[Howard Payne]

Not much of a secret that I embrace the whole thing - but I believe (ignoring the arguement about which side you have them on - which I don't think you can - but lets ignore it anyway): The way GUE choose, mark, rig and deploy stages and deco cylinders, I think has a huge amount to recommend it. Likwise the finstrokes, trim and buoyancy are terrific as Woz suggested, just as two examples

As others have suggested, a lot of this stuff really only works well / has relevance / adds safety when you're all doing it as a unified team to use that horribly DIR expression. The dives I do with one of my regular buddies that I did fundies with are so relaxed and easy and fun that it really feels like its all been worthwhile. We still have the odd "Oh B*gger" moment but its not an "Oh Sh*t" moment as someone else pointed out the other day

I can confirm that scootering down the main companionway inside the Scylla is a "near sex experience", but I have done it without and it works just as well! :-)

As someone with getting on for only 120 dives - I really believe that I couldn't have got the level of in water proficiency and skill that I now have any other way. I didn't start out with a lot of talent - I'm not a "natural" in the water - but I've come a very long way in a short space of time with GUE and with a lot of help from other DIR divers. I started picking cherries then I guess I bought the orchard (a bloody orchard would have been cheaper I reckon)

A lot of GUE guys adopt the "you can't be a bit pregnant" all or nothing approach and I'm one of them for my own diving. But at the same time, I reckon that if other divers want to cherry pick bits that help make their diving safer, easier or more fun then where's the problem? George and Jarrod did pretty much the same thing when they set DIR up - so why can't you?

For me it's a basic tenet that we should all share the good bits and the scary sh*t for the benefit and learning of the whole diving community - regardless of agency.

Making public any new discoveries, regardless of whether they contradict previous best practice or accepted theory is one of the central guiding principals of GUE as an organisation anyway. If ultra tight, packet hugging speedos are found to be deeply gay and boardshorts become DIR - you'll be the first to know!