Anybody else encounter tech arrogance?

[chillyinCanada]

Aquacat8! I love what you said here:

"I am focused in pursuit of mine, which is to have fun, play, and feel at home in the water as if I were a fish or marine mammal, and forget I’m human for a while."

 

[John Bantin]

Pride comes before a fall.

 

[Lorenzoid]

If anyone is looking for corroboration...

I have indeed seen Bob post that many times over many years.

My Google-fu wasn't up to the task of finding the original quote in a Bob post, but the other guy's signature line came up in my search all over the place.

 

[aquacat8]

Aquacat8! I love what you said here:

"I am focused in pursuit of mine, which is to have fun, play, and feel at home in the water as if I were a fish or marine mammal, and forget I’m human for a while."

Thanks @chillyinCanada : Fun can be a tough training standard to achieve, but I bet you’re pretty expert at it yourself ;-)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I honestly used to see that a lot with nascent DIR fundies graduates. Thankfully it's become less of an issue and ironically the most vocal ones don't actually dive anymore.

Back when I was a newbie we had a group of DIRF'ed divers who used to like to hang around at the local training site and snicker at everyone walking toward the water with their snorkels and split fins. Us normal folks called them "The Posse". One of them was, in fact, my introduction to DIR when he made it a point to tell me the way I was diving was dangerous (it wasn't ... it was just different than what he'd been taught). Made my wife all nervous, hearing that and thinking we were endangering ourselves. As it turned out, one by one those fellows stopped diving and went off the be "the best" at other recreational activities.

A few years later I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and took a Fundies class. Some of my friends and many of my former students went on to higher levels of GUE and/or UTD training over the years. I decided after dipping my toe in that pond that it wasn't for me ... and went on take mostly NAUI tech classes, and to experiment with sidemount and solo diving. The DIR approach is a great way to dive, and a fine fit for Puget Sound conditions ... but it's not for everybody. Takes a certain mindset to dive that way ... and it has nothing to do with right or wrong approach to diving. As with everything else, it's a matter of personal preference.

Still got a lot of DIR trained friends ... most of 'em will happily dive with non-DIR trained divers.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

My Google-fu wasn't up to the task of finding the original quote in a Bob post, but the other guy's signature line came up in my search all over the place.

It was probably a dozen or so years ago ... he contacted me and asked me if he could use it ... I said "of course" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[drbill]

One of the things I really respect about our SoCal GUE crowd is that they are pursuing things that their special skill set allows them to do better than those of us who are not GUE trained. I'm thinking of their work on environmental issues like ghost fishing nets. When I dove the wreck of the squid boat Infidel (151 fsw) with them, many of us were narced to the point of not being able to focus on the tasks (mine was filming the critters caught in the net). The GUE crew was clear headed and got a lot more work done cutting off sections of the net.

In earlier days I was fine diving to 200 fsw regularly on air, but on that dive I had not been going deep for about a year.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

One of the things I really respect about our SoCal GUE crowd is that they are pursuing things that their special skill set allows them to do better than those of us who are not GUE trained. I'm thinking of their work on environmental issues like ghost fishing nets. When I dove the wreck of the squid boat Infidel (151 fsw) with them, many of us were narced to the point of not being able to focus on the tasks (mine was filming the critters caught in the net). The GUE crew was clear headed and got a lot more work done cutting off sections of the net.

... of course, they paid six times more for their tank fills than you did ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Lorenzoid]

Whew! For a minute, I thought this was turning into DIR-bashing.

GUE is apparently no longer like the bad old days (10 or more years ago at this point?) I have read about. Something else I might add is that simple goals along the lines of "to have fun, play, and feel at home in the water," as @aquacat8 put it, are not at all inconsistent with GUE training. I think I have MORE fun because I am more relaxed and confident, and can avoid or tune out jerks like the OP described, should I ever encounter one.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Whew! For a minute, I thought this was turning into DIR-bashing.

GUE is apparently no longer like the bad old days (10 or more years ago at this point?) I have read about. Something else I might add is that simple goals along the lines of "to have fun, play, and feel at home in the water," as @aquacat8 put it, are not at all inconsistent with GUE training. I think I have MORE fun because I am more relaxed and confident, and can avoid or tune out jerks like the OP described, should I ever encounter one.

Depends on where you live, I suspect. Up here we had TSandM and a handful of other prominent GUE and UTD trained divers who turned out to be super nice people. They took leadership roles as well as being role models to remind everyone that the whole point of diving was to have fun ... and that's way easier to do when the whole community can play together. This is one of my favorite pictures of three local divers ... two tech-trained and one fairly new recreational diver ... playing together. We had over 60 divers in the water that day, representing probably every agency that trains scuba divers in the Pacific Northwest, and everybody had a great time ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)