What does DIR mean?

[Teamcasa]

I don't buy it.
You are pretty free with generalizations ... and making less than complimentary statements about people you don't agree with (DIR divers, for instance) ... and hiding it behind statements like "I have great respect for" ... when it's obvious that you don't.

Sorry you feel that way Bob, It is, nor has it ever been my intention to slam DIR or any other diving group. Obviously I have not communicate effectively my point of view and further examples won't help.

So why get upset when someone else tells you that those fancy expensive fins of yours are ... in their opinion ... silly? They're just as entitled to state their opinion as you are ... and that's all it amounts to is opinion.

I'm not upset in the slightest. I know the fins look silly but so what? I still like them. Just how is pointing out what I like about them any different than when others point out their gear preferences?

Chill ... it's your money and freedom to buy and use any gear that pleases you. Why should it matter what anyone else thinks of it? Put down the axe. It ain't worth grinding.

I'm chillin'

 

[Diver0001]

Actually not ... it's a term for an unsafe diver, as described by GI3 in this infamous monologue from 2002 ...

Well.... I joined scubaboard in 2002 and unless I'm mistaken the term was already well established at that point. I guess GI decided to lay claim to the term in 2002....

Nowhere in any of that does he say anything about needing to be DIR.

In the hey-day of the DIR-vs.-the-world war a lot of what we think about the DIR crowd now wasn't like it is now. It's changed. The people who call themselves DIR (or not-DIR) have changed. It's become a lot more popular and attracts a more typical cross section of divers/personalities. The debate has also changed. Some of the issues have changed. The attitudes have changed dramatically. The DIR camp has become immeasurably easier going on the whole and the push back on both sides has become less defensive and less likely to escalate. There have even been some tentative attempts at reconciliation but as you can see by the way we've dealt with it on Scubaboard -- ie making it a " no discussion " zone -- we're really still in a state of cease fire.

So the way you're describing it might be the way it is now or the way it is on scubaboard but it's evolved to that. Saying it's always been like that or that GI3 thought like that is revisionist history, Bob.

R..

 

[djanni]

I've been reading some this thread and chuckling a bit, until reading the "stroke" definition by George Irving in NWGrateful's last post. Then I remembered why most things DIR/GUE annoy me. What arrogance!

I suggest just leaving the DIR/GUE folks alone. Ignore them. They do what's right for them and for them, what they do is right.

Doesn't mean its what the rest of us should be doing or that its right for us. The majority of us. Those of us happy, safe and content doing what we do. Who cares what the DIR/GUE folks think anyway. The DIR/GUE folks should just ignore the rest of us too and then we'll all be happy doing what we do, how we like to do it.

 

[JeffG]

until reading the "stroke" definition by George Irving in NWGrateful's last post. Then I remembered why most things DIR/GUE annoy me. What arrogance!

LOL...What? Is it hitting to close to home?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well.... I joined scubaboard in 2002 and unless I'm mistaken the term was already well established at that point. I guess GI decided to lay claim to the term in 2002....



In the hey-day of the DIR-vs.-the-world war a lot of what we think about the DIR crowd now wasn't like it is now. It's changed. The people who call themselves DIR (or not-DIR) have changed. It's become a lot more popular and attracts a more typical cross section of divers/personalities. The debate has also changed. Some of the issues have changed. The attitudes have changed dramatically. The DIR camp has become immeasurably easier going on the whole and the push back on both sides has become less defensive and less likely to escalate. There have even been some tentative attempts at reconciliation but as you can see by the way we've dealt with it on Scubaboard -- ie making it a " no discussion " zone -- we're really still in a state of cease fire.

So the way you're describing it might be the way it is now or the way it is on scubaboard but it's evolved to that. Saying it's always been like that or that GI3 thought like that is revisionist history, Bob.

R..

How can it be revisionist? I posted, verbatim, what he said.

Nowhere in there does he say anything about DIR ... or even mention DIR philosophy ... or talk about how someone dives differently than DIR. The examples he gives would be considered unsafe by the standards of any scuba agency on the planet. Many of them are practices that evolved over the years within certain "camps" of well-established divers in various regions around the world ... well before DIR ever existed. In reality, he's not even talking about the recreational reef divers ... he's describing people who were diving in wrecks and caves.

You interpreted it the way you wanted to ... based on your own perspective of what DIR stands for.

What's revised ... really ... is your perspective.

Mine did too.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Teamcasa]

What I don't care much for are comments that ridicule other divers choices in gear. Do you think recreational divers coined the term poodle jacket, suicide clip, stroke, christmas tree or other phrases to describe something non-DIR approved?

I've been reading some this thread and chuckling a bit, until reading the "stroke" definition by George Irving in NWGrateful's last post. Then I remembered why most things DIR/GUE annoy me. What arrogance!

LOL...What? Is it hitting to close to home?

Really? Thanks for making my point so clearly. (Directed at Jeff, not all DIR divers.)

 

[Diver0001]

How can it be revisionist? I posted, verbatim, what he said.

Well Bob, it's not worth fighting about but I'll just say this and then stop. You did indeed post verbatim one article that he wrote. I can guarantee you, however, based on a large body of material that you did NOT quote that Irvine had (and probably still has) some very virulent things to say about "stokes" and although I feel it's a waste of my time to google the quotes together to prove it, I'm quite certain that he did/does believe that anyone who isn't DIR is a stroke.

That's what you were suggesting he did NOT say and that's what I'm telling you is revising.

Either way it's all water under the bridge. I think in the end even many DIR divers believe that the worst thing that ever happened to DIR was letting Irvine on the Internet.

At this point I don't care and I don't want to butt horns with you about it. If you see it otherwise, that's fine by me.

R..

 

[rjack321]

Well Bob, it's not worth fighting about but I'll just say this and then stop. You did indeed post verbatim one article that he wrote. I can guarantee you, however, based on a large body of material that you did NOT quote that Irvine had (and probably still has) some very virulent things to say about "stokes" and although I feel it's a waste of my time to google the quotes together to prove it, I'm quite certain that he did/does believe that anyone who isn't DIR is a stroke.

There are certainly ample historical posts where certain gear or gas or buddy stuff was described as "strokery". However I am pretty certain that those criticisms were considered to flow from the 'unsafe attitude' perspective that Bob posted. And so having a poor attitude has always been the root definition.

I dont think George ever had much to say about someone with an octo, split fins, console, and jacket BC doing a 50ft reef tour on air (unless they were damaging the reef with all their danglys). If people translated his posts on techdiver etc to their own casual recreational diving that was/is erroneous IMHO.

 

[BDSC]

So as I read along in this thread I keep seeing George Irvine's name coming up. I had never heard of the guy. So I do a quick Google on him and found this thread I thought was interesting. You folks should read it. IF, and I say if these are really quotes from him, in my opinion, he's a nutcase. Or maybe even a STROKE!

As the BBS Turns fix - From George Irvine III:

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well Bob, it's not worth fighting about but I'll just say this and then stop. You did indeed post verbatim one article that he wrote. I can guarantee you, however, based on a large body of material that you did NOT quote that Irvine had (and probably still has) some very virulent things to say about "stokes" and although I feel it's a waste of my time to google the quotes together to prove it, I'm quite certain that he did/does believe that anyone who isn't DIR is a stroke.

Rob ... I'm not fighting. And I wouldn't fight with you in any case. I have far too much respect for you. I hope you know that.

Furthermore, I don't disagree with your assessment of George Irvine. To my concern, he and those who attempted to emulate his behavior are largely responsible for the bad odor that came to be associated with DIR. But that attitude is NOT that DIR is all about ... nor does it represent the attitudes of the vast majority of DIR divers I've come to know and associate with over the years.

That's what you were suggesting he did NOT say and that's what I'm telling you is revising.

I'm not attempting to recreate George Irvine. I'm attempting to show you the origins of the term "stroke" and what it was intended to convey ... using the exact words of the person who coined the term.

It was never meant to signify "someone who didn't buy into the DIR system 110 percent" ... it was meant to signify someone who had an attitude or approach to diving that would make them an unsafe diver or an unreliable dive buddy. That would be the case no matter what style of diving you adopted.

Either way it's all water under the bridge. I think in the end even many DIR divers believe that the worst thing that ever happened to DIR was letting Irvine on the Internet.

I happen to agree ... but that's not what we were talking about.

At this point I don't care and I don't want to butt horns with you about it. If you see it otherwise, that's fine by me.

R..

I think you and I are having different conversations. Mine was focused strictly on the origins of the term "stroke". It doesn't, and never did, mean what you think it did.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)