DIR - WHY?

[telsa]

Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman

Why not come to one of the Discover DIR days if you are interested in finding out a bit more. All who have come to the ones I have done seem to have enjoyed the day out.

Mal

Hi Mal,

Yes I'll come along. Please drop me a note the next time you plan to run one.

Thanks

Rob

[Al_Star]

Originally Posted by Woz

Good points.

A question- the GUE "not for profit" bit- is that just the training or is GUE being used as a financing operation to push the Florida cave systems?

I wouldn't moan if it was as that's the way most people get into the diving "business"- selling tatt (in whatever form) to finance their own diving.

I'd certainly agree with the low bar set with commercial training systems out there- the industry is knocking out OW courses for next to nothing and tipping out poorly trained divers- just sculling gently round Stoney on a weekend will see gaggles of trainees in big groups which can't be effective. The problem is that as a commercial instructor, there will always be some muppet who will do the job for next to nothing just for the free diving. This drives prices down and means you can't spend the time and effort training divers properly.

Taking someone on a week long course and turning out a competent open water diver is a great idea.

We've been doing it in our club for years..... but we take 3 months !

GUE is very small - it doesn't really finance anything. It's not that long ago it took the step of having full time staff! Before that it tended to be something people worked on part time. Most of the courses and standards are written by instructors donating their time. They are able to teach the classes so can earn money that way rather than from GUE.

Its sad that dive training is devalued by people willing to do it for purely the diving. A guy who used to work for me went out to Australia to work as a PADI instructor - the first place he went to asked him how much he was prepared to pay to teach for them. Having fallen off his chair they explained they had so many instructors wanting work that they'd taken to charging them. Turned out people wanted experience so much they were willing to pay. Great result for the dive shop - they got paid by students and staff!

I doubt GUE's open water course will be popular but they don't care - its about setting out what they think is appropriate which the rest of the industry can ignore if they want to. Certainly if one of my family wanted to learn to dive I'd point them in that direction as I know they'd come away as very safe and competant divers. That's likely to be the only way that class could find students.

Cheers
Al

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by James The Badger

...

My Question is this, what elements of the system don't appeal to people?

I can only speak for myself on this and it is not a criticism of the system just a personal observation.

I already have all my own kit, a lot of which is not DIR (Custom Divers TDB wing for example) I cannot afford to change it all right now, but I could go more DIR over time as and when I replace stuff. This applies to the missus too. So reason #1 is money.

Also I am half way through my cave training and dive European sites and will continue to do so. There are some discrepancies between my current training and the DIR approach and I wish to complete what I am doing (and have paid for) before I review whether or not I could be more/fully DIR in my cave diving (or whether I want to continue paying large sums of money to look at boring rock ) Reason #2 therefore is is I don't yet buy into everything that the DIR system (as it stands at the minute) has to say.

I do love the pro-safety, team based, no-compromise attitude that the DIR system preaches. I think this is unparalleled anywhere else in sport diving.

Chris

[neilh]

Originally Posted by JamieG

Just a genuine question as I'm wondering what is it about DIR that attracted you to the system...

I stumbled across DIR shortly after learning to dive and was doing some research on BCDs. I found a discussion about jackets vs wings, came across some folk who used wings and had something to do with DIR and read a little about it. What I read seemed to make sense and after a chat with someone who sold wings (a certain Mr Walker ) I decided to sign up for the fundamentals course just to find out more about it.

Personally I found the course superb. Most of the academic stuff made sense and some of it made me realise that I didn't really appreciate what I was doing at the time. The in-water skills sessions also made me realise that there was a whole other level of skill that I could aspire to.

The in-water part of the course I found extremely challenging - but with 20 dives under my belt at that time I fully expected it to be tough

Originally Posted by JamieG

... and what is it that made you stay with it?

A few dives later and I've had the privilege of diving with quite a few DIR divers and you know what - I've had an absolute blast. I can't think of anyone that I haven't enjoyed a dive or some banter with and the ability to "shake hands and go diving" has been put to the test many times and it really does work. Sure it's possible to do this outside of GUE training as well, but I think the sheer amount that you have in common as DIR divers makes this far more comfortable. I know exactly how other people's kit is configured, how they'll react to different signals or an emergency, what gas they're using, what our ascent will look like, etc, etc.

I haven't found anything in the kit config, procedures, etc that has been a problem for any of the recreational diving I've done so far and the skills I learnt have definitely been useful. Consequently I'm now moving on to tech training with GUE and I'll see how that goes.

Originally Posted by Woz

Then they've developed it into a commercial enterprise to make some coin. Good for them.

As Al said, not quite Woz
GUE is a small non-profit training agency. The WKPP is the Florida cave exploration arm which I daresay has a degree of sponsorship, but I know there's a lot of folk in that team who pay their own way. Halcyon is JJs commercial enterprise

Originally Posted by Scu-bamboo

if you are a DIR diver - would you buddy up with someone who wasn't?

Sure, for some dives
As the complexity or risk of a dive increases then as others have said it's less likely. However for some shallower, min deco (or NDL) dives then I would - and have.

Originally Posted by telsa

I'm not a DIR diver. I have noticed of the few that I know that all their kit is generally of the same type and configured the same way.
So I was wondering, do individual divers have the freedom to use what they wish and configure it as they like once qualified?

Absolutely. The configuration and type of kit (wing, umbilical torch, etc) is a key part of the system and so you'll be expected to toe the line for any training - which is not unreasonable. Afterwards you're free to do what you like. Nobody is going to take your card away if you decide to put stages on the right or dive indies. However once you start to make fundamental changes to the kit or how it's configured then you dilute a big part of the strength of the system and make it harder to dive in the same way with other DIR divers.

I think what you'll find is that a lot of people really push the instructors on the fundamentals and tech1 courses to understand why things are the way they are and generally come away happy that there is a sound reason for it.

I don't think many people who decide to continue training/diving in a DIR stylee actually change much because it pretty much works as it is.

Keep in mind that the point of the system is not to have something that is highly optimised for one specific scenario, it's to have something that will work no matter what diving you are doing. To that end there are some compromises and sometimes slight changes made to suit the actual dive that you do. (No point taking an SMB into a cave )

That ended up being a bit of an essay - thanks if you stuck with it to the bitter end

[DarkMatter]

Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman

Why not come to one of the Discover DIR days if you are interested in finding out a bit more. All who have come to the ones I have done seem to have enjoyed the day out.

Mal

Hi Mal,

Could you let me know when you are doing one of these again as I would be very interested in coming along and finding out a bit more.

Thanks

Steve

[Clare Gledhill]

Organising another in Mid May in the South

[Brian of Aquanauts]

And I run quite a few but only for 4 people at a time, but I make a £50 charge for the day which includes kit rental, for twinset intros and discover DIR. If you're interested keep an eye on Ocean Explorers, The Online Technical Diving Centre - Home

Brian

[Little Naughty]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

But Little Naughty! I seem to remember you expressed an interest in trying a wing recently!

Me? No! You must have mistaken me for someone else. Not enough pockets in a wing. Where do I put my spare lipstick and blusher!!

[Mal Bridgeman]

Originally Posted by DarkMatter

Could you let me know when you are doing one of these again as I would be very interested in coming along and finding out a bit more.

Originally Posted by telsa

Yes I'll come along. Please drop me a note the next time you plan to run one.

Given the interest, I am planning another Discover DIR day in May ... please see the thread here and sign up if you are interested

Thanks
Mal

[tootricky]

Originally Posted by Mal Bridgeman

I agree .... only there isn't a formal "6m bimble with DM" certificate, it's 18m from the outset with 30m a dive or two later.....

Originally Posted by thehappychappy

Mal, Thats not exactly, True, PADI have an entry level certification "PADI SCUBA DIVER", the qualified scuba diver then has to be buddied with a PADI PRO (Renewed DM or above) and are depth limited to (checks Standards quickly) 12 Metres.

I DM'd on a couple of these courses last summer.

The first dives I did were as part of the PADI Discover SCUBA offering - I'm not sure if this differs from the SCUBA Diver qualification. This was basically a "6m bimble" but with an instructor following an afternoon of video watching and pool skills. At this stage I had no idea if I wanted to gain any qualifications, I just fancied trying it out.