When did you go DIR

[Derek S]

Its titled "When did you go DIR"

I know, but DIR has become so generic, almost as banal as "Making a Xerox."

Besides, I don't consider myself DIR, I consider myself a student of GUE.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

http://www.gue.com/Training/Recreational/index.html

Prerequisites

1. Must meet GUE General Course Prerequisites as outlined in Section 1.6
2. Must be a minimum of 16 years of age
3. Must be a certified open water diver from a recognized training agency
4. Must be able to swim a distance of at least 50 feet/15 meters on a breath hold
5. Must be able to swim at least 300 yards/275 meters in less than 14 minutes without stopping. This test should be conducted in a swimsuit and, where necessary, appropriate thermal protection.

Thanks for the clarification. I had confused the prereqs for DIR-F and Tech 1.

 

[onfloat]

I had a buddy help me with my gear selection about dive 10 and hooked up with Marc Hall on Dive 15, took DIR-f with him at 25 and have been on the path ever since. I'm just past 130 dives.

 

[Vie]

Just want to know after how many dives did everyone go DIR?

I took Fundies with just under 300 dives and later completed Tech 1 in Feb. this year - I am still far from being DIR.

 

[H2Andy]

well... it's a complex answer for me

i first read JJ's book (Fundamentals of Better Diving) back in 2002? maybe 2001?

i liked what it said, and i tried to incorporate as much as i could into my diving.

then, the more i read about DIR the more interesting it sounded, so i finally
took my DIR-Fundamentals class last year (February of 2005)

i made a conscious decision that i would not call myself a DIR diver at that time.

i *love* the system, and there is much good there, but several things held me back.

first, i like to dive solo and i use a computer

second, it seemed that there was a great deal of emphasis on "being DIR" as
opposed to "being a great diver." while the two can be synonimous, they
are not necessarily so.

i know many divers who "do it right" and are not DIR.

 

[TSandM]

Well, I was thinking DIR without knowing it when my husband and I chose gear to maximize streamlining and to make sure we had the same configuration. That was at the very beginning.

I was getting even more that way as Bob helped me work on my trim and refine my kicks, and readjust my weighting. I also learned about passive communication and the use of lights.

I had about 60 dives when I took Fundies, and for me, that was pretty much the minimum that would have made the class useful and at all enjoyable. There, I had my first real glimpse of the team concept, which I continue to learn more about all the time.

It IS an evolution. We had a thread a while back about "What is a DIR diver?" and one asking, "Are you a DIR diver?", and if anything came out of them, it was that it's hard to define what a DIR diver is, and almost nobody is willing to call themselves one.

But you could probably define "going DIR" as a conscious decision to espouse the major components of the system: The gear configuration, at least in its central parts; the commitment to master skills; and the acceptance of the team diving idea; the commitment to improved fitness and health. In which case, I think Fundies was the point where my path really turned.

But I also think you can be "DIR" (however you define that) without doing any technical diving, so if the OPs real question is, "At what point in your experience did you start doing decompression or overhead environments?", that's a different inquiry altogether.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Is it wrong for his Fundamentals instructor to care about the health of one of his students?

Because I felt strongly enough in the GUE mindset and decided to take Fundamentals, I quit smoking a little over a year ago. I had been a pack-a-day (sometimes more) smoker for the better part of 15 years.

So yes, if my instructor heard that I'd been smoking, I'd expect a phone call. I don't just consider him an instructor, I consider him a friend. And a friend would step in and say something if they knew something was going on.

Besides, this thread wants to know when people went GUE, and smoking isn't GUE:

I know of two GUE instructors who still smoke, although not in front of their students. There is also at least one who is not in good physical condition. Being DIR is not necessarily synonamous with GUE. I first learned about DIR about seven years ago. I agree with all aspects of it, but I still enjoy the solitude of solo diving, so I will never be fully DIR.

 

[Mo2vation]

Catherine: I do not think you will make it as a DIR diver. Your doing it my way streak seems at odds with the folks who drank the Kool aid at less than 100 dives and took "fundies" and are now busy working on "trim" and back kicks etc. You seem a bit more free minded.

You make this sound like its a bad thing.

In fact, this is one of the major things that separate us Kool-aid drinkers from divers that look on, arms folded and eyes rolling.

You hit it right on the head here. We are WORKING on trim and back kicks, etc.

"Working on" being the operative phrase.

We practice. This is not to the detrement of a fun dive. The two co-exist quite nicely. We practice. Personally, I enjoy the drills, the practice, the knowing that I am increasing my precision, my watermanship. These, to me, are part of becoming a better diver. I like it. Back Kicking helps me immensely (as a photoghrapher), good trim is important, etc. Solid communication is also vital. All of this requires practrice, or at the very least consensus. Practice is preferred.

We work on stuff. I couldn't have said it any better. Most other divers simply don't.

---
Ken

 

[snow drift]

I took GUE-F @ around dive 150 & I was a PADI dive master.
But I must add that their was also 3 in my class that had just finished OW 1 week earlier. I felt a little envious of them. I had to buy all my gear twice and relearn my skills over agine and unlearn the bad ones.:06:
I would like to be DIR but I love to solo dive:11doh: learning DIR dose not take the fun out of diving. If you are not having fun learning new things then you should find some thing new that you dont have to think! TV maybe

 

[RTodd]

I know of two GUE instructors who still smoke, although not in front of their students. There is also at least one who is not in good physical condition. Being DIR is not necessarily synonamous with GUE. I first learned about DIR about seven years ago. I agree with all aspects of it, but I still enjoy the solitude of solo diving, so I will never be fully DIR.

GUE instructors that smoke? Yeah, right. You are the one smoking something.

The relative recentness with which all of the posters here were exposed to DIR explains a lot of the responses on this board. It generally takes a while for everything to truly click. When I first adopted the system, which was long before GUE existend or even most of GUE's instructors becoming DIR, we dove DIR for technical dives and went back to being strokes for open water dives. In hindsight, it made no sense at all.

60% DIR just doesn't exist. For those that want to solo dive and engage in other personal preference activities, that is fine. However, you are completely missing the point of DIR diving - the primary basis of which is teammwork. Tidbits here and there of the gear configuration may marginally increase your safety and enjoyment of diving, but you are really missing out on what it has to offer.

In my experience, most people that generally approve of the system but don't fully get it/ adopt it, make up all sorts of excuses that generally boil down to, it would require effort on my part to change X. For instance - solo diving. It allows you to get in the water more. But, if you found a truly good DIR teammate to dive with, the increased enjoyment of true team dives alone, not to mention the increased safety, would end your solo diving days quickly.

Part of the problem with this is that, at the open water level, the increased safety, while there, is far less obvious because the dives themselves are relatively safe to start with. Just look at the relative safe track record of the recreational diving community where bozo activity is the norm.