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Wikipedia article on "Doing It Right"
- Thread starter Rhone Man
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I think this is the direction the wiki article should take....discussions of "strokes" and other insults are not really significant in understanding DIR.
DIR or Doing it Right, as a style of diving, was created in 199_ by George Irvine, the then Director, of the Wakulla Karst Plains Project.
DIR was and is a team based system of diving, where all divers in a team wear the same type of gear , all use the same skill sets, where each member of a 2 or 3 man team, is constantly aware of the position and status of the other member(s) throughout the dive….Should one buddy run out of gas, the accident would be as much the fault of the buddies as the diver who ran out of air, because all in a team need to have the awareness of the gas reserves of the others. In DIR, the strategy is to proactively prevent problems by dealing with them before they become problems. Situational awareness was taught, mandated, and those who did not exhibit it, could not be on a team. If one buddy suffered a problem on the dive that caused their air/gas reserve to run down to 600 psi at a depth of 100 feet, while the other members of the team still were closer to 2500 psi ( lots of gas/air) , the immediate action a buddy would take would be to donate their own primary regulator to the low on gas buddy, and begin the relaxed ascent to the surface….the thinking being that this eliminates any chance of an out of air event during the ascent, and once at the surface, the low on gas diver can revert to the 600 psi they had left, to make the access to getting back on the boat much easier than if they were to do this sharing gas.
History.
In the 80’s and 90’s, there were rampant deaths in cave and deep ocean diving. The training agencies began offering technical courses in the mid 90’s that allowed them to profit from this interest in a growing segment of divers, but the standards of these agencies often contributed to many more deaths—at least this was the position taken by the membership of the WKPP. George Irvine, in response to the rampant deaths in north Florida caves, and the increasing trend for landowners to eliminate cave diving access to their caves, came up with a mandatory set of diving behaviors and gear configurations which promised to prevent the deaths so common in cave diving. As the close to 100 man team of WKPP divers ran thousands of man hours of diving without deaths or incidents, in dives far more demanding than the ones killing the masses of cave divers, the value of the WKPP’s DIR became more and more apparent to those who knew the history of the accidents, and the track record of the WKPP…More and more divers began electing to utilize the DIR ideas, to increase their safety margins, and to increase the adventures they could enjoy.
Irvine soon decided the increasing death toll was getting worse due to training agencies pushing for more tech and cave divers, and training them with seriously flawed gear configurations and mindsets….things like “every man for himself”—the opposite of the buddy or team based dive system of the WKPP, and standards which allowed all manners of gear choices to be slapped on the diver any way they wanted to, another huge contributor to cave diving fatalities as far as Irvine was concerned. A decision was made that to prevent more deaths, and more shut downs of cave sites around the state, Irvine and a number of WKPP members would begin promoting the DIR ideas on the tech list, on Cavers, and on rec.scuba. The ideas regarding DIR were often directly opposed to standards of several training agencies, and this led to a severely controversial style of idea articulation, in which something more like a WWF Wrestling Persona was used to drastically intensify the arguments, and to aim insults at what were considered the culprits in the training agencies or deep diving community.. These insults and intense arguments on the internet, caused tens of thousands of internet readers/divers to read the threads, both for the extreme entertainment value, and for the safety and adventure value understanding these issues better could offer.
Irvine created three Videos during his tenure at the WKPP, to show DIR concepts and diving in detail to people from all over the world that had read about DIR, and wanted to know much more. DIR 1 and DIR 2 were the major efforts to educate cave and tech divers, and were the best sources for a globally interested community, to learn about DIR, in depth….DIR 3 came around 2001, it’s purpose to show recreational divers that DIR was every bit as much for them, as it was for cave and tech divers.
As GUE began to grow in response to a global community of divers that were practically demanding DIR education, in person, Jarrod Jablonski began this DIR Training agency, which became the first DIR training agency, and to this day THE training agency of the WKPP. Prior to GUE, to be trained in DIR meant either to be “mentored” by members of the WKPP over years, and becoming a WKPP team member yourself---or, just watching all the DIR videos, and then being as DIR’ish as possible.
As 2011 is now passing, many of the DIR ideas of the 90’s have been heavily infused into the agencies which were antagonistic to these ideas in the past. Animosities still exist due to the vitriol Irvine created in the creation of the stage or drama that he felt was required to expose dangerous practices and dangerous deep divers. DIR is now promoted by GUE, in a much Kinder and Gentler method. The world of diving is now a different place also…the “other” training agencies are no longer creating horribly unsafe standards, and the tech or cave death rate is down dramatically. Jablonsky is soft spoken and articulate, and his style comes across very differently than the media persona style that Irvine felt compelled to use for the different problems of his day.
DIR or Doing it Right, as a style of diving, was created in 199_ by George Irvine, the then Director, of the Wakulla Karst Plains Project.
DIR was and is a team based system of diving, where all divers in a team wear the same type of gear , all use the same skill sets, where each member of a 2 or 3 man team, is constantly aware of the position and status of the other member(s) throughout the dive….Should one buddy run out of gas, the accident would be as much the fault of the buddies as the diver who ran out of air, because all in a team need to have the awareness of the gas reserves of the others. In DIR, the strategy is to proactively prevent problems by dealing with them before they become problems. Situational awareness was taught, mandated, and those who did not exhibit it, could not be on a team. If one buddy suffered a problem on the dive that caused their air/gas reserve to run down to 600 psi at a depth of 100 feet, while the other members of the team still were closer to 2500 psi ( lots of gas/air) , the immediate action a buddy would take would be to donate their own primary regulator to the low on gas buddy, and begin the relaxed ascent to the surface….the thinking being that this eliminates any chance of an out of air event during the ascent, and once at the surface, the low on gas diver can revert to the 600 psi they had left, to make the access to getting back on the boat much easier than if they were to do this sharing gas.
History.
In the 80’s and 90’s, there were rampant deaths in cave and deep ocean diving. The training agencies began offering technical courses in the mid 90’s that allowed them to profit from this interest in a growing segment of divers, but the standards of these agencies often contributed to many more deaths—at least this was the position taken by the membership of the WKPP. George Irvine, in response to the rampant deaths in north Florida caves, and the increasing trend for landowners to eliminate cave diving access to their caves, came up with a mandatory set of diving behaviors and gear configurations which promised to prevent the deaths so common in cave diving. As the close to 100 man team of WKPP divers ran thousands of man hours of diving without deaths or incidents, in dives far more demanding than the ones killing the masses of cave divers, the value of the WKPP’s DIR became more and more apparent to those who knew the history of the accidents, and the track record of the WKPP…More and more divers began electing to utilize the DIR ideas, to increase their safety margins, and to increase the adventures they could enjoy.
Irvine soon decided the increasing death toll was getting worse due to training agencies pushing for more tech and cave divers, and training them with seriously flawed gear configurations and mindsets….things like “every man for himself”—the opposite of the buddy or team based dive system of the WKPP, and standards which allowed all manners of gear choices to be slapped on the diver any way they wanted to, another huge contributor to cave diving fatalities as far as Irvine was concerned. A decision was made that to prevent more deaths, and more shut downs of cave sites around the state, Irvine and a number of WKPP members would begin promoting the DIR ideas on the tech list, on Cavers, and on rec.scuba. The ideas regarding DIR were often directly opposed to standards of several training agencies, and this led to a severely controversial style of idea articulation, in which something more like a WWF Wrestling Persona was used to drastically intensify the arguments, and to aim insults at what were considered the culprits in the training agencies or deep diving community.. These insults and intense arguments on the internet, caused tens of thousands of internet readers/divers to read the threads, both for the extreme entertainment value, and for the safety and adventure value understanding these issues better could offer.
Irvine created three Videos during his tenure at the WKPP, to show DIR concepts and diving in detail to people from all over the world that had read about DIR, and wanted to know much more. DIR 1 and DIR 2 were the major efforts to educate cave and tech divers, and were the best sources for a globally interested community, to learn about DIR, in depth….DIR 3 came around 2001, it’s purpose to show recreational divers that DIR was every bit as much for them, as it was for cave and tech divers.
As GUE began to grow in response to a global community of divers that were practically demanding DIR education, in person, Jarrod Jablonski began this DIR Training agency, which became the first DIR training agency, and to this day THE training agency of the WKPP. Prior to GUE, to be trained in DIR meant either to be “mentored” by members of the WKPP over years, and becoming a WKPP team member yourself---or, just watching all the DIR videos, and then being as DIR’ish as possible.
As 2011 is now passing, many of the DIR ideas of the 90’s have been heavily infused into the agencies which were antagonistic to these ideas in the past. Animosities still exist due to the vitriol Irvine created in the creation of the stage or drama that he felt was required to expose dangerous practices and dangerous deep divers. DIR is now promoted by GUE, in a much Kinder and Gentler method. The world of diving is now a different place also…the “other” training agencies are no longer creating horribly unsafe standards, and the tech or cave death rate is down dramatically. Jablonsky is soft spoken and articulate, and his style comes across very differently than the media persona style that Irvine felt compelled to use for the different problems of his day.
@ Danvolker, I like your text but one sentence seems to be biased.
I suggest : "Most of the courses of other training agencies can now beeing taught in accordance with D.I.R. philosophy. In some courses, all D.I.R. principles and rules have to be respected".
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Is there more one (like Agent Smith in Matrix reloaded) ?
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OK, now that is kind of funny
The serious answer though is that DIR is not about creating clones or Xerox copies or unthinking robots....
It is a series of demonstrations you witness, covering virtually every aspect of diving, from which you are given a vantage point where the optimal solutions are also demonstrated, and after the massive number of problems a diver can encounter, and the possible solution ranges available, DIR solutions prevail in the mind of the diver, and they gain the DIR mindset. Put another way...a person with no education in math may need to count their fingers and toes to arrive at an understanding of how much of something---- while a mathematician could calculate this immediately and correctly. What I am talking about is a higher level thought process, something 95% of all divers are capable of, many non-DIR's may "approximate" often in many areas......but with DIR training, it is common to each DIR Diver. The "team" aspect also must be understood exactly the same way for each DIR diver, otherwise optimal team behaviors can not be expected....this is actually why I am about to go through Fundamentals from Errol and Bob....even though I was a very early DIR diver, and have a high level of skill, GUE has evolved team behaviors beyond what we used to use in the 90's, and for many of the projects I will be diving on in the next year, it will be essential that I know exactly what to expect of each team member at all times, and they know what to expect of me....the communication part, the delivery, all the elements.
Peter Southwood
Registered
Hi Dan,
Your suggested material will be fine if you can provide references. This could be the basis of a better introduction section.
By the way, your name has been used in the article by someone who edited the article recently, and the assertions this person made have not been referenced, and are not verifiable by a google search. Perhaps you would take a look.
Cheers,
Peter
Peter Southwood
Registered
Hi Dan,
I will look at the video. If it looks useful, I will try to find the software you mention, as it will probably be necessary to refer back to it often to get the references straight.
Cheers,
Peter
I will look at the video. If it looks useful, I will try to find the software you mention, as it will probably be necessary to refer back to it often to get the references straight.
Cheers,
Peter
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