Why do you dismiss DIR?

[jimholcomb]

Originally posted by buff
First the name-Doing It Right. How can you expect a community with strong, rugged individuals to adopt a system that inherintly says "You're Doing It Wrong". Not the method to use to teach anybody let alone a group of experienced divers.

I shy away from any "one system". I find that technical knowledge inferior to knowledge of principles and laws that govern the situation. From some of the questions posed on this board and others I gather that many divers would do better to review and truly understand the elements of physics and physiology that govern this sport instead of worrying about where to put their dive knife.

The application of a diving system that works in Florida is not all relevent to one that works in cold water-or wreck diving - or altitude diving. The right tool for the right job and that implies that there is no one universal setup.

I disdain any group that feeds its ego by using the term "science" to justify its actions. Those divers in Florida are just recreational divers who have a system that works well for their environment. They are NOT scientists and the work they do is not of a scientific nature. They are recreational explorers who have developed a diving setup that works well for deep warm water cave penetrations and now are marketing it.

With all due respect to "buff", this diatribe is what I am talking about. He obviously has ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE of the work being done in Florida nor the DIR philosophy. And like many others is hung up on a damn name.

20,000' penetration at an average depth of 300' is recreational?
Science?? Scientists hook machines up to some of these folks to try and figure out how they get out of the water so quickly and safely!. Send an email to Tim O'Leary director of NAUI's Technical Operations and ask him his opinion of the DIR philosophy. And just for the record, DIR is a PHILOSOPHY which includes configuration, attitude, training and fitness - a MINDSET. Not just where to place a knife. Wake up, dude.

 

[Lost Yooper]

TRUETEXAN,

I never said there hasn't been a death of a DIR diver, only that there hasn't been a death during a WKPP dive since George took over. Prior to his taking over, I believe there were a couple (one was a cave collapse, I believe).

Buff,

Can you elaborate on what you are saying? What are they doing/using that won't work up here for wreck or ice diving (other than maybe the size of the bolt snaps)? What do you mean, specifically, by scientific claims they make? What is so inherently wrong with marketing/profiting from a safe gear configuration and gear and the training that goes with it?

I agree that knowing relevant and applicable physics and physiology is important. I also recognize that the mere name, DIR, is in itself provoking to some people, but I think it's irrelavent when discussing the merits or non-merits of DIR. Personally, I don't care what they call it as long as it works as advertised -- which it does, for me anyway, and the most extreme cavers on the planet.
I also agree that most of the members of the WKPP are not scientist, but they have done a lot in bringing about a better understanding of decompression physiology/techniques -- previously unknown to science and divers. Of course, they do a good deal of scientific experiments with water samples and such within caves too.

Thanks.

Mike

 

[SpyderTek]

Originally posted by jimholcomb


And just for the record, DIR is a PHILOSOPHY which includes configuration, attitude, training and fitness - a MINDSET. Not just where to place a knife. Wake up, dude.

You are absolutely right! That's why I would never go DIR, because it is a mindset. Just like The Moonies are a Mindset, and the participants in House Davison in Wacco Texas, and the catholic church, etc etc... Whenever one group tries to tell another group they are "thinking wrongly" you are going to get into trouble. Period.

Now if DIR came across more like, "Hey Spydertek, nice rig you got there but there may be a a better way to do that. Mind if I show you a thing or two?" I think the concept would be more accepted and adopted to various degrees.

Instead you get , "Hey SpyderTek, you're whole philosophy and way of thinking is wrong right from the get go and if you don't think like we do then you are a danger to yourself and others."

Now, I'm generalizing here of course. There are many "tolerant" people on the DIR side of the fence. Just as there are many "tolerant" people in the Catholic church. However, even allot of the tolerant people are often smiling at you and being nice to you while secretly tsk tsk tsking because they are pitying or looking down on you since you are going to go to Hell for some violation of their tenets.

I think you can see how you really can't "put aside" the attitudes involved when asking "why don't you join my group?".
Although, due to personality and likeability, no group could ask for a nicer guy than Lost Youper.

Apologizing in advance if I have offended any members of any groups mentioned or implied in this reply,

SpyderTek

 

[jetblast00]

Originally posted by SpyderTek

I think you can see how you really can't "put aside" the attitudes involved when asking "why don't you join my group?".
Although, due to personality and likeability, no group could ask for a nicer guy than Lost Youper.

That's the thing about most DIR people though, no one's going to say "why don't you join my group?" quite like a catholic missionary will seek out to convert a newly discovered country. They will say (for right or wrong) "You are doing it wrong, you're not DIR." and if you agree with them, you will change and join them on your own, if you don't, you will stay un-DIR (read: under )

 

[buff]

The folks in WKPP are not the first divers to dive in dangerous situations-they just market it like they are. I am much more interested in the scientific work performed by the British Royal and U.S. Navy. As I understand it they too do a bit of technical diving and tend to study diving a little more closely than "hooking machines up" to divers.

...."And just for the record, DIR is a PHILOSOPHY which includes configuration, attitude, training and fitness - a MINDSET"

and so is yoga.


Yooper-
I do like the SS backplate and webbing idea from DIR. It's not that I don't like some of their ideas and these ideas come from practical application in demanding diving situations. It's just that-well look how hot headed jimholcomb got in his response - it's just not rational it's almost cult like in it's beliefs. DIR does strip all the crap away and examines the reason divers dive with what and the way they do. And that's GREAT. But the mentality for questioning how and why divers dive like they do ends where the marketing begins. It's not that DIR is marketing a way to dive it's that they are marketing the ONLY way to dive for ALL divers in ALL circumstances.

Here's an example-and one that's close to my heart-My Odin.
I'ts not DIR, cause you can't open it without tools and clean it out. Well, cleaning out a reg. is fine if you don't have 7mil gloves on or worse 7mil neoprene 3 finger mitts on. Why don't you take them off then to clean the reg.? well the water temp is 34 degrees and by the time you took them off your fingers would be so numb that you couldn't feel the reg. in the first place! or worse you could loose your fingers from frost bit in that cold water. You now have opened your reg. you hand are so cold that you can barely feel them. You open the reg. and expose the actuating arm-you now can barely move your hands. You bump and bend or worse yet break the actuating arm. The reg. is toast and you are screwed. A better option would be to turn off the air to this reg. unscrew the Odin second stage and replace it with one of the 3 second stages you are carrying in a side pocket. No need for underwater maintenance - you just fixed the problem and didn't have to open the reg. or take off your gloves. But the latter is not DIR and won't be cause DIR is handed down it's set in stone, cause if it wasn't it wouldnl't be DIR it would be Doing It Reasonably which is the basis of diving to begin with. Now you've lost your marketing edge cause you promote thoughtful use and application of equipment-anybody's equipment not just yours. So what justifies your own equipment line-nothing.

 

[buff]

I applaud Yooper for bringing up this topic in such a refined and non-confrontational manner.

Just by bringing it up I can see that he hasn't joined the "Dark Side" of DIR but instead has embraced those elements that work in his particular diving environnment to fulfill his particular diving goals.

He is a man of reasonable, open minded, rational diver.

I have gotten a great deal of insight and ideas regarding diving from him.

WAY TO GO YOOP!

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by buff
Now you've lost your marketing edge cause you promote thoughtful use and application of equipment-anybody's equipment not just yours. So what justifies your own equipment line-nothing.

Huh...

Yoop this is like trying to herd cats....

With some of them going in several directions at once!

Oh well....

 

[jetblast00]

Originally posted by buff
... But the latter is not DIR and won't be cause DIR is handed down it's set in stone, ...

From George Irvine:
" ... The WKPP is not a closed organization. It is not a closed minded organization. If any of you can show me a better way than DIR and the WKPP team MO, I will adapt those principles TODAY. ..."


Although I do agree that it certainly comes off the way you stated buff, look past the people and the attitudes surrounding DIR, what's wrong with DIR itself? Concerning the attitudes, I completely agree with you, but the philosophy (yes there are many philosophies in the world about many things, including yoga...) this DIR philosophy makes sense to me, so I use it as much as I can without becoming a zealot myself.

 

[jimholcomb]

DIR markets NOTHING.

Halcyon markets gear aimed toward the DIR diver.
GUE markets training aimed toward the DIR diver.
DIR is a philosophy.

I do not own 1 piece of Halcyon equipment nor have I taken 1 GUE course.

 

[Uncle Pug]

From what I've seen so far here the answer to Yooper's question falls down into two distinct catagories:

1) those who dismiss DIR because of psycho/social issues

2) those who dismiss DIR for pragmatic issues

Helps me in sorting things out to break them down this way...

Perhaps you might look at it from a different angle...

But when you step back from the fray something else really stands out...

DIR has recently attracted a lot of attention and its successful inroad into mainstream recreational diving is producing an incredible reaction both pro & con.