Thanks for the reminder and prompting. In all honesty, what I got out of the show was more negative opinions towards DIR than positive opinions. Most likely those opinions are based on
misperceptions and not actual truths. My intent here isn't to bash on the DIR philosophy, but rather explain the impression I received from the show, and hopefully we can discuss those issues rationally. I pointed Mike to this thread specifically because there is no one better that can differentiate between what actually occurred, and what the editors of the show portrayed.
So let me jump to the biggest 'complaint' I formed out of the show.
First let me catch people up if they didn't see the show, and didn't pick up the premise to my issues from this thread. Mike originally arrived with his traditional back-mounted DIR rig. Due to the nature of the caves being dived, side-mounted rigs were determined by the team to be the way to go. Mike [if I remember correctly] was reluctant to go side mount, and when finally convinced to, decided to not change his wing to a wing that was better suited for sidemount.
The result was all but one diver in the group appearing streamlined in low ceiling caves, while Mike had a much taller profile with a taco-ed wing folded up, forming almost a fin sticking above his body.
So onto the impression I got of that. One of the heavy DIR tenants [as I see it] is streamlining. However running side-mount the way it was run during the show directly went against that tenant. DIR is supposed to be the one configuration that fits the widest range of situations. However it seemed the divers where in a situation where the configuration did not fit in the specific situation.
So what exactly was the problem that occurred? Is it that the DIR philosophy is too strict and stringent to be the best choice in all situations? Or is there limits to where the DIR philosophy can be applied to? Is the cookie-cutter approach to gear config a benefit or a crutch that prevents adaptation to other configs when other configs are better warrented?
I'm not really sure I'm conveying exactly what the issue is in my mind, and I'm probably just rambling on.
Perhaps a direct approach is better. Is there a DIR approved sidemount configuration? If there is, was that what Mike was using during those dives? If it was, why did it not appear to be as safe and streamlined as the non-DIR configs? If there isn't a DIR approved sidemount configuration, how can DIR be used to dive in situations where sidemount is a better configuration choice than your typical back-mount configuration?