DIRF, A Sobering Experience

[large_diver]

Yoop,

Glad to see you back. You've been missed around these parts.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up -- very insightful. Of all the DIRF write-ups I've read -- "humbling" is certainly a common theme. To hear that you were humbled by the course, knowing all that you knew about GUE and DIR going in -- that is pretty sobering.

I can hardly wait to learn how bad I suck next month...although as a relative newbie, perhaps this will be easier for me to swallow.

To have the investment you have in gear, experience, etc., and then to be told you are falling short of GUE standards.....that would be a much harder pill to swallow.

BTW -- Ben makes a good point about making you feel like "crud". Was this humiliation conducted in a constructive manner?

Glad you are sticking with it........although the Apeks/Halcyon motherload fire sale on E-Bay would have been a sight to behold ;-)

Keep on keepin' on!

-LD

 

[tombiowami]

Thanks Yooper for the description. I am in the class with Oring and looking forward to it. My ego was pretty much chopped down in my Rescue class, so I guess I will have the stump left of my ego grinded down this weekend.... alas.


I have read other reports of people who have questioned their diving after taking the DIRF.

Tommy

 

[O-ring]

...and buy some bondage wings, deco with 80/20, and book some charters off the Seeker...

 

[GP]

Originally posted by ElectricZombie
Lost Yooper,

If you don't mind, would you please post exactly what they made you do? I'm very interested in the class and the skills involved. Thanks.

A group of divers from Minnesota here took the DIR fundamentals class back in May. Here is a link to some of the discussions.
MN DIRF Class

 

[Lost Yooper]

Thanks everyone.

Cincy Diver,

Roakey is right. I have the dive master cert. and it's worth about as much as the plastic it's written on. I knew that when I took it and knew it prior to taking this class. This class simply reinforced it. "Master" of what is what I'd like to know. I can assure you the instructors that I took that class with were saying exactly that regarding their own piece of plastic.

ElectricZombie,

The skills were pretty straight forward: kicks, air sharing, valve drills, mask removal (with eyes closed), etc. The trick was the trim and buoyancy control that GUE requires while doing those skills.

Ben,

It is critical for everyone to understand that the instructors did NOTHING to make anyone feel like crud. We took care of that ourselves. There was no humiliation on their part at all. We took care of that ourselves. There was absolutely NO abuse on the part of the instructors.
Yes, they worked exhaustively to help those who had a chance of getting better. In fact, I had individual attention several times trying to arch my friggen back so I could master proper trim and that back kick. I could have spent two weeks with Andrew working on that alone and may still never gotten it.

It was clear to me that the instructors wanted to be there, wanted to help, and wanted to produce better divers. There was absolutely NO feeling of economic pressure from any of them. It didn't feel like they were doing this for the money. There was an overwhelming feeling of mission regarding everything they were doing. This wasn't elitism, or attitude, or any of that BS we hear about on these boards. This was about basic skills that nobody in our class could do regardless of the number dives, types of certs, or type of diver.

LD,

There wasn't any humiliation or abuse on their part. They didn't have to.



Good luck to all who are going to take it. My advice is to go in prepared to fail, prepared to learn, and be prepared to ask yourselves if you have what it takes to practice until you get it. How much dedication do you have? If your an instructor or divemaster (or charter captain) be prepared to take a hard look at your morals because they will stare at you once you've finished.

Mike

 

[jbd]

Thanks for the informative and some what sobering posts. Your posts lead me to wonder if any OW cert training could teach this level of skill competence? Granted if you could make the class long enough ie 6 to 8 months maybe a year 3 days per week you could probably expect that from divers in general. How many would get into scuba if that were the case.

How many dives have you or anyone done that require that level of skill competence? Probaly not many. I know that most of my dives haven't required that level of skill. So the reality seems to be that a lesser competence level is in general acceptable for most recreational diving and probaly a fair amount of technical diving as well.

This does mean that one should not strive for a higher level of skill but neither should one punish oneself too severely for not already having attained that level when it hasn't been needed in the past.

You make a good point about the time and commitment to practice to this level of attainment. I don't know the wrecks in the Great Lakes but pick your favorite deep lake wreck and tell me that you would dive that site for the sole purpose of performing these skills. Truth is I doubt any of us would because we went to see the wreck not take our mask off with our eyes closed and replace it without losing postion in the water column by more than a few inches.

Knowing what you know now from this DIRF course; what specific recommendations would you make to change dive training as it exists now?

I know that I feel I have a lot to learn from you through this board and diving with you in the future.

 

[tombiowami]

From what I have read Andrew teaches the skills in his OW classes now and is designing a GUE OW class for the future.

Tommy

 

[The Chairman]

I completely humiliated myself during my ITC... didn't need no help! When you are being instructed by a dream team, you will always look pale in comparison. And, they make it look so stinking easy too! Remember, nothing takes the taste of humiliation out of your mouth quite like Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb pie!

 

[Lost Yooper]

JBD,

The problem isn't the skills that GUE requires you to do. Rather, it's the enormous amount of bad habits that you've started out with from which you base everything you do. Simply put, had I/we started out on the right track in the first place, such skills would have been significantly easier. Now, I knew of these bad habits prior to taking this class and had been striving to break myself of them for years. I succeeded in unlearning most of them, but I had no idea how far I had to go.

It will be interesting to see students fresh out of GUE's new OW program. It won't be as easy or as cheap or as fast as a PADI class, but I have NO doubt the quality of students produced will be stunning. Their biggest problem will be marketing.

Mike

Ooops, I didn't answer your question JBD. What would I change? The list is too long. The whole industry is screwed up from top to bottom and everything that supports it. It's a money driven industry and skill doesn't even rank on the priority list. It's so bloody obvious it's difficult to articulate.

 

[roakey]

Originally posted by jbd
Thanks for the informative and some what sobering posts. Your posts lead me to wonder if any OW cert training could teach this level of skill competence?

OW should teach you how to stay alive and “springboard” skills only. What’s very important is that it should lay a sound foundation, NOT teach you how to do things wrong, which is what standard OW training is full of. For a short off-the-top-of-my-head list of wrong things that OW teaches you:

Fin pivots
Vertical ascents and descents
Skills executed while kneeling
Descents that terminate with landing on the bottom
Lip service to buddy techniques
Fashion is your most important consideration when purchasing equipment

A shop that teaches OW must also show students the BP/wings setup as a viable alternative to the typical jacket BC setup. I know the markup isn’t as good and I know that you’re not guaranteed a later BC sale after they realize that they bought junk the first time around, but you’ll end up with safer, more skilled and happier divers in the long run and that profit is immeasurable.

Specific question to CincyDiver: Can you execute a demonstration-quality fin pivot?

Roak