the DIR moniker
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The end result of doing things right - is that they become less stressful overall - and thus for more enjoyable and redeeming as you put it....
We are air breathing creatures - there is allot that can go sideways during a dive. Being competent and having absolute confidence that your team is competent and prepared to get everyone topside without hesitation or reservation is what separates 'DIR' as a mindset or philosophy from everything else - no compromises...
Haven't read this thread, and I'm not a DIR devotee. The term DIR is meaningless anyway, and it should always have been called "team diving". Unless I'm in a cave or on a very extreme dive I don't dive in a "team", and not always in those cases.
Slamfire
Contributor
How about this:
If this guy
=
then DIR =
?
If this guy
then DIR =
Last edited:
Slamfire
Contributor
OK, now that my son is married, the guests have cleared out of the house, the house itself is relatively cleaned up, and the numbness is leaving my mind, I have come to this thread. I hope you don't mind if I return to the original question. I have a fairly complex response that I hope to write carefully and I hope will be read carefully. It includes some second hand information and some inferences that may need correcting as well.
I believe the term DIR is essentially doomed as a meaningful term, and the reason has nothing to do with past antagonisms from foolish zealots. It would happen if every person who was ever DIR had a borderline angelic personality.
The entire DIR concept did not spring from nowhere, like Athena springing fully armed from the forehead of Zeus. It evolved from a number of divers working to perfect a system to keep themselves safe and alive. When the DIR moniker was created by a subset of those pioneers, many of the people who actually helped create the system never became formally involved with it.
I recently listened with fascination to a conversation that included someone who was there in those early days, someone who is very much DIR today. He was talking about the current diving practices of some of those pioneers, and he was talking about one of them in particular. (Without naming names, let's just say there was never anyone more Hogarthian back in the day.) He had a conversation with him in which he reminded him about how they had all agreed to dive a certain way and use a certain system. He asked him about his current practices. Why had he changed what he was doing? Why was he deviating from the system he had helped create?
When he described that diver's response, he included a gesture with one of his fingers. The diver said he thought the changes he had made were improvements on the system. He liked diving with those changes, and he saw no reason to stick with a particular practice if he thought something else was better. Just as his practices had evolved into what they were a few decades ago, they were continuing to evolve.
A thousand years ago the Catholic Church had the Great Schism, and so the one church became two churches, the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox. Over the years the practices of what was once one church grew farther and farther apart. Even within Roman Catholic church, it's leaders had to struggle to maintain a consistent message, burning heretics at the stake and even slaughtering entire cities believed to have harbored heretical beliefs. The protestant reformation brought more changes. Can anyone now describe succinctly what it is like to be Christian?
Similarly, with three agencies claiming to be DIR, we are already seeing changes. Such evolution will continue. When one of these agencies makes an adjustment, who is to say it is not DIR? There is no DIR Pope who can speak with infallibility on the subject of DIR, and if anyone tried to fill that roll, I suspect any edicts would be heeded with the same regard that the Presbyterian clergy pays to Papal pronouncements. Lacking the legal authority to burn such people at the stake, how can an orthodoxy possibly be maintained? Do you think AG will change something if JJ tells him it is wrong?
Lamont talked about it earlier regarding his role as the leader of the DIR Practitioner's Forum. He has the unenviable task of deciding who is DIR enough to gain admission. I guess that makes him the ScubaBoard DIR Pope for now, but I suspect that the difficulties he mentions will only grow in the future until he throws up his hands in despair.
That is why I say that as a meaningful moniker DIR is doomed. It may take a while, but it will eventually go away.
I believe the term DIR is essentially doomed as a meaningful term, and the reason has nothing to do with past antagonisms from foolish zealots. It would happen if every person who was ever DIR had a borderline angelic personality.
The entire DIR concept did not spring from nowhere, like Athena springing fully armed from the forehead of Zeus. It evolved from a number of divers working to perfect a system to keep themselves safe and alive. When the DIR moniker was created by a subset of those pioneers, many of the people who actually helped create the system never became formally involved with it.
I recently listened with fascination to a conversation that included someone who was there in those early days, someone who is very much DIR today. He was talking about the current diving practices of some of those pioneers, and he was talking about one of them in particular. (Without naming names, let's just say there was never anyone more Hogarthian back in the day.) He had a conversation with him in which he reminded him about how they had all agreed to dive a certain way and use a certain system. He asked him about his current practices. Why had he changed what he was doing? Why was he deviating from the system he had helped create?
When he described that diver's response, he included a gesture with one of his fingers. The diver said he thought the changes he had made were improvements on the system. He liked diving with those changes, and he saw no reason to stick with a particular practice if he thought something else was better. Just as his practices had evolved into what they were a few decades ago, they were continuing to evolve.
A thousand years ago the Catholic Church had the Great Schism, and so the one church became two churches, the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox. Over the years the practices of what was once one church grew farther and farther apart. Even within Roman Catholic church, it's leaders had to struggle to maintain a consistent message, burning heretics at the stake and even slaughtering entire cities believed to have harbored heretical beliefs. The protestant reformation brought more changes. Can anyone now describe succinctly what it is like to be Christian?
Similarly, with three agencies claiming to be DIR, we are already seeing changes. Such evolution will continue. When one of these agencies makes an adjustment, who is to say it is not DIR? There is no DIR Pope who can speak with infallibility on the subject of DIR, and if anyone tried to fill that roll, I suspect any edicts would be heeded with the same regard that the Presbyterian clergy pays to Papal pronouncements. Lacking the legal authority to burn such people at the stake, how can an orthodoxy possibly be maintained? Do you think AG will change something if JJ tells him it is wrong?
Lamont talked about it earlier regarding his role as the leader of the DIR Practitioner's Forum. He has the unenviable task of deciding who is DIR enough to gain admission. I guess that makes him the ScubaBoard DIR Pope for now, but I suspect that the difficulties he mentions will only grow in the future until he throws up his hands in despair.
That is why I say that as a meaningful moniker DIR is doomed. It may take a while, but it will eventually go away.
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
-Archilochus, Greek Soldier, Poet, c. 650 BC
-Archilochus, Greek Soldier, Poet, c. 650 BC
FYI, Cave Diver wrote this outstanding article: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/dir/44823-what-dir.html
Just like I know what it means to be a Christian, and I think I know what it means to be DIR.... Just like the different 'flavors' of faith - I'm not going to nitpick which variants are saved and which are not.
In no specific order and off the top of my head....
1. Surround yourself w/ competent divers.
2. Donate the long hose - and don't allow anything to get in the way of making donation possible.
3. Utilize standard gases appropriate for the depth range.
4. Shape the ascent to ease the stress on your body.
5. Situational Awareness.
6. Never stop diving.
7. Take what you need - no more - no less.
8. Use gear and techniques appropriate for the environment.
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