The Path to DIR

[Trace Malinowski]

Gee Trace, you sure seem to think you know a lot about DIR.

No more and no less than anyone else after doing DIR-F and Tech 1 with AG and DIR-F again with BS.

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.

I didn't accuse JJ of diving alone. It was hypothetical and I used him as an example of someone who most certainly might be considered a DIR diver.

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.

I think you missed the entire point of my post. Let's (hypothetically) assume JJ is sitting around Little River eating a tuna sandwich (I do not pretend to know whether or not JJ does in fact eat tuna sandwiches) and he's just there to enjoy some down time and he doesn't plan to go diving, but simply eat lunch (again, I don't know if JJ eats lunch or not, that's hypothetical). There are no other divers around, but a woman comes up to him and tells him that 15 minutes before he arrived her 15 year-old son who just passed an OW class went into the cave and does he know when he might come out? Now, JJ being trained in recovery diving (which he is) probably knows in this hypothetical scenario that the kid is in trouble and he has to make a decision... call and wait for his team to arrive and probably do a body recovery or grab a scooter and zip into the cave in hopes that he finds the kid in time and can save a life. Well, let's assume JJ not being too much of a wuss (which he isn't) decides that the inherent risks to his own life by cave diving solo aren't as immediate a threat to loss of life as the kid's single tank and he gears up, scooters in, and finds the kid back at the split to the Merry-Go-Round, gets the kid on a long hose and saves the day. Is JJ not a DIR DIVER or did he just not dive DIR in that hypothetical situation? When one says, "I'm a DIR diver," that means that person subscribes to the philosophy known as DIR. Can you take away a DIR diver's skills, beliefs, understanding, and abilities to dive in a unified team concept just by throwing that diver into a solo diving situation and then brand that person as not being DIR? Most people on this board are not full-time professional divers. They have other jobs. However, some people are professional divers. If a person goes to work in a suit and tie and spends all day behind a desk and only dives DIR on weekends, is that person more of a DIR diver than suppose, oh let's say a commercial diver who complies with HSE Class I and II diver protocols and wears a helmet with an umbilical monday to friday while welding on North Sea oil rigs, but dives DIR when diving recreationally? The commercial diver obviously isn't diving DIR at work, but if he believes in the DIR system when he goes and dives for fun with his plate, wing, light, long hose and his friends (all GUE trained including the hypothetical commercial diver) is he not a DIR diver? Or, do you penalize him for working for Stolt as a career rather than for Ford Motor Company because he dives at work rather than pushes paper? If he dives DIR when appropriate is he not DIR despite diving alone with a tender when working. Is he not a DIR diver who is not diving DIR when welding underwater?

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.

Again you missed the entire point of my post. All the points you make are valid. The point of my post was that if you removed a DIR diver from a DIR situation, does that diver not still retain the right to say, "I'm a DIR diver," meaning he subscribes to the entire philosophy and has been trained in DIR and has mastered the skills, knowledge, and teamwork to earn the title even when not diving DIR? For example, Bob Sherwood wanted to take a freediving class from me. If Bob is on a WKPP dive he's probably diving DIR. Bob believes in DIR religiously. Bob is a DIR diver. If Bob took my freediving class and is dropping to 100 feet with me watching him from the surface, he would be a DIR diver and a GUE instructor making a freedive with a spotter. At that moment, he may be engaging in a different type of diving activity, but doing some freediving wouldn't take away his DIR-ness. Or, does it? Should he forfeit his GUE instructor card because he didn't use tanks, wings, lights, or a three man team on his freedive? I think not, but Bob might give you an argument because his plan for the course was to make a freedive as DIR as he could make it so he didn't die. There is no such thing as DIR freediving, but Bob was going to use his brain as you pointed out and draw from what he learned as a DIR diver to figure out the safest way to learn to freedive in order to take my class -- meaning lots of support divers in 3 man teams. I told him they'd have to be on rebreathers because the bubble trails would really mess with us.

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.

Agreed. Andrew was my teacher too, and he's right, the brain is your most important tool. What if you found yourself in the very real situation of being separated from your team? What do you do with a panicked team member who is violently insisting that the wrong way is out and he's on your long hose? What do you do if your team members are lost on a line and insist that the wrong way is home? Do you leave them? Is the scooter ring left out or folded under the crotch stap when not scootering? Is it better to wear the mask strap over or under the hood? What if you have the opportunity to explore a cave system and you have a wetsuit and they just have steel tanks available? Do you dive or bag it? These are all questions for the brain. Andrew told us to wear the front crotch D-rings in the non-scootering position (folded under) when not scootering. JJ said leaving that ring out will proivide a convenient temporary attachment point for cameras, reels, bottles, if you find yourself shifting gear around. Bob Sherwood believed mask straps should go under the hood to retain masks in the event they were jarred or broken, while George Irvine believed that straps should go over to help press the hood closed tighter around the temples and prevent heat loss when scootering. Can one learn something from a solo course? These are things one needs to think about or experiment with to decide.

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

My post was a philosophical inquiry. TSandM explained my point better than I just did (noticed post appear while typing) and with brevity!

 

[John_B]

Maybe Trace does know DIR divers who are mindless non-thinkers, I haven't met any yet.

I refuse to get into the whole religion analogy because I don't think it holds up and its almost always counterproductive in my experience.

The question seems to really be what can get you kicked out of the DIR club, right? There is some history there, I guess. There are no DIR police (that I know of ), but I think if word got around that a GUE instructor was doing solo dives or smoking or (fill in the blank) it probably wouldn't reflect well on the organization. Does that extend all the way down to what drysuit you use or where the dump valve is located? Or is it more about what scooter your business sells or who you compete against?

I do rec dives with non-DIR divers. I wouldn't get many dives in otherwise, because of where 99% of my dives are done (I have a plan I'm working on to correct some of this). So I do rec dives < 60' with non-DIR buddies who understand buddy awareness and have working gear that is tested at the start of every dive. Do I get blacklisted? Or get a pink snorkel or whatever the symbol of non-DIR-ness is? If Trace's question is whether that is worse than solo diving, I don't have the official answer I only have my own (which I used my brain to arrive at).

Sorry Trace, I posted the above while you were posting...

John

 

[John_B]

Well you are way farther down the path than I am, I didn't realize that.

I said I wouldn't use the religion analogy and now I'm going back on that. I don't know what "sins" will get you excommunicated and which ones will get you a penance that will take up all your Saturdays for a month and which ones are forgivable. I still can't figure out the whole light cord over/under the long hose for myself (my fault for only having access to a borrowed light). Maybe somebody should change my tag from "Regular Member" to "Grasshopper"!!! As far as the JJ scenario goes, at least tuna would be OK on Friday but if something happened that internet divers could all point to and say "I told you so", obviously GUE as a somewhat ostracized agency (for WHATEVER reasons) would be right in being concerned. I guess sometimes ya gotta do whatcha gotta do. :shrug:

Then there is the whole GUE DIR vs. AG DIR vs. GI3 DIR thing which I (mostly) try to avoid, figuring there is a lot there for me to learn.

As I said, I didn't realize (and Lynne did try to tell me) that this wasn't just another solo diver vs. DIR thread, I missed the finer point being made. Mea culpa.

John

 

[Steve R]

lol

......I think you missed the entire point of my post. Let's (hypothetically) assume JJ is sitting around Little River eating a tuna sandwich (I do not pretend to know whether or not JJ does in fact eat tuna sandwiches) and he's just there to enjoy some down time and he doesn't plan to go diving, but simply eat lunch (again, I don't know if JJ eats lunch or not, that's hypothetical). There are no other divers around, but a woman comes up to him and tells him that 15 minutes before he arrived her 15 year-old son who just passed an OW class went into the cave and does he know when he might come out? Now, JJ being trained in recovery diving (which he is) probably knows in this hypothetical scenario that the kid is in trouble and he has to make a decision... call and wait for his team to arrive and probably do a body recovery or grab a scooter and zip into the cave in hopes that he finds the kid in time and can save a life. Well, let's assume JJ not being too much of a wuss (which he isn't) decides that the inherent risks to his own life by cave diving solo aren't as immediate a threat to loss of life as the kid's single tank and he gears up, scooters in, and finds the kid back at the split to the Merry-Go-Round, gets the kid on a long hose and saves the day. Is JJ not a DIR DIVER or did he just not dive DIR in that hypothetical situation?

oh, OK, here I thought you meant the type of planned solo diving event implied in your previous post, and not the rather obvious "I have to try and save a kid's life" type of fictional solo dive...

lol

silly me.

But please, I interupted, continue on, I love hypothesizing solo dives like this in the DIR forum....lol.

Hypothesizing on my own, I'm going to assume JJ read the Bible you left there and felt he was within his God-given DIR right to lay down his life trying to save another when it would take about as much effort as bending over and tying his shoe. (Hypothesizing that he had shoes with laces).

great forum!

 

[Adobo]

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?)

Having taken GUE classes and being able to speak with authority about what is DIR and what is not DIR are two different things. In fact, people who have taken GUE training but do not believe in its tenets are most dangerous of all; they have the ability to pose as people with the "credentials" and yet twist the message to suit their own personal agendas. Of course, this comes at the expense of the new diver who is trying to gain knowledge about DIR.

As JJ once wrote:

... given their own specific agendas, beliefs, power struggles and contrainsts, these groups cannot help but promote a version of DIR that is uniquely their own. This version will likely have little resemblance to the original.

... As individuals and groups appropriate DIR, they will often make choices very different from those that I and other founders of DIR would have made.

In my opinion, recent threads in this forum have gone to illustrate that the term DIR has lost any meaningful definition. Or perhaps it never had one. In my mind, there is the question of "what is GUE's stance" regarding specific topics. There is also the question of "What do former GUE instructors teach?".

I have no doubt that Trace and others who have participated in recent discussions are outstanding divers and instructors. But honestly, I do not come to this forum to learn about DIX (Do it Trace, Do it Tom, Do it Sarah, whatever). I come here to learn about DIR diving.. the thing that they do over there at WKPP and the thing that GUE teaches. And it seems this forum has long ago transitioned away from DIR and is now probably better know as DIX.

 

[Adobo]

I am acquiring the skills and attitude to become a DIR diver. I have the proper gear and I have read all the books. I have several DIR mentors but I have not taken fundies.

Are all divers that consider themselves DIR fundies graduates? Are you automatically DIR if you have passed fundies? Can you dive as a peer with DIR divers without taking fundies?

According to my mentors I have all the skills of a DIR diver. I need to learn a few of the DIR expectations of a team member. Can my mentors grant me the status of DIR or do I need the C-card from GUE?

Fishdiver,

Hopefully, you have found some answers in this forum that you can use to advance your diving. There are a lot of experienced and skilled divers offering opinions here. Another great source of information for what it means to be a DIR/GUE diver is www.GUE.com. There, you can register to a mail list called Quest where you will get answers from not only divers with GUE training but also instructors. I have also seen the president of GUE respond directly to inquiries there.

Good luck with your diving.

 

[Steve R]

.......


In my opinion, recent threads in this forum have gone to illustrate that the term DIR has lost any meaningful definition. Or perhaps it never had one. In my mind, there is the question of "what is GUE's stance" regarding specific topics. There is also the question of "What do former GUE instructors teach?".

I have no doubt that Trace and others who have participated in recent discussions are outstanding divers and instructors. But honestly, I do not come to this forum to learn about DIX (Do it Trace, Do it Tom, Do it Sarah, whatever). I first came to learn about DIR diving.. the thing that they do over there at WKPP and the thing that GUE teaches. And it seems this forum has long ago transitioned away from DIR and is now probably better know as DIX.

Amen brother.

I don't care how anyone else wants to dive or what they believe, I always thought this was the GUE/DIR (hehehe, I like that DIX thing) version forum.

It clearly has diverged quite a bit. I would have never for one minute thought that we would be discussing solo-DIR diving, but I guess that is what it has come to.

Go-go gadget forum cleaning tool.....lol.

On second thought, go-go gadget cookie removal tool... lol.

 

[do it easy]

I think the question that Trace was asking is "what part of the diver is DIR?" Can a dog have DIR nature or not?

 

[John_B]

I think the question that Trace was asking is "what part of the diver is DIR?" Can a dog have DIR nature or not?

His brain?
How smart is this dog? Scooby Doo smart?
John

 

[TSandM]

Well, you guys can be as sarcastic and dismissive as you want. The question here wasn't, "Is solo diving DIR?" but a much better and quite legitimate question for this forum, in my opinion, which is, "What defines a DIR diver, and more, what DISQUALIFIES as a diver as DIR?" Whenever this question comes up, somebody inevitably uses the example of a DIR diver doing a solo dive as a question of where you draw the lines, because it's an easy and believable example. But it's not the legitimacy of solo diving as a DIR practice that's being questioned. Everybody knows or should know that DIR is TEAM diving, and a team of one doesn't cut it.

My husband is always asking me, "What IS DIR? Who defines it? Where is it written down?" And there isn't an answer for him. As pointed out above, the core is consistent but the details may vary, even from GUE instructors or WKPP gas divers. We get SO wound up in this forum (and others) about the details, and the details don't even stay constant sometimes even from the sources that most people would regard as "pure doctrine" -- Witness the over/under light cord changes, the valve drills changes, and the recent pocket contents changes.

You guys get worked up because this forum is no longer a fountain of pure GUE DIR wisdom. It never was. And as JJ observes in his essay on the GUE site, DIR, as it spreads, will continue to evolve, and there will be differences that crop up regionally or related to instructors. The GUE/AG split is only the first of what will probably be many. GUE instructors drop out -- To my surprise, apparently one of the very early instructors is leaving. I hear he's going to teach tech classes for another agency. Will he abandon everything he believed in when he was teaching for GUE? I doubt it. Will there be some differences between his tech classes and Tech 1? Probably. Will they be substantive? I don't know.

You guys define DIR for me, because I can't do it. And don't tell me, "It's what GUE teaches," because GUE doesn't teach. GUE instructors do, and they don't all teach the same.