Took the DIRF

[FLDVR]

Hi all just wanted to throw in my 2 cents worth on the DIRF class,
if you read the posts and try the techniques before hand you'll do a lot better in the class! I was completely unaware of the requirements and and rigors involved and it showed.

 

[Randy43068]

Congratulations!! You're right, it helps to at least know a little something before class.

Glad you took it! I'm going to re-take it this spring.

We're lucky to have a couple of really good GUE instructors in our neck of the woods.

 

[Randy43068]

Welcome to ScubaBoard by the way!

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

While I myself have no interest in DIR nor does the shop I instruct for we have a few divers that are very interested in getting trained DIR. So we've made the shop available to a DIR instructor to train them.

I'll be interested in seeing how that all works out.

I'm also interested in finding out if they have to wear special black underware or not too.

 

[OE2X]

I'm also interested in finding out if they have to wear special black underware or not too.

No we just wear black arm bands on our black drysuits. It's what sets us apart.

I felt the same way after fundies that it would have been nice to practice before hand. I think the new 4-5 day course will take care of some of that sensory overload.

Gratefuldiver was in my class and he had been diving with DIR style divers for over a year. It was still hard for him even though he had many of the skills down. If you perform the skills well, the instructor will raise your personal bar to show you where you need improvement. Remember the instructors are at least Tech2 and there the skills requirements are much more exacting. So the bar can be raised a long way...

 

[ppo2_diver]

I'll be taking the fundies class in June. The biggest obstical I feel I need to over come before the class is changing my over-achieving ways and be prepared to fail and ask many, many questions. One of the perks of my day job is that I get to find faults in theories, strategies, etc. So I will probably drive my fundies instructors crazy with quesitions. I'm not that concerned with my current skill ability because I want the instructors to show me what is wrong and how to fix it.

 

[ppo2_diver]

No we just wear black arm bands on our black drysuits. It's what sets us apart.

Isn't that an entaglement hazzard?

 

[Randy43068]

Men DIR divers need no underwear. We have brass B****** and no need for undies.

Unless it's undies for a drysuit. That's different.
*laughing*

 

[TSandM]

At the risk of injecting a serious note into this discussion, I would like to differ slightly with the OP. I think it did me a great deal of good to read the class reports (and I read all I could find). But I am also very glad that I didn't spend time trying to get the kicks on my own, because I was doing them quite wrong, and would have thoroughly learned a motor pattern that would have had to be overridden. Research done on athletes has shown it takes something like 2000 repetitions to solidify a pattern, and something like 10,000 to change one. Better right the first time!

The best things I did to prepare for Fundies were things to work on my buoyancy control -- practicing mask skills and regulator exchanges while hovering, and doing ascent drills. You pretty much can't learn those things "wrong", and buoyancy control was one of the two truly fundamental, underlying ideas for me from Fundies.

And the only underwear discussed was quilted and made of Thinsulate . . . but mine is black!

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

And the only underwear discussed was quilted and made of Thinsulate . . . but mine is black!

SEE! I knew it!!!!