trheeltek
Registered
I'd like to throw in a couple thoughts on this, because as a PADI DMC and a budding tec diver who's about to take a DIR class, I've gone through a lot of the same arguments with myself I see here.
First, I value all of my diving training experience, including my PADI DM training, because I learned from everything, and I'm a much better diver for it. However, I'm currently struggling to reconcile the approach to diving I learned recreationally with the approach I learned in technical training. What I think I've come to see is that for me, diving is diving. The mental approach I was taught for technical diving is the correct one in my mind, and that's the biggest problem I have with my recreational training, and what I don't see enough focus on from the DIR converts. I've read JJ's stuff and he seems to get it, but the herd, not so much.
I think the argument for DIR is weakest when based on skills and gear, frankly, since the average OW diver doesn't need the skills or the gear that a cave diver does. Sure, they won't hurt, but the vast majority of OW divers go down, swim badly, come up, and go home safe and happy. Someone used the license analogy, and it's a good one - you don't need to be Jeff Gordon to drive the kids to school. I was thoroughly humbled by my first (non-GUE) cave class, believe me, and I've got a Hogarthian doubles rig, a sore lower back from arching it, and a redesigned frog kick to prove it. However, I dove fanatically, and fairly safely, a whole lot before I'd ever seen a backplate and wings. A well-maintained set of recreational gear and a mature attitude are about all the equipment the average recreational diver should ever need. As part of that mature attitude they should work to improve, but they don't need to be perfect or even very good to have a good time.
I believe the biggest value of the DIR system (and any good cave/tech instruction, in my experience) is the mental approach to diving, the careful preparation and planning, and thorough knowledge of yourself, your abilities, etc. As above, the biggest problem is the approach to diving that is taught - or rather, not taught - in recreational diving. Ignorance is the real problem I have with dive training today, not skills. While lip service is paid to topics like dive planning, etc, the wrong things are emphasized, students don't practice the skills, and generally the divers just aren't mentally prepared for extraordinary circumstances. An example: which is more dangerous: 1) a rec diver who accidently overstays an NDL, notices, ascends, calmly does a few minutes of hang time as a result as per the tables or computer he carried with him, and surfaces with 800 PSI, or 2) a diver who dives to 130' on air with a single 80 cub. ft cylinder and one reg, who stays for the appropriate NDL time and then surfaces with 300-400 PSI, with no idea how to calculate how long his gas supply will last at that depth. I've actually seen divers in the first instance freak when their computer went into deco and surface immediately with tons of back gas, because DECO IS EVIL - or so they've been not-taught. I've seen a ton of diver #2s off the NC coast, getting back on the boat grinning with 200 PSI in their single 80, not understanding that a first stage failure could mean death. Both of these problems are caused because their training emphasized that time (i.e NDL) is the most important thing, when really, AIR is the most important thing. How many recreational divers know what a SAC rate is, let alone have calculated theirs? How much time is spent in class computing SAC (none) compared to how much is spent on the dive table they'll never use after they buy a computer (a lot)? Sorry, pet peeve, the point is, there were a whole lot of gaps in my training that didn't get filled until I went tec or self-educated, and they shouldn't have been so new to me. Diving is diving.
Anyway, I ran on a little long there, so I'll stop. This is a work in progress. I'm currently just a guy trying to figure it out for himself. If DIRfund changes everything, I'll come back and tell you about it.
:banging:
First, I value all of my diving training experience, including my PADI DM training, because I learned from everything, and I'm a much better diver for it. However, I'm currently struggling to reconcile the approach to diving I learned recreationally with the approach I learned in technical training. What I think I've come to see is that for me, diving is diving. The mental approach I was taught for technical diving is the correct one in my mind, and that's the biggest problem I have with my recreational training, and what I don't see enough focus on from the DIR converts. I've read JJ's stuff and he seems to get it, but the herd, not so much.
I think the argument for DIR is weakest when based on skills and gear, frankly, since the average OW diver doesn't need the skills or the gear that a cave diver does. Sure, they won't hurt, but the vast majority of OW divers go down, swim badly, come up, and go home safe and happy. Someone used the license analogy, and it's a good one - you don't need to be Jeff Gordon to drive the kids to school. I was thoroughly humbled by my first (non-GUE) cave class, believe me, and I've got a Hogarthian doubles rig, a sore lower back from arching it, and a redesigned frog kick to prove it. However, I dove fanatically, and fairly safely, a whole lot before I'd ever seen a backplate and wings. A well-maintained set of recreational gear and a mature attitude are about all the equipment the average recreational diver should ever need. As part of that mature attitude they should work to improve, but they don't need to be perfect or even very good to have a good time.
I believe the biggest value of the DIR system (and any good cave/tech instruction, in my experience) is the mental approach to diving, the careful preparation and planning, and thorough knowledge of yourself, your abilities, etc. As above, the biggest problem is the approach to diving that is taught - or rather, not taught - in recreational diving. Ignorance is the real problem I have with dive training today, not skills. While lip service is paid to topics like dive planning, etc, the wrong things are emphasized, students don't practice the skills, and generally the divers just aren't mentally prepared for extraordinary circumstances. An example: which is more dangerous: 1) a rec diver who accidently overstays an NDL, notices, ascends, calmly does a few minutes of hang time as a result as per the tables or computer he carried with him, and surfaces with 800 PSI, or 2) a diver who dives to 130' on air with a single 80 cub. ft cylinder and one reg, who stays for the appropriate NDL time and then surfaces with 300-400 PSI, with no idea how to calculate how long his gas supply will last at that depth. I've actually seen divers in the first instance freak when their computer went into deco and surface immediately with tons of back gas, because DECO IS EVIL - or so they've been not-taught. I've seen a ton of diver #2s off the NC coast, getting back on the boat grinning with 200 PSI in their single 80, not understanding that a first stage failure could mean death. Both of these problems are caused because their training emphasized that time (i.e NDL) is the most important thing, when really, AIR is the most important thing. How many recreational divers know what a SAC rate is, let alone have calculated theirs? How much time is spent in class computing SAC (none) compared to how much is spent on the dive table they'll never use after they buy a computer (a lot)? Sorry, pet peeve, the point is, there were a whole lot of gaps in my training that didn't get filled until I went tec or self-educated, and they shouldn't have been so new to me. Diving is diving.
Anyway, I ran on a little long there, so I'll stop. This is a work in progress. I'm currently just a guy trying to figure it out for himself. If DIRfund changes everything, I'll come back and tell you about it.
:banging:
