I originally wasn't going to respond to this thread, but things have gotten a bit ludicrous, so I thought I would post a couple of different articles written by Gareth Burrows, a GUE instructor here in the UK. I nicked them from his site
Welcome to the Frontpage!.
What is DIR anyway?
So what is DIR Diving. Or more precisely, what is it to me.
DIR stands for....ummm here we hit our first problem. Traditionally, DIR stands for “Doing It Right”. However this name, quite understandably, got a lot of people’s nose out of joint. I never refer to “Doing It Right”. I just call it DIR. In the same way I never say “let’s stop at the British Petroleum Garage”. BP to me, just means BP. It might stand for something but I never think about it. So DIR is just DIR. I never think about what it stands for. Which is probably just as well, as it’s a rather stupid name, bound to get people's backs up. If I could rename it, I would.
Err, I asked what is was....
Ok, ok. DIR diving is about having fun and being safe. It’s about diving in a manner that we believe allows us to have as much fun as possible, whilst remaining as safe as possible.
Pretty words, how does it work?
Imagine, if you will, you have a battery powered house with ten light bulbs in it. However, you only have a battery that can only cope with nine light bulbs. You walk into the house on a dark night, and switch on the porch light. It is brilliantly bright. Everything is easy because you can see clearly. Then you go into the kitchen and turn on the light. Then you go into the living room, where you turn on another 3 lights. You now have five bulbs lit, and whilst they are all lit, each one is noticeably dimmer than the first light bulb you switched on when you walked in. The battery is starting to be stretched. Now you go upstairs and switch on a few more lights. Sooner or later you are up to nine lights, and they are all very dim indeed. You switch on the final light in the bathroom and the house goes dark. The battery cannot cope with the load you have put it under and it has failed.
We call this “capacity”. Now let’s take the metaphor underwater.
Your capacity is your mental ability to cope with things. When you first learn to dive, it takes all or most of your capacity just to kneel only he bottom and breathe. A diver whose capacity is stretched like this will be surprised when you wave your hand in front of your face. They don’t have the spare capacity to maintain an awareness of what is going on them. They have no spare light bulbs. A diver that struggles to put up an SMB will use too many light bulbs on the task. That’s why some who are struggling with a task lose buoyancy control of an awareness of where their buddy is. They are using all their light bulbs to assemble and inflate the SMB, and have none spare for buoyancy control. A diver that is concentrating on their gas and depth because they are narked, or focusing on an equipment problem, or an ascent they are worried about, is not paying any attention to the wreck they came to see in the first place. They have no light bulbs left for actually enjoying the dive. They have no spare capacity.
DIR diving turns light bulbs off
The logic behind DIR diving is that if you can absolutely minimise the light bulbs being used for things like buoyancy control; situational awareness; equipment awareness; team awareness; dive planning; gas management; communication etc; then the more light bulbs you actually have for enjoying the dive and for dealing with any problems effectively. We don’t practice buoyancy control until it is excellent and instinctive because we want to look cool. We do it so that it only takes one light bulb and we have more capacity left for actually looking at the wreck.
Ok, so how do you maximise spare capacity?
We work at our buoyancy control until we can be precisely where we want to be in the water column, critically without putting any effort in. All skills beyond this are required to be done with neutral buoyancy. Perhaps more than anything else, we switch off nearly all the light bulbs for buoyancy control.
We work at achieving appropriate, usually flat, trim in the water, which enables us to develop extremely efficient propulsion techniques. This minimises the energy we spend on propulsion, which leads to relaxation, and thus more spare light bulbs. It also ensures we do not damage or disturb the environment we are swimming in, whether 10cm above a reef, or swimming along the top of a wreck.
Common, or emergency tasks; such as putting up SMBs; ascending; donating gas; manipulating valves are worked to the point where they can be done smoothly and quickly, with no loss of awareness of your surroundings or change in position in the water. Repeating tasks until they are smooth and fast, ensures they don't take up too much of our attention which avoids problems.
We work as a team, so that communication does not need to be discussed, there is no confusion in the water and the team stays together come what may in the water. We become responsible for checking each other’s gas as well as our own and checking each other’s equipment. Team work also means we all do tasks, such as SMB deployments in the same way. This means we can stop each other if there is a problem, or take over from where someone left off.
We adopt a standardised equipment configuration, because we recognise that although it is a compromise, the value in having a standard is immense. Checking each other’s equipment now becomes easy because it’s the same as yours. Damaged kit can be replaced from anyone’s spares. Everything on your kit fits everything on your team’s kit. There are never any strange pieces of equipment that could lead to confusion in the water. Everything is very familiar, very comfortable. The drills and skills we practice all work smoothly because nothing on the equipment configuration interferes with them.
That all sounds very serious...
I guess it sounds that way. We do train hard, but rarely seriously. I was trained by PADI and TDI before being trained by GUE. I am a BSAC member. I have friends who are IANTD and PSAI instructors. The one thing all divers have in common is that they want to have a really good laugh. DIR divers are no exception. We’re just divers at the end of the day. And remember, we’re doing this so we have spare capacity to have fun.
You talked about safety...
We have all this spare capacity lying around. We might as well do something with it. It starts with us being responsible for our own equipment, and that of our team and then gas everyone is breathing. Anyone could end up breathing anyone's gas at the end of the day. There are procedures for ensuring people do not make silly mistakes that could hurt them or a team mate. We maintain an awareness of a team mate who is having a problem, and we look after them.
The team is everything. The equipment in my pocket might be used to help one of them if they need it. They'll probably ask for it. We're all carrying the same in our pockets anyway, so if we need something we know where it is. Resolving equipment issues doesn’t take a lot of capacity because remember you are completely familiar with everyone’s equipment anyway. If there is a problem you have practised the skills required to deal with the problem time after time until actually dealing with the problem is little more stressful than the drill itself. Everyone is capable of performing every role on the dive, such as putting up the SMB, because we train to our weaknesses and then dive to our strengths. It is by no means the only safe way to dive, but it's definitely a very comfortable way to dive.
Ok, that's a lot to take in, can you summarise it?
Sure. DIR diving means diving in a team, a team where every member takes responsibility not just for themselves, but also the safety of everyone else on the team. It means adopting standardised equipment to permit the development of standardised skills and drills. It means developing personal skills and capacity so that you can have the most fun possible in the water, whilst ensuring you and your friends are safe. And that, I guess, is DIR diving.
Oh, one last point. I heard you guys all think you are better than everyone else. Is that true?
There is a type of DIR diver that thinks they are better than everyone else. The term for them is "dick head". A DIR diver should only compete with themselves to develop their skills. I want my awareness of the wreck to be better tomorrow than it was yesterday. DIR divers are the best in the world at being DIR divers.
I consider myself an OK diver, but I can assure you all that following a sneaky try dive last year I am a catastrophically poor rebreather diver. Most of the BSAC divers I know have forgotten more about boat handling and dive group management than I will ever know. Every commie diver I have ever met has left me humbled and reminded that I know enough to keep myself alive only when not massively task loaded with a job that my livelihood relies upon.
Diving in a DIR style gives people a very specific set of skills. Within that remit, those skills are well developed. This gives them to right to be proud of the fact that they are better at their style of diving than they were last year. But to compare themselves to other divers is ridiculous and usually insulting to someone. I have no more time for DIR divers like that than I have for people that assume that ALL DIR divers are like that, and that elitism comes with the certification. It doesn't. There are good guys from all walks, and idiots from all walks. Luckily, when diving in the real world, most of the people I meet seem to be nice guys.
DIR Rules Explained
I wrote this last year for another forum. DIR diving used to follow certain rules. GUE no longer teach these rules as "rules", but the ethos behind each rule still rings very true and elements of them are incorporated into our training. So here they are in our all their glory. Discuss....
The rules of DIR diving are:
Rule 1 - Do not dive with unsafe divers
It’s the first rule, arguably the most important, and the one that has raised the most emotions in the past. It has been erroneously translated by dumb-ass DIR and non-DIR divers as “don’t dive with people outside your team” or even “don’t dive with people from another agency”, and by some real dipsticks “only dive with DIR divers”.
This is an error.
The rule does not mean don’t dive with a particular type of person. It means don’t dive with someone who is unsafe. So what is an unsafe diver? Forget the agency, training or background. Your best friend and GUE team mate can be an unsafe diver as much as anyone else. An unsafe diver is someone who is not physically or psychologically prepared, in your opinion, to safely conduct the dive you have planned. Maybe their kit looks cobbled together because they rushed. Maybe something on their kit looks like it needs ma intenance. Perhaps they are so focused on themselves they are not taking an active team role in preparing for the dive. Perhaps they haven’t analysed their gas, or conducted a proper pre-dive briefing with you. Perhaps you are not on the save wavelength regarding the dive plan, or the decompression strategy. Perhaps they are using kit they are clearly not comfortable with, or trying out new kit on an inappropriate dive. There might be a million and one things, but I’d come back to someone who is not prepared, in your opinion. To safely conduct the dive. Someone will raise so I’ll pre-empt it – the rule has also been described as “don’t dive with strokes”. A stroke, in this context, is an unsafe diver, regardless of background or training. Rule 1 then, do not dive with unsafe divers.
Rule 2 – Do not listen to unsafe divers
As a general rule, if you have decided someone is acting in an unsafe manner, you probably don't want to listen to any arguments they might have. Again, this does not mean “don’t listen (or speak to, as someone once suggested) to non-DIR divers. It means don’t take advice from people you shouldn’t’. I have been guilty of this so many times. I hear a diver, using a different configuration, or different signals, or kit, or whatever, and I think “that sounds cool, I’ll incorporate that into my diving”. I’ve just forgotten the point of DIR, which is that the strength is in standardisation and the moment someone starts moving away from that standard, the system begins to fray around the edges. I can jump in the water with any DIR diver and know exactly how their kit is supposed to be setup, and how intend to conduct the dive. Until someone starts mucking about with the standard. Another take on the “do not listen” rule – You think your best mate is unsafe today because they haven’t analysed their gas – there’s no current sticker on it (i.e. one that says they analysed it TODAY). They tell you it’s fine because they did it last week. If you listen to that, you’ve broken rule 2.
Rule 3 - Nothing underwater is worth dying for
Surely this is obvious to everyone. Yet we keep hearing about people who stayed just a little bit too long. Or went a little bit too deep, etc. George Irvine came out with a lot of vitriolic nonsense, but one of the things he said which rings true to me is that no-one gets any smarter underwater. If you’ve made a plan on the surface, stick to it in the water, as you made it for a reason. If you happen to stumble across the treasure of the Sierra Madre but you have reached minimum gas, tough ****. Come back tomorrow. I can personally attest that it’s far more pleasant being at home wishing you were diving, than being diving wishing you were at home.
Rule 4 – Always analyse your gas, before every dive
Logic would suggest that this would be the least emotive rule. Surely everyone would agree this is a sensible idea. But every now and again, someone dies for the lack of adhering to it. A couple of years ago, I tested my twinset on the boat as I prepared for my 40 metre dive, and found to my consternation that I had 200 bar of pure Oxygen in my twinset. How my body would have reacted to a partial pressure of Oxygen of 5.0 I cannot precisely determine, but I think it’s far to say the dive would have been both brief and somewhat eventful. Another diver I know blacked out whilst sitting on the side of a rib as he prepared to roll off the side into the sea. He can be thankful to an unnamed and unknown gas filler for the low price he had been charged for a very expensive fill, and thankful to his body’s swift reaction to the 100% helium in his twinset for probably saving his life. Stuff like this happens. Most of the time, it gets caught in time. When it doesn’t, the unfortunate result is that we tend to read about it. Gas accidents sicken me, because their results can be so easily fatal, and yet so easily avoided. Analyse your gas before every dive, including after air tops in the morning. Do not make any assumptions based on what people are telling you. Analyse anything you might potentially have to breathe. Mark your cylinders with the current date, and check your team mates to make sure they have done the same. If they haven’t, see rules 1 and 2. If the **** hits the fan you might have to breathe what's in their cylinders, so check those stickers before you hit the water.
Rule 5 - Don't dive a rebreather unless you need it
DIR’s stance on rebreathers is fairly simple. There is a balance of risk and need. DIR Divers believe that rebreathers are, generally speaking, more dangerous than Open Circuit. However, there are certain dives where the risks of open circuit outweigh the risks of closed circuit. Where gas logistics become ludicrous – extremely long exposure cave exploration, or very deep wreck diving, then there is an argument that a rebreather is the tool of choice. I have to be honest, if I wrote more on this rule I’d be making it up. I don’t do these types of dives, so I don’t really relate to this rule.
Rule 6 – Always look cool/fabulous
That seems a bit silly doesn’t it? Everything I’ve written above is designed to help safety, so what’s this bollox about looking cool? Just a joke? Maybe. But think about it a bit and all of a sudden you start to see something in it. Let’s just assume for a moment that the rule does not mean “Only wear black”. Let’s also assume that it doesn’t mean “Only buy Halcyon”. On a side note, I don’t know of a single DIR diver that only uses Halcyon equipment. Anyway, I digress. DIR and non-DIR divers that make the assumption that this is what the rule actually means are missing the point.
Let’s imagine you are on a boat. Your potential buddy’s equipment looks messy, or poorly maintained. Maybe the hose routing looks all untidy. They are clearly in breach of rule 6. What’s important is not that their configuration is not neat, or their equipment knackered. What’s important is that they have rushed their setup, or have been failing to keep up to date with maintenance. Refer to rule 1. Let’s assume your buddy’s cylinders have 15 different stickers on them. Bong. Rule 6 violation. But again the important thing is that you might not be able to identify a current gas test sticker or, god forbid, misread the maximum operating depth. Refer to Rule 1. Now you’re in the water. Your buddy is dropping in and out of trim. They are waving their arms about. Bong. Rule 6 violation. They are not looking cool. Equally, if you have your head switched on, you now know that they are uncomfortable for some reason. Don’t ignore it. Find out why.
Rule 6 is not about looking cool for the sake of cool. It’s about looking in control, prepared, calm. In short, it’s about demonstrating you are a safe diver.
Those are the rules. There is one small addition I might as well make to this post. Something we call “Option 1”. Option one is very simple indeed.
Option 1 : Any diver can call any dive. At any time.
Before or during the dive. No debate. No questioning. No argument. The dive is over. Why someone calls a dive is irrelevant. They have decided they want to be out of the water, or don’t want to get into it. Diving is supposed to be fun. So respect that decision. Would you really want to be in the water with someone who doesn’t. I f someone tries to convince you to dive when you don’t feel comfortable, please refer to Rule 1.
