What if DIR Evolved Elsewhere...

[Steve R]

Is it repeatably safe? I think the pertinent question is why are you stone cold on deco? Maybe you should look into one of those nice drysuit heaters if you've done all you can with thermal insulation. We have two at our shop, and have just ordered another. Seems funny to me in Florida, but hey, what do I know.

Because it was 32 on the bottom, maybe colder.

Hmmmmm, electric heater you say.............hmmmmm

Gimme a second <lol>

While you're waiting, explain to me why you need an electric vest in florida?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Who said gloves aren't DIR?

I believe he's responding to this post ... new one on me ... don't they use gloves in the caves?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SparticleBrane]

Funny...in my GUE-F class there was a video of (Bob Sherwood?) doing some demonstration stuff in the Florida springs...in drygloves.

 

[PerroneFord]

don't they use gloves in the caves?
... Bob (Grateful Diver)

They sure do. You need only look at the Halcyon catalog to see photos of Casey and JJ wearing gloves. Some of the support guys wear them too.

 

[Steve R]

............ Maybe you should look into one of those nice drysuit heaters if you've done all you can with thermal insulation. We have two at our shop, and have just ordered another. Seems funny to me in Florida, but hey, what do I know.

Here's the link to our version. Niagara Scuba - Heated Vest

38 yesterday, and with the Weezles I didn't even put the vest on this go-round.

 

[jeckyll]

They sure do. You need only look at the Halcyon catalog to see photos of Casey and JJ wearing gloves. Some of the support guys wear them too.

I'm pretty sure there are pictures of JJ teaching in jolly old England with drygloves on over on DIR Explorers

Pretty sure every single person in my fundies class (including Dan Mackay) wore dry gloves

 

[PerroneFord]

Neat. We've been using the Patcos. The new Golem one is nice also.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thal, not sure what the agenda is, but that program isn't even remotely DIR. I spent two semersters learning to dive in university program too. Learning in a 20' diving pool (the other kind) and having a huge amount of time for training does create better prepared divers. Plus, there is so much time that the instructors get bored and add giant strides from high dives, ditch and don in 20' of water, and other stuff like that described in the link Probably good for increasing comfort level (and causing some divers to wash out) but useless from a DIR perspective. It is simply what the old guard that originally learned to dive from the military does with its training programs.

I never said it was DIR, I said that it shared basic underlying principles. The program described is anything but current DIR, it is investigatory, open minded, inquisitive and experimentalist.

I'll get into the entire piece when I have a bit of time to write it up.

For the time being, here are some extracts from &#8220;The DIR Philosophy,&#8221; By Jarrod Jablonski. These could have easily been taken from any of our syllabi:

• A good SCUBA equipment configuration needs to support all of your diving whether that be an open water dive or a penetration dive inside a wreck or a multi-stage cave dive. The configuration must be able to adapt in such a fashion that the addition of items necessary for each dive does not in any way interfere with or change the core aspects.
• Diving with the same basic configuration allows the same response to emergency at all times while reducing task-loading due to familiarity . In other words, a good gear configuration not only helps solve problems, it prevents them.
• By achieving a configuration which is streamlined and comfortable to dive with, you will experience diving with reduction in stress and task-loading thus increasing your enjoyment.
• Strive to achieve a attitude where you NEVER accept any equipment situation where your own standards are compromised. Correct any equipment configuration problems immediately as opposed to waiting until the next dive.
• The next decade of diving will undoubtedly be full of excitement and prodigious change. Undoubtedly equipment advancements will continue and many exciting advancements are bound to grace the diving world. Yet, regardless of the level of change beyond the year 2000, two things will undoubtedly remain constant. There will always be new equipment for people to obsess over and there will always be people arguing over how that equipment should be configured.
• As pertains to equipment more is rarely better and the (Blank, Hogarthian, Scientific, etc.) diver be grudgingly makes additions to this minimalist attire. One should not take from this discussion the impression that safety equipment is dispensable and that the (Blank, Hogarthian, Scientific, etc.) diver intentionally accepts additional risk. Quite the contrary the (Blank, Hogarthian, Scientific, etc.) diver attempts to remove all possible risk by designing a holistic life support system that facilitates every dive. The risk should after all be a function of the environment and not the divers state of preparedness.

Now if you think that DIR is defined by a long hose or a set of wings or silly blue gloves, fine that&#8217;s your hang up and I reject it. If you think that it&#8217;s defined by thinking divers flowing the tenets outlined above, then we&#8217;re in agreement and just arguing about the details.

Your missing the forest for the trees, just as you continue to believe BS stories like the the "old guard" learned to use open circuit from the military. Perhaps that was true in Florida, I don't know, lots of weird and atypical stuff happened in Florida, a great deal of it as a result of scientific diving there having a separate "creation" in the late 1960s by NOAA with their S.I.S. program.

In California the military (Pt. Loma) learned to use open circuit from the "old guard" (Scripps) back in the early 1950s. Diving instruction did not get a "military" flavor until PADI started selling recreational diving instructor certificates to anyone with $25.00 that claimed they taught any aspect of open circuit diving in the military (and that's in the mid to late 1960s).

I don&#8217;t know what scientific programs you trained in, what with giant strides off the three meter board and bored staff, but that&#8217;s not representative of my experiences. Perhaps its Florida thing.

 

[SparticleBrane]

38 yesterday, and with the Weezles I didn't even put the vest on this go-round.

Heh heh...alllllright. Giggity giggity!

 

[lamont]

okay, we're not getting into the Scripps vs. DIR axegrinding in the DIR forum, so please take it to another forum...

and the rest of this thread is tending to highlight the axe grinding of the posters rather than highlight anything useful about DIR...

and i'm sorry i brought up the whole lighthead boltsnaps thing... that's my own particular axe, but i approach it with a sense of amusement and i've got loops on the end of all my lightheads...