Very strange thread -- would you dive with me?

[Trace Malinowski]

Lynne,

This has actually been a very interesting thread to read. I'm glad you started it. To first answer your question, "Would I dive with you?" the answer would be an absolute, "Yes!" and it is one of the diving adventures that I'm really looking forward to in the future. In fact, diving with you and your husband in the PNW is second on my list of West Coast adventures with only great white shark cage diving taking pole position. So, I'm hoping that you'd be happy to dive with me and my girlfriend, Jen, when she recovers. We'd love to fly up there and hang out.

The reason is that I see you as the best of the community that you represent. I've had nothing but admiration for your common sense, humility, passion, and open-mindedness to learn and absorb what is useful.

You show a great amount of respect for those who have experience as divers and your posts reflect that you value their skills, opinions, experiences and choices even if they choose not to dive DIR. When such a diver makes a post, you carefully contemplate whether something has value or not and then comment - intelligently and respectfully. If anyone epitomizes what DIR should be about, it is you.

Before reading your web site, I, too, thought TSandM was some sort of alternative lifestyle choice, especially when paired with your avatar. I had a good laugh when I read about your horses. I really like your avatar a lot and if you change it, it would be kind of sad. I do believe you are "The Borg Queen" because you have certainly earned my respect as being the brains within the collective. I really think the avatar fits and I'm used to identifying it with your online persona. Please think twice about dumping it. Besides, it adds to the mystique.

 

[Kingpatzer]

I've noticed this ... but I try not to hold it against folks like Walter, Thalassamania and DCBC for continually bringing it up.

... but none of those are DIR, yanno ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

So use DIR/UTD/GUE/Tech/Cave/Commercial/123/abc/xyz/superspeciallytrainieddiver But I don't feel like typing that much. Yes, I realize that DIR does not represent all of the hard core training groups out there. It happens to be the term Lynne used and I happened to use it as a shorthand for those highly trained people who feel the need to continually derride the training and skills of anyone not approaching their elite diver image.

My point is not focused on DIR and I apologize for using that term specifically. Insert whatever term you want to represent those on this board (and in real life) who can't simply recognize that recreational divers might just want to have fun diving instead of taking under water demolition classes and doing drills every time they hit the water in order to prevent their inevitable ghastly demise at the terrible forces of nature and frequent catastrophic equipment failures that assail them at every turn as they engage in this incredibly deadly sport that should only be reserved for the most supremely skilled practitioners.

Which, I recognize, in no way represents Lynne, excepting perhaps in how she judges her own diving. But given the frequency of such comments here, I think it is a possible reason people might be unwilling to take up Lynne on her generous offers.

And I have no idea what she could do to effectively distance herself from those attitudes as they are expressed here on a daily basis while also using this forum to talk about her own diving experiences and how she is progressing on her chosen path as a diver. Unlike quite a few of the posters the above is meant to represent, she does legitimately try to express the fun she has diving -- thought it is often somewhat hidden behind her self-critiques. It does occasionally come across as she dives to perfect diving.
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[Peter Guy]

Trace -- one of our spare bedrooms is ready for you on 5 minutes (or less) notice!

BUT, I'd be intimidated to dive with you! Geesh, you have so much training, so much knowledge and such an exalted position as the training director of PDIC (not to mention your scary Avatar and strange screen name ). I'm such a newbie I'm afraid you'd constantly be evaluating me........

A serious comment about training, especially "technical training" and its relationship to "recreational" diving. I'm a HUGE believer that "technical training" (almost regardless of how "bad" it might be) will make just about anyone a much "better" recreational diver -- and better in the sense of more confident and more adaptable to environmental changes/differences. I liken the effect of technical training to recreational diving to the effect IFR training had to my VFR flying. Getting my IFR ticket did NOT make me a good IFR pilot but it did make me a MUCH better VFR one.

You can become good at a physical skill, like diving, by just doing a lot of it (the experience path) or by getting good training AND doing it (the education path). FOR MOST PEOPLE, the education path is a more efficient way of gaining and perfecting the skills.

End of hijack -- back to the originally scheduled programming of fawning comments towards the Borg Queen!

 

[Gombessa]

So use DIR/UTD/GUE/Tech/Cave/Commercial/123/abc/xyz/superspeciallytrainieddiver But I don't feel like typing that much. Yes, I realize that DIR does not represent all of the hard core training groups out there. It happens to be the term Lynne used and I happened to use it as a shorthand for those highly trained people who feel the need to continually derride the training and skills of anyone not approaching their elite diver image.

My point is not focused on DIR and I apologize for using that term specifically. Insert whatever term you want to represent those on this board (and in real life) who can't simply recognize that recreational divers might just want to have fun diving instead of taking under water demolition classes and doing drills every time they hit the water in order to prevent their inevitable ghastly demise at the terrible forces of nature and frequent catastrophic equipment failures that assail them at every turn as they engage in this incredibly deadly sport that should only be reserved for the most supremely skilled practitioners.

Wow. I think I see a big part of the problem now. What you describe here is incredibly overinclusive and generalized, and probably somewhat offensive to people who dive DIR and work hard to make it friendly and accessible to others. DIR is a tiny, tiny fraction of the technical diving community, and defining DIR as people who deride others is not only wholly inaccurate on so many levels, but I'm sure you can appreciate that it's bound to draw negative attention to your position :shocked2:

I know you've participated in a few DIR threads, but I'm even more convinced that the unfortunate experiences you've had may have absolutely nothing to do with DIR at all, just random jerks using unfamiliar, technical-looking equipment.

 

[Kingpatzer]

It happens to be the term Lynne used and I happened to use it as a shorthand for those highly trained people who feel the need to continually derride the training and skills of anyone not approaching their elite diver image.

Wow. I think I see a big part of the problem now. What you describe here is incredibly overinclusive and generalized, and probably somewhat offensive to people who dive DIR and work hard to make it friendly and accessible to others.

This is what comes from writing a quick response, failing to edit it appropriate, and all before having enough coffee in the morning.

The sentence was meant to read as follows:

"I happened to use it as a shorthand for [-]those[/-]highly trained people. Some of whom feel the need to continually deride the training and skills of anyone not approaching their elite diver image."

I hope that my many other attempts to be quite clear that I was speaking of a few people (indeed, having said that specifically earlier in the thread and noting specifically that it was unfair to the majority) would merit a bit of leeway in having conveyed an unintentional insult in one particular response.

I certainly accept a deserved hit for failing to be more careful in my wording. I frequently forget that even though I only take a few seconds to write out my thoughts on message boards that they are read with scrutiny which would make a dissertation defense board proud. Which I have to accept as being totally fair since I tend to do the same thing.

 

[Herk_Man]

I'm staying out of all that other stuff but this does resonate with me. I have noticed that being "just a diver" seems a little passe these days and many people tend to need to jump from newbie to DM/Instructor and/or become tech aligned very quickly. Partly I think this is because of how SCUBA is currently marketed but I also think it speaks to the fact that people these days tend to want/need a title or letters behind their names in order to feel valid. Otherwise their opinion might not carry weight. Just being Joe diver isn't as impressive as being an ABC 123 MOTT 6 RB pilot - even though many Joe divers have thousands of dives to their credit. Sometimes it does seem there are a lot of overly qualified recreational divers out there. The same sort of thing comes up in terms of gear as well when some people insist that nothing less than top of the line gold plated titanium equipment will be safe for 30' rec dives.

I don't have anything against education per se but I also like to remember the day to day context I'm living in. You really don't need fighter jet training in order to fly a kite.

I'm just going through a similar experience as I have decided to return to school for a career change. In BC nurses now need to have Bachelor degrees and Physiotherapists need Masters degrees. Don't even ask about Prosthetists. Everybody needs to feel special I suppose.

None of this is directed at Lynne BTW, just some thoughts that the thread inspired.

I really agree with this. I'm a commercial airline pilot. To get there took many many years and many many flying hours. There were a lot of requirements that had to be filled before one was allowed to move from one level to the next. All of this put in place by the FAA for safety reasons.

Now there is a difference here, because an unsafe pilot jeopardizes other people. An unsafe diver really only jeopardizes himself and possibly his buddy. So maybe the requirements don't need to be as stringent.

But as someone that only dives recreationally, I don't feel the need to go get all kinds of advanced diving qualifications. Yet I feel that I have a lot to say in most forums because I have a fair amount of experience.

I guess I just want to echo this poster in saying that I think the requirements to move from one qual to the next are a little lax. Nothing makes a good instructor like experience.

By the way, this thread has been so hijacked, it's not even funny.

 

[Gombessa]

This is what comes from writing a quick response, failing to edit it appropriate, and all before having enough coffee in the morning.

Ah. We've all been there.

I think I've contributed enough to hijacking Lynne's thread. I'm happy to continue this particular discussion over PM.

Have a safe long weekend everybody.

 

[Kingpatzer]

A serious comment about training, especially "technical training" and its relationship to "recreational" diving. I'm a HUGE believer that "technical training" (almost regardless of how "bad" it might be) will make just about anyone a much "better" recreational diver . . .

I don't think anyone here really disputes that point.

The problem comes when more some advanced divers feel the need to presume for another diver that they need or want to be "better."

 

[TSandM]

Insert whatever term you want to represent those on this board (and in real life) who can't simply recognize that recreational divers might just want to have fun diving instead of taking under water demolition classes and doing drills every time they hit the water in order to prevent their inevitable ghastly demise at the terrible forces of nature and frequent catastrophic equipment failures that assail them at every turn as they engage in this incredibly deadly sport that should only be reserved for the most supremely skilled practitioners.

When I started diving, I loved going underwater, anywhere, to see anything (honestly, I still do). But I had a heck of a time with it -- uncontrolled ascents, buddy separations, midwater disorientation, and then the plain old "I can't sit and look at this critter because I can't stop SWIMMING" issue. The more I learned, the more fun I had. The better I got, the fewer things stressed me underwater. I'm a fervent believer in more education and more training FOR RECREATIONAL DIVERS -- simply because the better you get, the more fun you have.

One of the SBers I've loved diving with is someone who doesn't post much any more, and that's Charlie99. Charlie's not DIR -- in fact, Charlie has to make major mental readjustments to dive with us when we visit him, because he mostly dives solo. Charlie is just plain beautiful in the water, completely at home and relaxed, efficient and graceful. Charlie's a great buddy and communicates clearly. Last of all, Charlie enjoys his dives and you can tell that, even underwater.

All of us should aspire to that degree of comfort and that degree of adaptable skill, simply because it makes diving safer, more relaxing, and more dagnabbed FUN!

 

[Slamfire]

Lynne,

Given your vocation for mentoring and guiding new divers, have you considered becoming an instructor?

I think a problem with the way the world learns to dive today is a major conflict of interests between the student and the LDS/Instructor/agency. If you were to teach, you probably wouldn't do it for the money or to forward the agenda of an agency. You'd probably do it for the right reasons.