Thoughts about DIR-F

[BCS]

It ain't easy ... and until yesterday it wasn't much fun. But I'm starting to see some progress. And that's what matters.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Hi Bob,
I am glad you to hear you are making progress....I remember someone in your class sayingthat it would take some dives before things started clicking....hmmm.... ...
keep up the good work!

b.

 

[Kriterian]

EDITED for redundancy

I originally asked two questions, one serious and one silly about DIR. As usual, I noticed a few minutes later there was a post asking the same question. Sorry for the mistake!

 

[ScubaScott]

And it's starting to pay off ...

Yesterday was a good start ... for the first time since class I came up smiling. Not just because I managed a passable attempt at doing the skills ... but because I could feel the difference it made in how I was doing things, and I liked how it felt (Rule 6.5 ... always feel good).

I wasn't so sure about posting what I was going thru here ... all the other reports always seem to be so positive and glowing. So maybe people wouldn't take it well, and it would be a poor reflection on me ... or the class ... or the instructor.

But I figured someone out there who had taken this class must've gone through the same confidence crash I did ... and that maybe expressing my own frustrations would bring out a more balanced discussion of what the class is all about. I got a lot of PM's from people telling me they felt the same way when they took it ... and encouraging me to stick with the program. For me, this was important.

Your mileage may vary. Perhaps this style of diving isn't for you. Depends on what your diving goals are. My goals are to avoid becoming the kind of instructor who gets comfortable with doing things a certain way and stops learning. I did this now because I'm going to be teaching people how to dive ... and I want to be able to do more than just parrot what some instructor guide tells me to teach them. I'll avoid the use of the marketing term ... but I will say I don't want to start my students off by teaching them poor diving habits right out of the starting gate. In order to do that, I have to understand what those habits are ... and learn to avoid them myself.

So I'll stick with Dori's advice ... and just keep swimming.

It ain't easy ... and until yesterday it wasn't much fun. But I'm starting to see some progress. And that's what matters.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob - glad to see you that you got yourself to a DIRF class.

Remember, almost EVERYONE has had the same experience as you. Your not alone in the frustrations of nailing some of these skills, but when you do, the grin on your face will be seen for miles....

Can I ask what changed your mind? About a year ago, I was pretty sure you'd be one of the last people in a DIRF course?

Cheers,
SS

 

[FreeFloat]

But I figured someone out there who had taken this class must've gone through the same confidence crash I did ...

"Confidence crash".......... yeah, that about describes it. After our Fundies course a coiuple of months ago, as a group we students went out for food & suds and essentially had to talk ourselves back into the water. I know myself, I had been doing somewhat "advanced" dives up to that point, but after the DIR-F course I started to feel out of my league on a 15' quarry dive!! I can easily appreciate how an "experienced" or "tech" style diver can toss their gear in a corner, say "I've had it" and stomp off never to be heard from again.

My advice to fresh victims I mean students of the DIR-F course ............ don't give up. OTOH, don't decide that you're skill-less enough to require nothing but "skills" dives following a DIR-F course. As lousy as you may feel about your diving skills or lack thereof, the LAST thing you need is to punish yourself..... that'll suck all the fun right out of it.

Do what I did. Go our and dive - for fun. Stop beating yourself up. You may feel you were never a "good" diver, but before the course you never harmed yourself or buddy did you? After you're relaxed and had some "fun" dives, then and only then seek out another DIR mentor or buddy, and practice skills. You just need to remind yourself why you dive in teh first place.

It's all about the fun. Really. If it wasn', it would be called Work and we'd all be made to do it

Okay, I'll get down off my soap box now.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Can I ask what changed your mind? About a year ago, I was pretty sure you'd be one of the last people in a DIRF course?

LOL - yeah, when one of my DIR-trained friends found out I was taking the class he sent me an e-mail .... "was that a pig that just flew past my window?"

I don't feel like I changed my mind so much as finally getting around to making up my mind.

But if the question were to be "why now?" ... the answer would be "instructor certification".

As a new instructor, I want to have a good basis of experience to respond to questions from my students. I want a solid platform of skills from which to teach. I felt that going through the Fundamentals class would help me along that path.

I've been diving with DIR divers almost as long as I've been diving. I thought I knew what it was all about ... I even had thought I had similar skills. But I wanted the class to have a realistic reference point upon which to base my self-assessment.

Remember the old adage "be careful what you ask for"? Well, I got what I wanted, even if I found the answer a bit difficult to accept ... :11:

In the long run, it's all good. The class helped me identify skills I need to work on ... many of which I plan to emphasize in my classes. So it behooves me to be practice those skills to the point where I can demonstrate them properly for my students.

After DIR-F I had one week to prepare a lesson plan for my first AOW class. I don't mind telling you that the classroom portion included some of the topics covered in DIR-F ... particularly regarding dive planning, buddy skills, and gas management techniques. I had planned to cover those things anyway, but having taken the DIR-F class gave me some additional perspectives from which to present these topics.

I think my students will benefit from my having gone through the DIR-F class ... that's really what motivated me.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[globaldiver]

Remember, almost EVERYONE has had the same experience as you. Your not alone in the frustrations of nailing some of these skills, but when you do, the grin on your face will be seen for miles....


I can attest to that. I felt like crap after the DIR-F and took a serious moment to reflect over the way I was diving. I did however stick to practicing the exercises, and last weekend I was shooting video and tried some back kicks. Suddenly THEY WORKED.... The sense of joy from a small thing like that was worth all the "agony" during the DIR-F class.

It has been about a year since I took the class and I try to practice some of the techniques in every dive. I still have some distance to go, but I for sure enjoy my diving more today than I did before. When I feel ready I plan to take the class again (our class was before the certification requirement), and would even consider the open water class if it turns out to be of high quaility.

Anders

 

[ScubaScott]

But if the question were to be "why now?" ... the answer would be "instructor certification".

As a new instructor, I want to have a good basis of experience to respond to questions from my students. I want a solid platform of skills from which to teach. I felt that going through the Fundamentals class would help me along that path.

.......

I think my students will benefit from my having gone through the DIR-F class ... that's really what motivated me.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob - hard to find better reasons than what you said. Your students will benefit from your training - no question. And not just in the classroom, but when they see your bouyancy, control, kicks.... they will have that in their mind as proper technique - not crashing the reef, or kicking and climbing on the wreck.

My main dive buddy is also an instructor and I had hoped a little more of what he learned would also filter into the classes that we do, but I think I mentioned in my original DIRF report, change is often met with great resistance....

Cheers,
SS

 

[OE2X]

My advice to fresh victims I mean students of the DIR-F course ............ don't give up. OTOH, don't decide that you're skill-less enough to require nothing but "skills" dives following a DIR-F course. As lousy as you may feel about your diving skills or lack thereof, the LAST thing you need is to punish yourself..... that'll suck all the fun right out of it.

Do what I did. Go our and dive - for fun. Stop beating yourself up. You may feel you were never a "good" diver, but before the course you never harmed yourself or buddy did you? After you're relaxed and had some "fun" dives, then and only then seek out another DIR mentor or buddy, and practice skills. You just need to remind yourself why you dive in teh first place.

Freefloat - This is some great advice. Bob and I have gone out and done a bunch of fun dives together, but at the end we have spent the last 10 or 15 minutes doing skills. This way if we really suck at the drills, we at least had fun on the earlier part of the dive. If do we do the drills well, then we have had a great dive. We've also done a few just skill drill dives and those have been satisfactory as well.

 

[lamont]

Did a couple of dives today. They were technically fun dives, but I was working on stuff anyways...

Making a lot of progress getting more comfortable with clipping things off, in particular, getting a whole lot more comfortable with the SPG. I need to get a little more comfortable with the clips themselves, though -- I tend to use two hands to get the clip open, then windmill back with one hand and clip to the D-ring.

Also making progress with the butt dump. Was using that almost exclusively. Getting a lot more of the hang of how to consistantly get air out of it and how to just burp it for the ability to fine tune more (instead of pulling it open and then smacking the bottom...)

For the first dive, my situational awareness wasn't quite so hot, but I pulled it together pretty good on my second dive. At 10 mins we were at around 22 fsw and I'd only used 500 psi, which is 50 psi/min. At 15 mins I think I'd burned through another 300 psi and at 20 I was down another 350 psi (was starting to work a little harder against the current and swimming around more towards the end of the dive). At 25 we were on our way back in and swimming pretty hard so I had stopped watching SAC rate but just keeping an eye on air wrt rock bottom. Wound up with 900 psi still in the tank -- I actually wasn't the guy who had to turn the dive because of air that time...

Had a couple of embarassing equipment issues -- forgot to clip my SPG off the first dive and had to trace back from the HP port on my first stage to find it -- and on the second dive, my backup mask came out of my pockets and was hanging down between my legs while we were kicking in -- that would have looked super embarassing on video...

Balance kinda sucked both dives. Gotta work on those CG drills. I still don't know what is up with my lame left leg with my frog kick either. I'm aware now of what my leg is doing, but getting it to do the right thing is kinda tough....

So, that's it for the DIR report on those two dives. Of course we had an hour and a half of bottom time today, so I'm leaving out all the fish we saw down there, including one ling cod that must've been about 55 lbs..

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I did four dives today ... and they were decidedly fun dives. However, we also did three OOA ascent drills ... very nice ones, in fact. And I figured out how to clip off the SPG first time, every time (use the ring finger to locate and hold the D-ring while you clip off the SPG with the first two and thumb).

We also did some things that were decidedly not DIR ... like inverts, flips, and barrel rolls ... but hey, we were drifting the Tacoma Narrows ... it's play time. In fact, I was booking along reverse kicking at about 2 knots ... which is very effective when the current's doing all the work ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)