Kendall Raine
Contributor
FishDiver:
Does Irvine have a C card from GUE? Does Rose, Armentrout or Jablonski? There are divers out there more DIR than some GUE instructors.
The Path to DIR
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Does Irvine have a C card from GUE? Does Rose, Armentrout or Jablonski? There are divers out there more DIR than some GUE instructors.
Thanks to everyone for the the sincere and supportive responses. I had feared many more dogmatic responses which is why my OP may have come off as a little defensive.
I realize that Solo and DIR are diametrically opposed philosophies. I carry the "Solo" byline because at one time it was automatically amended for anyone that opted in to the Solo Forum.
I realize that Solo and DIR are diametrically opposed philosophies. I carry the "Solo" byline because at one time it was automatically amended for anyone that opted in to the Solo Forum.
limeyx
Guest
Kendall Raine:
Well, I doubt Irvine has a card from anyone, but I should definitely hope JJ carries his GUE instructor card(s) and is subject to the same oversight in his training as every other instructor in the GUE organization.
That said, I do think DIR and GUE are not necessarily linked at the hip, and do not have to go hand in hand. There sure are plenty of DIR divers who are not GUE, it just gets more difficult to find them in those cases I guess (for me), and there is more chance that they will have somewhat different practices (gas selection being a big one)
Kendall Raine
Contributor
limeyx:
Of course. I was using an extreme example to make a point.
The fact is there is very little that is truly unique to DIR. The concepts and configuration (breathing the long hose, fitness, team diving, standardized configuration, etc.) taught by GUE and labeled DIR can be found throughout the evolution of cave diving. Much of it goes back decades. This is not in debate, except by those completely ignorant of history. In some respects one might say DIR is an attempt to extract, refine and codify a set of "best practices" from the cave diving community. What's "best" is in debate, to be sure, but the success of the attempt can be measured in places like Wakulla.
Irvine once wrote he thought he, JJ and a few others with whom he dove were the only divers he knew (by extension in existence) who were really DIR. In other words, all divers who never took a GUE course. Makes threads like this, and the desperate longings for acceptance in the GUE/DIR priesthood, all the more amusing.
limeyx
Guest
Kendall Raine:
Sure, your point was taken
I agree -- there may be other "best" ways to dive, and GUE (I think) doesn't claim to have invented these things (although I think they pushed the concept of team diving to a level not really seen before).
I think (for me) part of the value is that even though there might be more than one "best" way, if we can (as many of us as possible) agree on a common set of "best ways" -- then it makes forming teams and diving with new teams much easier than all of us having our own different "best way". Some people have chosen to see that as a limitation of GUE, but I see it as a huge benefit.
Click "User CP" on the blue bar above. Click "Group Preferences". At the bottom, change your selection in the section titled "You may choose to be identified as a member of the following groups". Presto... no more "solo diver" tag.FishDiver:
Kevrumbo
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Nah . . .keep your Solo Diver tagline if you want. Just remember that solo diving is simply not a recommended safe practice by all certifying agencies (exception is TDI/SDI whiich offers a Solo Diver Specialty. But just like Deep Air training, I'm sure it's not encouraged).
Whether elective solo diving is DIR or not is moot: there is no adverse effect on the fit, form or function of the Unified Dive Team, because as a Solo Diver you're alone by yourself --obviously!
Whether elective solo diving is DIR or not is moot: there is no adverse effect on the fit, form or function of the Unified Dive Team, because as a Solo Diver you're alone by yourself --obviously!
I don't agree with those who say that you cannot call yourself a DIR diver if you dive solo. GUE standards may tell you that you are not permitted to remain certified as a GUE diver and participate in solo dives, but that would be like the Roman Catholic Church teling me that I can't be a priest if I decide I want a to have a wife. It doesn't mean that I'm not a Christian, rather, it just limits my participation within that organization. In GUE, your level of participation as a solo diver is restricted to the no can do department. But, just as you can be a priest and hide a secret wife, you can be a GUE certified instructor and break the rules. If JJ dive alone, has he forfeited his right to be able to call himself a DIR diver? Or, is he a DIR diver breaking the rules of GUE in the same way that a priest would be breaking the rules of the Roman Catholic Church?
As was pointed out, GUE doesn't have exclusive control over DIR. Those familar with NAUI Tech and the NTEC will see that they have adapted the slogan, "Just do it right!" as is found in the NAUI Tech instructor manual. The Catholic Church doesn't have exclusive control over Christianity, and like the Protestant and Greek Orthodox Churches, there are pockets of DIR practioners of many groups as well as organizations like NAUI and PDIC Brasil.
So, there you are an experienced DIR diver and you start diving solo. Do you not understand the equipment, the planning, the philosophy and the procedures that make for DIR team diving? Are you not just a DIR diver who is now diving solo the same way that a Christian is still a Christian when committing a sin? Do you not understand the fallout to a sin like adultery, understand why it is immoral and what the consequences can be to a family, yet choose to break a cardinal rule of your belief system the same way as you understand the risks and possible consequences of solo diving?
Note: I would have discussed a philosophy like DIR compared to another philosophy such as that of the Utopians, but I thought that drawing a comparison to a religious belief system would be more easily understood.
Some would argue that solo diving makes a diver sloppy when it comes to team awareness. Some divers would become sloppy while others would not. Hasn't anyone played both team and individual sports? Can you hold a tennis racket and focus solely on the opponent and the ball and the techniques of tennis one day, then hold a lacrosse stick the next and be aware of your teammates, the opposing team, and the skills needed to play lacrosse? My friend, Mark, on my lacrosse team in college seemed to have no trouble playing attack with me then playing tennis. Can you be a triathlete and swim laps alone in a pool or swim open water in training and competition one day and then gear up for a cave dive the next? Doesn't the brain know the difference between a Halcyon mask and a pair of Swedes? The arms know not to reach and pull and the legs know not to flutter in a cave? Where's your buddy in the melee of a triathlon swim? What if you get hit hard enough in the face to stun you and the lifeguards miss it? Are you not a DIR diver taking the risk of swimming in such a race?
If comitting to excellence means improving your training, would a solo diver course not be of any value? I was taught to solo dive in caves (most definitely violated standards & most definitely a helpful course!) by an instructor who prepared me for the team breakdown. I learned things that I had not been taught during my GUE training. One of my favorite sayings is Bruce Lee's, "Absorb what is useful," which I learned when doing martial arts as a kid and remembered it throughout my life. I was delighted to see it appear in the Fitness for Divers book.
I think that what happens for many DIR trained divers is that they had less than adequate recreational SCUBA training and they discover DIR, or, those with experience discover DIR and are annoyed that they didn't learn the skills sooner and have to learn to dive all over again. For some, the skills come a bit easier and for others they must work and work and work. But, once developed, the diver becomes afraid that he or she will lose the "edge" because diving with a team means being seen by the team and there is a desire to impress the other team members. How do I look in the water? Am I going to get flak for my knees on this dive or is my frog kick correct? I want to be the best one in this team! I want everyone to know I'm a good diver. I want to win so and so's approval. I want to pass so and so's class next month. Diving can become a personal and a team competition. For some other divers it's depth, distance and duration in which they try to self-actualize. For DIR divers, these are not normally stresses (good thing), but diving becomes skills, trim, buoyancy, position in the water and divers put pressure on themselves or feel peer pressure to be perfect. Because of the fear that somehow one will lose muscle memory or become sloppy, some DIR divers will not stray from DIR practices.
However, some divers can transition from working underwater as commercial divers and being very aware of where they've set their ground, to spearfishing alone being aware of risks, to spearfishing in a group being aware of others so as not to shoot them, to going cave diving and possessing the right team attitude, gear, skill sets to solo sidemount diving.
Where you are in your diving career and what skills you've developed dictate how you dive and with whom. If you are new to GUE and NAUI Tech and even PDIC skill sets maybe you should dive dive dive dive dive that way to master the craft the same as you would practice for any other sport or team enderavor. Studying solo diving can only make you more educated.
Diving solo? Are you still a DIR diver? Maybe not that day. If forfeit your right to be "DIR" by solo diving, what other acts might be a "sin?" Drinking Coke instead of water before a dive? Are you ousted? Eating a high fat meal? Diving without being in PERFECT physical shape? Are you not endangering your teammates if you have any body fat to a percentage that might warrant a trip to the gym rather than scootering on a dive that day?
There is one fatal flaw to DIR. It has become a philosophy and the philosophers could spend decades arguing what is or is not DIR. However, most practicioners are happier defending it and diving it in its present form without putting too much thought into all of the nuances that philosophies tend to sprout. DIR is the philosphy of human group survival and interaction on a small scale, yet will find itself subject to all the problems of humanity that we have now on a global scale. It's easier to define the borders of whether or not you are or aren't DIR on a broad scale much the same way that someone can be defined as a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim, but more difficult to define DIR within the community much like a sinful Christian?
Are you DIR if you dive alone? I don't know. Are you a Christian if you commit adultery? The arguments can be made with everything from standards and procedures of various agencies to Bible verses.
I guess if you believe you are DIR to the best of your understanding of what DIR is, you are, in fact, DIR.
As was pointed out, GUE doesn't have exclusive control over DIR. Those familar with NAUI Tech and the NTEC will see that they have adapted the slogan, "Just do it right!" as is found in the NAUI Tech instructor manual. The Catholic Church doesn't have exclusive control over Christianity, and like the Protestant and Greek Orthodox Churches, there are pockets of DIR practioners of many groups as well as organizations like NAUI and PDIC Brasil.
So, there you are an experienced DIR diver and you start diving solo. Do you not understand the equipment, the planning, the philosophy and the procedures that make for DIR team diving? Are you not just a DIR diver who is now diving solo the same way that a Christian is still a Christian when committing a sin? Do you not understand the fallout to a sin like adultery, understand why it is immoral and what the consequences can be to a family, yet choose to break a cardinal rule of your belief system the same way as you understand the risks and possible consequences of solo diving?
Note: I would have discussed a philosophy like DIR compared to another philosophy such as that of the Utopians, but I thought that drawing a comparison to a religious belief system would be more easily understood.
Some would argue that solo diving makes a diver sloppy when it comes to team awareness. Some divers would become sloppy while others would not. Hasn't anyone played both team and individual sports? Can you hold a tennis racket and focus solely on the opponent and the ball and the techniques of tennis one day, then hold a lacrosse stick the next and be aware of your teammates, the opposing team, and the skills needed to play lacrosse? My friend, Mark, on my lacrosse team in college seemed to have no trouble playing attack with me then playing tennis. Can you be a triathlete and swim laps alone in a pool or swim open water in training and competition one day and then gear up for a cave dive the next? Doesn't the brain know the difference between a Halcyon mask and a pair of Swedes? The arms know not to reach and pull and the legs know not to flutter in a cave? Where's your buddy in the melee of a triathlon swim? What if you get hit hard enough in the face to stun you and the lifeguards miss it? Are you not a DIR diver taking the risk of swimming in such a race?
If comitting to excellence means improving your training, would a solo diver course not be of any value? I was taught to solo dive in caves (most definitely violated standards & most definitely a helpful course!) by an instructor who prepared me for the team breakdown. I learned things that I had not been taught during my GUE training. One of my favorite sayings is Bruce Lee's, "Absorb what is useful," which I learned when doing martial arts as a kid and remembered it throughout my life. I was delighted to see it appear in the Fitness for Divers book.
I think that what happens for many DIR trained divers is that they had less than adequate recreational SCUBA training and they discover DIR, or, those with experience discover DIR and are annoyed that they didn't learn the skills sooner and have to learn to dive all over again. For some, the skills come a bit easier and for others they must work and work and work. But, once developed, the diver becomes afraid that he or she will lose the "edge" because diving with a team means being seen by the team and there is a desire to impress the other team members. How do I look in the water? Am I going to get flak for my knees on this dive or is my frog kick correct? I want to be the best one in this team! I want everyone to know I'm a good diver. I want to win so and so's approval. I want to pass so and so's class next month. Diving can become a personal and a team competition. For some other divers it's depth, distance and duration in which they try to self-actualize. For DIR divers, these are not normally stresses (good thing), but diving becomes skills, trim, buoyancy, position in the water and divers put pressure on themselves or feel peer pressure to be perfect. Because of the fear that somehow one will lose muscle memory or become sloppy, some DIR divers will not stray from DIR practices.
However, some divers can transition from working underwater as commercial divers and being very aware of where they've set their ground, to spearfishing alone being aware of risks, to spearfishing in a group being aware of others so as not to shoot them, to going cave diving and possessing the right team attitude, gear, skill sets to solo sidemount diving.
Where you are in your diving career and what skills you've developed dictate how you dive and with whom. If you are new to GUE and NAUI Tech and even PDIC skill sets maybe you should dive dive dive dive dive that way to master the craft the same as you would practice for any other sport or team enderavor. Studying solo diving can only make you more educated.
Diving solo? Are you still a DIR diver? Maybe not that day. If forfeit your right to be "DIR" by solo diving, what other acts might be a "sin?" Drinking Coke instead of water before a dive? Are you ousted? Eating a high fat meal? Diving without being in PERFECT physical shape? Are you not endangering your teammates if you have any body fat to a percentage that might warrant a trip to the gym rather than scootering on a dive that day?
There is one fatal flaw to DIR. It has become a philosophy and the philosophers could spend decades arguing what is or is not DIR. However, most practicioners are happier defending it and diving it in its present form without putting too much thought into all of the nuances that philosophies tend to sprout. DIR is the philosphy of human group survival and interaction on a small scale, yet will find itself subject to all the problems of humanity that we have now on a global scale. It's easier to define the borders of whether or not you are or aren't DIR on a broad scale much the same way that someone can be defined as a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim, but more difficult to define DIR within the community much like a sinful Christian?
Are you DIR if you dive alone? I don't know. Are you a Christian if you commit adultery? The arguments can be made with everything from standards and procedures of various agencies to Bible verses.
I guess if you believe you are DIR to the best of your understanding of what DIR is, you are, in fact, DIR.
John_B
Grasshopper
Gee Trace, you sure seem to think you know a lot about DIR.
First, I would like to know why you would accuse JJ of diving solo. Do you have any proof, or was this something you thought up, hypothetically, on your own? There, I had to get that out of the way.
Now, try looking at this from the other direction. A DIR diver wouldn't dive without his or her team members (at whatever skill level they may be at). So by diving solo, you probably aren't actually a DIR diver at all. You are probably a solo diver in reality who thought it would be good to adopt some of the DIR equipment configuration. And a lot of what goes into the DIR configuration only makes sense in a team. The light, the long hose, gas planning, gear location, its all based a team protocol. Its not really designed around the solo diver, I'm not sure much of it makes any sense for the solo diver. Not being a solo diver myself, I don't know for sure. Maybe you could enlighten us.
What gets me is this idea that DIR equipment (or diving DIR gasses) is what DIR is. The truth is that its a team system, and the equipment, standardized gasses, etc. all flow from that. When someone says they are "part DIR" or "taking things from DIR", they aren't DIR because they don't subscribe to the bigger picture, they are just using pieces to the puzzle. Which is fine, its just not really DIR. The fact is, nobody cares if you are really DIR or not, except a DIR teammate. Certainly if you don't want to be DIR, nobody else is going to want you to be. Opt-in, or not, its really that simple.
Personally, I suspect you have read too many old threads on the internet. AG, whom you seem to reference indirectly, would be the first to tell you your most important piece of equipment is your brain, to use your head and if you don't understand something you need to ask questions until you understand why something is what it is. His response to my "steel vs aluminum in a wetsuit" question a couple years ago was to have me go determine all the factors and figures that go into the equation (how negative are the tanks to start, how negative/positive are the tanks when empty, how positive is the exposure protection, salt vs. fresh, how much other weight was I carrying i.e. plate, light, weightbelt, regs, etc.) and crunch the numbers for myself. Knowing that, the answer was obvious. DIR in this case was understanding the problem, and using my own brain to solve the problem for myself. The equipment wasn't the problem, it just revealed what I had yet to understand about safe diving.
I personally have yet to meet this "mythical DIR lemming" who blindly and unquestioningly follows whatever JJ (or for that matter, AG) says. I don't think they exist except in people's minds and on the internet.
John
First, I would like to know why you would accuse JJ of diving solo. Do you have any proof, or was this something you thought up, hypothetically, on your own? There, I had to get that out of the way.
Now, try looking at this from the other direction. A DIR diver wouldn't dive without his or her team members (at whatever skill level they may be at). So by diving solo, you probably aren't actually a DIR diver at all. You are probably a solo diver in reality who thought it would be good to adopt some of the DIR equipment configuration. And a lot of what goes into the DIR configuration only makes sense in a team. The light, the long hose, gas planning, gear location, its all based a team protocol. Its not really designed around the solo diver, I'm not sure much of it makes any sense for the solo diver. Not being a solo diver myself, I don't know for sure. Maybe you could enlighten us.
What gets me is this idea that DIR equipment (or diving DIR gasses) is what DIR is. The truth is that its a team system, and the equipment, standardized gasses, etc. all flow from that. When someone says they are "part DIR" or "taking things from DIR", they aren't DIR because they don't subscribe to the bigger picture, they are just using pieces to the puzzle. Which is fine, its just not really DIR. The fact is, nobody cares if you are really DIR or not, except a DIR teammate. Certainly if you don't want to be DIR, nobody else is going to want you to be. Opt-in, or not, its really that simple.
Personally, I suspect you have read too many old threads on the internet. AG, whom you seem to reference indirectly, would be the first to tell you your most important piece of equipment is your brain, to use your head and if you don't understand something you need to ask questions until you understand why something is what it is. His response to my "steel vs aluminum in a wetsuit" question a couple years ago was to have me go determine all the factors and figures that go into the equation (how negative are the tanks to start, how negative/positive are the tanks when empty, how positive is the exposure protection, salt vs. fresh, how much other weight was I carrying i.e. plate, light, weightbelt, regs, etc.) and crunch the numbers for myself. Knowing that, the answer was obvious. DIR in this case was understanding the problem, and using my own brain to solve the problem for myself. The equipment wasn't the problem, it just revealed what I had yet to understand about safe diving.
I personally have yet to meet this "mythical DIR lemming" who blindly and unquestioningly follows whatever JJ (or for that matter, AG) says. I don't think they exist except in people's minds and on the internet.
John
John, I think Trace actually has the credentials to make statements about DIR. Furthermore, I think his comment about JJ was for illustration purposes. And I think his overall POINT is a good one. I like the DIR philosophy, and follow it as closely as I know how, and do most of my dives with fellow DIR folks (but not all). But I spent 15 minutes under the boat in the Virgin Islands by myself (and -- shudder to say -- enjoyed it!) Does that mean I'm not DIR? Or was I never DIR? Or is Trace right, that you can grossly define what DIR is, but not be able to draw tight lines in any individual case?
We are supposed to be "thinking divers", and I believe that means that we are capable of recognizing a situation where strict observation of every principle of DIR is neither necessary nor desirable. (Catching crabs in 30 feet of water in a strict team formation, signalling every direction change, would be rather impractical, wouldn't it?)
We are supposed to be "thinking divers", and I believe that means that we are capable of recognizing a situation where strict observation of every principle of DIR is neither necessary nor desirable. (Catching crabs in 30 feet of water in a strict team formation, signalling every direction change, would be rather impractical, wouldn't it?)
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