hours and hours going over gear. Now since I was already diving a BP&W we got deep into the whys and why nots of the gear and how it is setup and why the bolt snaps are tied on a certain way and the benefits of everyone using the same gear not just to be familiar with your buddies gear but the fact that you can find exactly what you need in your buddies bellows pocket because it contains the same thing as yours. And exactly how to clip off a reg. to your right shoulder D-ring with one hand or stow a scout with one hand instead of two. We went through hours of dry run drills, BTW it is pretty easy to get down pat when you are standing there in front of each other in the dry comfortable sun. I really had to get used to adjusting some of my techniques that I had practiced for so long, not quite correctly might I add, in order to do everything the “Right Way”. I had worked to adjust my harness to fit me and weighted myself properly and knew how my rig dives as I set it up. So, the next thing my instructor did was to attach a 4 lb can light to my right hip and put a Goodman handle in my left hand and I had to readjust my trim and buoyancy all over again. SO all bets were off there. It was like starting over. Thank you very much. (sarcasm) Then we had to practice the proper procedure to untangling your light hose from your primary hose when you donate. Had never practiced that one. Mental note, dry runs don't prevent you from blinding your buddy in the water when you wave a light around. Had to learn that too.

Next we hit the water. It took a while for me to stop sinking and floundering in the water. I felt so clumsy. Then he wants me to share air and clip off a reg. with one hand without moving. One hand; no flailing; don't blind your buddy.... WT???? I had never done it with ONE HAND!!!! With a can light in my hand and a light cord in the way… heavy on one side… the first try was frustrating and a total CF. It took a while to clip off, that’s when I found out from my instructor that my breakaway clip on my primary was an “inappropriate” (man it hurts me to say that as my “mentor” who installed them is the best) installation and I was not handing off DIR or clipping off DIR. I had to learn how to “properly” stow my primary hose with a can light instead of the method I had been using as I don’t own a can light. I also found that even though I am comfortable taking a few short seconds to put the backup in my mouth when handing off it made my instructor think I was “going to die” if I didn’t get my backup in faster. All of a sudden I couldn’t use my other hand to undo that sticky bolt snap BECAUSE that isn’t DIR. WTF.

There were a few times during the class I contemplated how I wanted to do it right before the class but did I still really want to do it right or do it my way or do it almost right and efficiently. I mean really, I fumbled far less by using both hands to unclip my psi gauge to show my buddy how much air I had in an S-drill without moving in the water than I was when using one hand to unclip it. I had moments of fighting with how much I wanted to learn all this and be able to do it “right” and do I want to do it all the way “right” or mostly “right.” While at the same time I just wanted to nail this stuff. I don’t know how many times I said, “Dam* it Robyn, you can do this. What the he!! are you doing?” It was disappointing to me when I didn’t do it right right away and then seeing that look on my instructor's face when I messed up. I felt scolded without a word said. Like I had let him down and I felt bad letting us both down. Then I would struggle up out of that and fight harder to succeed and then he would smile with his BIG BLUE eyes through that mask and give me the nod of approval and occasionally a small applause. WOW what a feeling. It eased my mind a little from all the thoughts of “I wish he could have seen me dive without this off balanced rig and without all this pressure. Maybe then he’d know I really can dive without looking like an idiot.” After five tries on the S drill my buddy and I had it down pretty good. No flailing around; No significant depth fluctuations; -- ‘watch me clip off now will you? Huuhuuuh Yeah Baby’ (Austin Powers voice)

Oh yeah, we worked on kicks. Frog kick/ mod frog/ mod flutter/ helicopter turn/ and backwards kick – my nemesis. After months of practicing a backwards kick I had managed to be able to do a backwards kick or few at a time and it worked well on my dives but often times I would go up when I did it. This is NOT DIR. Then he wants me to swim to where???? and back doing the same kick. Well, I found that I utilized a backwards kick to stay put more than I used a backwards kick to swim backwards. Don’t laugh too hard it’s not easy to do.! Yeah. Well, he did his demo and we did ours then he showed us how to look up to keep from going up when we do a backwards kick and he took off his fins and we learned to backwards kick without fins. Yes we were all swimming backwards with no fins. I didn’t think that was possible. I found that I was demonstrating great form and a straight body only my head was up too much so I had to flatten out more. Squeeze my butt checks and push up on my tank more to keep my knees up. I spent a lot of time working inches from the bottom to just barely prevent my inflator hose from dragging. I also found that my medium jet fins were too small for the kicks (acccording to my instructor). My instructor told me I have to figure out a way to keep the x-lg fins on my feet because it makes a great deal of difference doing the kicks propulsion wise. For example, the wider sides help to move the water during the backwards kick and with the other kicks you get more glide from the longer fin. My instructor told me I was doing my kicks really well but I was working too hard in my fins. He had me put on his jets and even though they were floppy they did move the water well with each stroke.

We spent a lot of time in the pool. We got down our kicks and our S-drills and I even prevented being setup by the gear thief. Then he decides to throw us in the ocean to do it for real tomorrow. WHAT? I remember questioning him. “Are you being serious? Are you teasing me?” It was confusing with my mixed emotions when he said we were ready. That we needed to move on to the next step and put this all to work for real. I remembered him telling me how most of his students don’t get out of the little pool to the big pool and rarely do they ever get out of the big pool with him because they can’t do it. And, he’s gonna take us ocean diving??? My mind kept saying, “YES!!! Oh My Gosh! Oh My Gosh! Oh My Gosh! YES!!! OMG” I really didn’t now if I should feel good about the compliment or scared to death that he was going to raise the bar and we would “die” in the ocean tomorrow. Or WORSE...Hahaha --- Fail. YIKES.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Raven C]

Part Two

While the instructor went to line up a boat, my buddy and I stayed in the pool to practice. Excited that we were advancing and scared all at the same time, my mind raced with all kinds of thoughts. “Do this …, do that…. Steady. Take your time. Head down. Squeeze your butt against your tank. Stay flat. Fins…. Sweep. YES, I’m going backwards.”

I found a small rock, laid it on the bottom and practiced holding my position not passing the rock, being as still as possible and not moving forwards or backwards with my hands still and quite in front of me. Then if the water began to move from other movement in the pool, I would use my fins to stop and then backwards kick to make sure I didn’t pass over the rock. I felt so good being able to relax and just hold my position. I also watched a mark on the side wall of the pool to make sure I didn’t rise or fall passed the mark as suggested by my instructor.

That night I practiced lying face down on the bed, as I had the night before, squeezing my buttocks holding my body position and going through the motions for each fin stroke. Over and over and over. I realized that when I practice on the bed I always look down. Ah Hah!!!! I was training myself to go up on a backwards kick. Shazam. I began to look downward and practice as we did in the pool so I would not condition myself to look down thus pushing my body up when I kick backward. What a difference. And, wow this was strange. I had to recondition myself. How many people realize that we condition ourselves every time we do something and how we have to undo that “natural reaction” when we need to change or modify for difference results.

I had a case of nerves all weekend but when we got up to do our ocean dives I was really nervous. We had to plan everything and demonstrate everything to him so he could see if we could do it. Well, we had done this hundreds of times. No worries right? WRONG? Doing it all under scrutiny changes everything. AND, I had to shoot a lift bag. I told my instructor many times I had never done that and I needed to learn. When you first began to learn to swim, did you have classes and a swim instructor or just a dad or uncle that briefed you and just threw you in? I found that DIR kinda starts out telling you how to do things and why, then they throw you in. I felt like I was given a syllabus and then my final exam before we really had the course.

I stayed up too late that night making last minute adjustments to my gear. Practicing clipping off to that D-ring. when I finally went to bed, I was so tire I felt right to sleep. I got up really early that morning and was ready to go before anyone. My gear was already packed from the night before. I put all my gear in the car and waited for the guys. When we arrived at the marina the water was so pretty, the temperature was comfortable and the instructions were clear. We had gone over everything in the car. SeaJay and I were to choose a captain and come up with our plan using our rule of 1/3rds and the standard rock bottom. Then we had to report this plan to our instructor before the dive. We got underway and SeaJay and I went to the front of the boat to discuss everything. We chose a captain and a navigator; we planned our dive on the boat ride to the wreck, which was the fastest I’ve ever had. We were to have done all the planning, briefed our instructor, geared up, and done our equipment check prior to reaching our site and we had a few short minutes. Well it didn’t go that way. Our instructor began to rush us, “Come on guys; what are you doing? You are supposed to be ready?” This put the pressure on. My buddy doesn’t handled the rush rush rush technique and as a matter of fact he slows down intentionally when that happens. The pressure got stronger and my buddy whispered “just relax, don’t rush.” “Come on, Come on.” We heard. “You’ve got to get it together…” we were prodded. I began to tell my buddy “just give him the plan that’s what he wants.” As we begin to gear up, my buddy resists the urge to rush. I began to rattle off the plan to maybe stop the rush. It’s awful when you are being tested but when a drill sergeant is yelling at you to hurry up just before the test and making you feel like such a screw up then things get a bit frustrating. Lucky for us we push ourselves pretty hard anyway. Finally, my buddy and I decide we’re not going to rush and be unsafe and he tells the instructor, “We’re not rushing our dive.” We take a moment to finish gearing up and give the instructor the plan.

We do our equipment check – “Mask.” I check the mask strap and place it back on my head, “Mask Check.” “Primary” I remove the hose from behind my head, hold the hose with my left and run my right hand along the hose to check the routing of the hose (behind the wing, under the can light, make a loop and place behind my head) then draw a breath on my primary… “Primary Check” and so on. We take a big deep breath, one last buddy check and we giant stride off the back of this great dive boat into the teal blue waters of the gulf off the coast of Florida. My head ducked below the surface and popped up again. I signaled “OK” to the dive master on board and “OK” to my buddy and instructor. With a couple kicks I floated on my back directly over to the line where my instructor was. I gave my usual go slow speech so I can equalize my ears to my buddy and we flashed the divers down sign and began to descend. Our instructor seemed to be zooming to the bottom and we took our time gliding down toward the bottom. Watching our depth gauge and in perfect form we slowly slipped into the warm waters toward the wreck. The viz was about 50 ft. This was an amazing wreck. Clear waters, beautiful tropical fish and I saw my first brain coral. Sea life was zipping everywhere. Bright colors of blue, yellow, red, I could go on. We glided over the top of the wreck and I signaled to swim across the bough and then to the right down the side of the wreck. I was a little nervous being watched by my instructor, it felt kinda like I was being stalked.

Near the back of the boat we started over a large opening in the ship that went below and as my buddy and I started to do an S-drill, I pointed out a very large barracuda watching us from just inside the opening. Its head was huge with very large teeth that shown jagged from the front of its mouth like a bulldog. Its body was the prettiest silvery blue color in the shadows. At that very moment I was startled by my instructor. He was on me in a second, demanding a SA. “OOA!” he quickly signaled all of a sudden his big blue eyes were glaring right into mine, no reg in his mount I immediately reached up with my right hand and popped my primary into his mouth while simultaneously picking up my secondary with my mouth so we both had regs to breath from. I reached up and signaled “OK?” and he nodded “Yes” while holding the reg in his mount. I signaled “Hold” and I switched my light to my right hand and untangled my primary hose and switched back to my left hand, then I deployed the rest of my hose giving a tug to make sure it was not caught on anything. My mind was racing. It happened so fast and I was thinking “calm down your fine.” I signaled “You OK?” and he nodded “Yes” again. I said “Hold” once more and I put my light in my right hand and flashed my psi gauge with the light to illuminate it. I looked down to read the gauge and looked to my right to see that the barracuda was still underneath us. I got nervous and reached with my left hand to unclip my psi gauge. It didn’t unclip. I had added a weight to my left side to counter the light and add necessary weight for saltwater to my rig and the weight was holding the bolt snap and D-ring down. I tried again and I couldn’t unclip it. My heart was pounding. I glanced at the Cuda again and it was still underneath us. I had noticed my buddy hovering just slightly above us to our left (Cuda on our right). He had moved from beside us to our left to just us over. I tried the bolt snap again and again but I couldn’t unclip it. Seconds were passing but it seemed as thought time had stopped. It was stuck during my unclipping a stupid psi gauge in front of a Barracuda during my DIRF exam! I kept thinking that I was flashing that shiny Halcyon gauge in front of this fish that is known to be attracted to shiny things and flashes of light and concerned that at any moment he would quickly dart from his place and take my hand off. My hands began to shake a little. I placed my hand over the entire back of the gauge and tried to hide it. I quickly glanced over to my left to see my buddy out of the corner of my eye watching from above. I then tried to show the gauge to my instructor to show him how much psi I had but he would not acknowledge it so I continued a couple more times. I kept thinking “relax Robyn. You can do this.” And, “There’s a dammmn Barracuda beneath us!!!” Finally! I unclipped my gauge. What took seconds seemed like long minutes to me. I showed him my gauge and he nodded his head. I signaled “Hold” to him and clipped my gauge back into place and put my light back into my left hand. I signaled, “You OK?” and he nodded his head “Yes”.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Raven C]

Part Three

I glanced back to my right and the Cuda was still there watching. A quick glance told me my buddy was still there watching every move I made. (And, probably thinking, “I am glad he picked her and not me.”) I signaled to thumb the dive and he nodded again then I signaled to swim over the side of the boat. (My first thought was to move away from the Barracuda.) I took my instructors left arm in my right hand and gave two strong shoves forward on his elbow. We began to swim off the side of the wreck. As soon as we cleared the wreck and I could see that there was nothing below us but the sandy bottom and some tropical fish, I gave my instructor’s arm the “Stop” squeeze. With a quick helicopter kick and a half, I faced my instructor and signaled “You OK?” He nodded “Yes” and signaled back. I signaled to cut the drill (because I wanted to get out of that as soon as possible. I wanted to know that that Barracuda wasn’t interested in me or my gauges or my light) and he nodded “Yes.” I then took my primary back with my right hand. I placed it in my left hand and ran my right hand along the hose to stow it away and then switched off my light to properly route my hose. It was like a huge sigh of relief.

After it was all over, I looked at my buddy staring at me with huge eyes like “OMG!” He gave me a grin. I checked my psi once again, signaled to my buddy how much I had in my tank and signaled that we move toward the other side of the boat and look around. My heart was finally starting to slow down. It seemed like we didn’t have much time to look before we had to start our ascent. Our ascent was very cool. We rose to about 55ft for our 1 min deep stop and hung there. I took the opportunity to look around at what I was missing because we were on our way out and the next dive would not be on this wreck. We slowly rose to 30ft for our next stop and still I was looking around. I was really impressed that we stayed side by side and held our position without rising or fallen AND WITHOUT FLAILING AROUND. Yes I was impressed. We’ve done it many times but when it counts something always goes wrong. But I was impressed. The rest of the stops went the same until we got to the surface. I was pleased with most of how things went. I would rather have been able to smoothly unclip my psi gauge and popped it up to my instructor the first try but overall, being that I was anxious and nervous and scared $hitless, it went well. We boarded the boat only to find that my instructor was disappointed with us looking around on our stops during the ascent. “You should look at your gauge and at your buddy, your gauge and your buddy the whole time.” I wish I would have known that that was what he wanted first so I could have done it that way…. Once again, it felt like I was given an exam before I was give the material but that seems to be the way.?. We also failed to mention to our instructor that one of us was acting as Captain and one as navigator until he mentioned that he wanted to know why SeaJay was the Captain and I was in front pointing out where to go, so he thought we were doing that wrong too. But we explained that I nav.

We had what seemed like an extremely short surface interval but it was normal. Then we were off to do a drift dive on the reef. We were diving all usable air beyond our rock bottom because the boat was picking us up. We reviewed our plan for this dive and once again did our equipment check. BUT THIS TIME – WE WERE TO FLOAT A LIFT BAG. Now to some of you this might be nuugh-thin’ BUT I had never done this and many times I spoke to my instructor that I needed to know and to learn how to do this properly. Now, let me say that our instructor did show us in a dry run the day before how to properly thread the clip with the line through the lift bag loop, and he told me “do not put my fingers into the hole in the middle of the spool”, and he said “you can even let go of the spool until it reaches the surface; then when it reaches the surface, clip it off like this…”, and he showed us how to clip it off. So when I asked him on the boat about floating the lift bag I felt the need to reiterate that I HAD NEVER FLOATED A LIFT BAG. Keep this in mind people that is important. Repeat after me, “she’s never floated a lift bag before.” Got it??? Ok let’s go dive…

We entered to water same as before. Only this dive was more shallow at approx 40-50ft. We could see the surface from the bottom. This dive was an amazing dive. You could see coral everywhere, yellow, reds, greens… The first thing I eagerly pointed out was a tiny cleaner shrimp that was iridescent, seemingly transparent, with a bright red and blue line that ran through his little body. There were large angel fish and rainbow fish, fish I can’t even tell you what they were because I don’t know. We’ll just call them “Awe fish” because I was in awe of their beautiful colors. We glided along in excellent form like parachutists. Just before reaching the bottom I hear a speed boat zooming above. We had seen it during our surface interval. Racing back and forth having lots of fun but seemingly having little regard for big dive flag mounted on our boat. Next we saw the most beautiful spotted eel. It was bright yellow with brownish black markings. It had a bit of an attitude but I was able to get very close to it. I quickly pointed it out to my buddy who was behind me. Next we saw a lobster. He was peering slightly from a little nook. Our instructor immediately stuck his bare hand in after him. The lobster retreated deeper and I could see our instructor shake as he pulled hard to try and removed the lobster. During this time we were joined by a family of recreational divers who were on the boat with us. The son, maybe 12 years old, was quite interested in getting a peek at whatever was in the hole. Finally, the instructor brought the lobster out from his safe place for us to observe. I noticed his hand was bleeding – what a comforting thought while diving a reef off the coast of Florida with all the possible marine life it could attract as she nods her head – hummm. By the time he set the lobster down, Mr. Lobster was pretty POed. Mr. Lobster waved his little antennas and claws as if to give us what for and then backed himself right into he hole again. Next was saw a spider crab. It was so colorful, orange and white with little blue pinchers. And then another lobster -- this one twice the size of the one before, which by-the-way would have made a nice meal itself but it was not season, who was pushing another eel out of his hole. This eel was larger than the first also. It was very beautiful. I had never dived with an eel in the wild. It had a nasty disposition being that Mr. Bubba Lobster wouldn’t let it in. Then tucked back under a ledge was a very big stone crab. He was orange with lots of stuff all over him making him look dirty on top. I am sure that was part of his camouflage as he did not have ANY claws. Someone had robbed him of both claws even though you are only supposed to take one. I hope he grows some claws to defend himself before it is too late.

It was absolutely amazing gliding over the reef, peering down into the large cone coral and stopping to peek under the ledges to see what we could find. Each of us demonstrating excellent use of all fin stokes might I add. Great buoyancy had by all. It felt really good to dive well and have my instructor be able to see this instead of some of the bumbling he saw in the beginning. Some great trim some with my head a little too high apparently, found that out later. (Question??? Does everyone stay completely flat? All the time? Come on? Please? You can’t check everything out without some angles? Every second? I don’t think so.) There was a large sea turtle in the distance that we didn’t get a good look at until we surfaced. The beautiful parrot fish and blue and yellow tang were amazing. As we enjoyed ourselves, I noticed it was at 1000 psi and that if we were to float a lift bag we would need to do so soon because it was almost time to surface. I signaled to my buddy and my instructor “1000 psi” and they both nodded. I signaled “float a lift bag?” and shrugged my shoulders and received a shrug in return. We continued hovering along until I was at 800 psi – surface pressure was 700. I signaled again and our instructor said “Yes.” We both began to get our lift bags out and thread the line.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Raven C]

Part Four

First thing I did was to thread the bolt snap through and snapped my bolt clip off to my right shoulder D-ring and when I went to verify that it was secure, I realized “oops”, I had two separate pieces – uh “try again girl.” So I threaded it again; this time making sure to do it right. “OK” I was doing well. (Buoyancy is good – OK switch regs….) I held my lift bag in my left hand and took my primary in my right and I removed the primary and with my I picked up the backup. (Cool, that went well – buoyancy is good) checked my depth, (depth is same) I reached out to put air in my lift bag and it took off on me. Zoom to the surface, I was surprised. It jerked me upward about five feet. I quickly replaced my reg and tried to stow my hose and hang on to this spool that was zipping through my hand, (He’s watching me….) trying to keep my fingers out of the holes. I realized I needed to hold my depth for a safety stop. I managed a minute stop but I was not really flat and my position and form $ucked. The bag reached the surface and I clipped it off. It was all happening so fast. I was jerked up again. WT??? I was frustrated and trying to focus. I let out some line and clipped it off. I looked over at my instructor and he signaled “Where’s your buddy? Buddy.” (Crap) I looked around and didn’t see him immediately so I looked at the surface to see his bag. I followed the line and realized he was just below me. I was then sucked up again. WT??? I realized that I was about 35-20ft deep and I needed to do my safety stop. I tried to hold my position but I was rising. WT?? By this time I am pissed off and cussing into my regulator. I made sure that I dumped all the air from my wing and I began to swim down and realized that our lines were crossed. What a CF. I began to swim down and turned to untangle our lines. I leveled out and tried to do a safety stop. I kept checking my gauge for my psi and depth. It was time for me to ascend. I motioned to my buddy that we needed begin to surface. I tried to hold my depth but I was still getting sucked up to the surface. I was so frustrated. We were right at the line and I noticed that the instructor began to swim down and my buddy followed. I signaled to my buddy that we needed to go up not down. I was so pissed. My buddy signaled “down and level out.” By this time I was just swimming down, no hovering, no gliding, arms and legs, full blown flutter kick – SHOCK—all behind my instructors back. I wasn’t trying to hide it, didn’t care. I am glad he didn’t see it though. It was sad, pathetic, a pitiful sight. I got a few feet from the instructor and we rose to five feet of the surface and I just said forget it and I surfaced. Pissed off, cussing, it must have been frustrating and comical to my instructor to see my exhibition and the argument with myself later. I was embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, frustrated, mad, you name it. We waited for the boat to pick us up. Well, I did it. I was ugly but I did it. I floated a lift bag for the first time. Let me say that it doesn’t count when you can tie a lift bag off to something that you are going to lift to the surface. DO IT WITHOUT HAVING SOMETHING TO HOLD IT DOWN. IT AIN’T THE SAME. Believe me, I’ve done it since my DIRF and I’ve practiced shooting a bag free since (getting pretty good let me brag). OK back to the boat picking us up at the surface. I told my instructor he could exit the water ahead of me if he wanted because it was going to take me a minute to get out. He decided to wait on me. We get on the boat and began to take off our gear and the dive master, knowing we were in training, asked, “So how’d they do?” “They died.” our instructor replied. I sat quietly going over every thing in my head on the way back trying to slow it down and thinking of each step. I kept questioning, “Why didn’t you let go of the spool when it took off?” I contemplated everything. We got back to the dock and dunked our gear then loaded it into the car. SeaJay and Cody fell asleep on the drive back while I struggled to stay awake and drive us home. We dove AIR. ????? It kicked our butts. Another reason to dive gas, YOU FEEL MUCH BETTER AFTER A DIVE!

So many lessons learned. We got home and grabbed a quick sandwich then we agreed to take a nap before jumping in that afternoon. Naps followed lunch and then we cleaned up our gear. We discussed the dive and some academics and that evening Cody sat us down and went over the past few days. He told me he was impressed with my improvement and not to be hard on myself, and that he was testing us with the rushing and pushing us. He wanted to see how we would react under pressure. He told SeaJay what he needed to work on and that he passed the course this time. He told me what he wanted me to work on and that I passed too but he gave me a provisional to come back and dive with him to show him that I’ve learned to use an extra large fin instead of a medium and see how that improves the distance on my kicks because I am working hard but not going as far as with the larger fin; and, to keep my head in line. He told me that he was surprised that he kept raising the bar only to find that I would rise and met that bar. He told me that I should be very proud because “most who take this course for the first time don’t pass -- don’t pass and you did.” He told me that there was such a high percentage of people who don’t make it and that he continued to see me progress the entire time there. That was flattering because I felt at times that I was working hard at making myself look really stupid while trying so hard to succeed. I was also told that most students never get through the entire course and proceed as far as we did. I was assured that most students can’t do most of the kicks by the time they leave the course. I was also told that I should enjoy the fact that I passed my first time taking this course. I was told all of this while beating myself up for not doing better.

Personal Assessment of course: If you haven’t looked into it, I suggest you do. I am not telling you to go DIR. That is a personal choice you will have to make for yourself as I did. However, if you want to improve your diving… all aspects of your diving, you can’t go wrong by taking this course. BUT, it is not easy. I drew from the experience of others that dive DIR tenets. I asked lots of different people questions and learned from everyone of them. Fundamentals of DIR diving will improve your diving is you use them correctly.

Personal Assessment: Knowing that I am an obsessive overachiever, I know that I was/am hard on myself. In reviewing my training and the material provided and the instruction given, I did realize that I went into the course having set a bar or standard for myself higher than most first-time students get at the end of the course. I knew I had lots to learn and I knew that I would not be at the level at which I would have demonstrated before me but that I wanted to work toward that and soon be on that skill level.

Maintaining mostly fours, a five, and a couple threes on my score card was not the “straight As” that I was accustom to. However, in getting those straight As I was given instruction by my teacher, presented information to study and then I took my exam. This was different. I only had some information and I wasn’t studying all the right stuff or everything properly. I was given an exam or tested on this material before I really knew how to use it properly.

I can’t tell you how much discussion of this course SeaJay and I have had since the training. We talked about every aspect of it the entire way home and for days afterwards. We still go over it. Since our training we have done practice session and I have done countless exercises to utilize all that I learned at DIR F. I had hoped to have my photos of our training back by now but they have not come back from the developer. I am interested in seeing the beginning, during and after photos to show the difference. I am also waiting to show everyone that beautiful spotted eel.

Well, I hope that my report has conveyed to you my experience at my fundies course. I hope it has not been too shocking or painful for anyone to read. Maybe there is someone out there who can relate or use the information here to assist them. Anyway, that’s my condensed version of DIR F class. (Yes, even if it is a 9 page word document.)

R

 

[Kim]

That's a really nice report! I have never been that interested in DIR - but after reading your story I have to admit you've stirred up interest! I found your part about the lift bag especially amusing (although I realize it probably wasn't so funny at the time). The first time I used a lift bag it dragged me at least a hundred meters sideways - the current at the surface was about 4 or 5 knots - the line seemed to go up at about a 45 degree angle. As it was my instructors liftbag and reel I didn't feel I could just let it go, Yup - they can be fun!!

Anyway - many congratulations on your achievement.

 

[jepuskar]

RavenC, did you take the SeaJay class on writing threads?

 

[SeaJay]

Great report, baby.

I glanced back to my right and the Cuda was still there watching. A quick glance told me my buddy was still there watching every move I made. (And, probably thinking, “I am glad he picked her and not me.”)

You bet I was. I was actually thinking, "I wonder what Cody's gonna come up with next, 'cause I'm in for it." You looked great, though.

Personal Assessment: Knowing that I am an obsessive overachiever, I know that I was/am hard on myself. In reviewing my training and the material provided and the instruction given, I did realize that I went into the course having set a bar or standard for myself higher than most first-time students get at the end of the course. I knew I had lots to learn and I knew that I would not be at the level at which I would have demonstrated before me but that I wanted to work toward that and soon be on that skill level.

Interesting personal assessment. When we got our final exam evaluations, I don't think either of us were surprised about our scores. We knew where our weak points and our strong points were... And they reflected in our scores. That's a really good sign, gorgeous. It shows that we're aware, which empowers us to work on our shortcomings.

Funny how you were freaking out inside... You looked calm, cool, and collected.

Incredible diving... Being wreckers, we usually like the shipwrecks best - but that was the most gorgeous reef I've ever seen - the life on it was astounding.

I can't tell you how cool it was to be gliding over that thing with a couple of divers in the freefall position... Perfectly trimmed, and completely at ease. The current swept us by at about a knot and a half, and we just hovered. What a fantastic feeling of flying over the most beautiful artwork in the world... So much to see...

Great writeup.

 

[mgri]

Great post Robyn! Congrates to you and Seajay. Since you all stopped posting I havent been paying to much attention to this board. Glad I dropped in and caught the post. Let me know the next time you all have a dive weekend planned so I can come visit.

See you around,
Mark

 

[SeaJay]

Jep! You're here! Been a long time, baby.

Wow... Jep's here.

Wow.

Hm.

 

[SeaJay]

Mgri! Great to hear from you, man...

I just bought a truck - got rid of the BMW and bought this supernice SuperCrew. With a trailer hitch.

...And we should be picking up our boat in the next week or two. Ready to go diving? It's gonna get serious now...