Is mixing different brands okay to do?

[Eric Sedletzky]

What is "DIR Practitioner"?

He practices DIR style diving which stands for Doing It Right.

 

[diver0008]

He practices DIR style diving which stands for Doing It Right.

Ah. Didn't know that was a thing. Presumed it was a given, competences aside.

 

[Doby45]

Ah. Didn't know that was a thing. Presumed it was a given, competences aside.

Yhea you carry everything in a very specific way, carry out tasks in a very specific way and you use a broken off steak knife as your official dive knife. Oh and the blood of three chickens must be sacrificed upon the rock of abomination at dead man's point on the 3rd Wednesday after summer equinox while in the northern hemisphere. I have done this twice.

 

[DaveJo127]

Yhea you carry everything in a very specific way, carry out tasks in a very specific way and you use a broken off steak knife as your official dive knife. Oh and the blood of three chickens must be sacrificed upon the rock of abomination at dead man's point on the 3rd Wednesday after summer equinox while in the northern hemisphere. I have done this twice.

Baptize thyself in the name of the longhose, the backplate, and the WKPP.

 

[Lorenzoid]

What is "DIR Practitioner"?

"DIR" is an archaic term for the diving system promoted by certain organizations, primarily GUE and UTD. The term persists because nobody has proposed a suitable alternative generic term for that system, or at least none has caught on. I would prefer to call myself a GUE diver rather than a DIR diver.

 

[fnog]

Isn't a BPW only different from a standard BCD in that it lacks certain features like pockets, integrated weighting, and etcetera bells & whistles?

I dive a SP KnightHawk, and I can assure you that my folding snorkel, which is made of very soft rubber, barely fits in the "pocket" of this standard BCD.

Then again, probably a mistake on my side. I should get a SP snorkel, not a Spetton... and attach it to my mask at all times - it is so much more fun while peeking in small caverns or portholes -

Jokes aside, the S600 and A700 and the Luna are fine, but only if you get them with a hefty rebate. The Luna is in fact Uwatec, not scubapro, so you will be sligthly misnmatched. I bought recently a special anniversary edition of the S600 for dirt cheap. I guess none of the groupies wanted to be seen "wearing" a 2013 special edition reg in 2015. He he he.

 

[EricTheDood]

He practices DIR style diving which stands for Doing It Right.

Is there such thing as DIR/W divers? Or would you just call them DOS divers?

 

[fnog]

Another distinction is that, with a steel backplate or weighted single-tank adapter, the BP/W concept can place a significant amount of ballast right up against your back, near your center of gravity (or perhaps it's the center of lift--my physics is rusty here), rather than further away on a belt on your waist or elsewhere.

Your physics is OK but your mechanics is jammed. The two centers are not the same, and that is the very reason why you want a heavy BP or trim pockets.

The center of gravity is defined by the distribution of mass in your configuration. Dominated by the masses that have density much bigger than one, such as metals.
The center of lift is defined by the distribution of buoyant volumes. Dominated by the (varying) volumes that have density much lower than one, such as gases in lungs, BCD, neoprene or undergarments.

When those two centers are close to eachother, the two forces generate no torque. So you can maintain any position in water with no effort.

When those two centers are far from eachother, you have to create a counter to the torque. For example, if your center of mass is near your hips and the center of lift is at your lungs or shoulders, you will have to fin just to maintain a horizontal position. Fin less, and the torque puts you in the seahorse position.

In conclusion : the balast contributed by the backplate/STA is moving your center of gravity closer to your center of lift. So that in most positions you feel no torque or force pulling you away from your chosen position. (chosen either by GUE or yourself, that is

 

[boulderjohn]

"DIR" is an archaic term for the diving system promoted by certain organizations, primarily GUE and UTD. The term persists because nobody has proposed a suitable alternative generic term for that system, or at least none has caught on. I would prefer to call myself a GUE diver rather than a DIR diver.

In the current version of ScubaBoard, if you join a forum that requires permissions, including the "DIR Practitioner" forum, that forum gets listed under your name. There is a somewhat arbitrary hierarchy to those forum names. A number of people who have joined the DIR Practitioner forum have expressed concern about the fact that the label appears under their names. That goes back to the history of the situation, when there was a serious gulf between the DIR divers and the non-DIR divers. (You can get a hint of it by seeing the comments above.) Because of the gulf, a separate forum (actually two) was set up so that DIR divers could have a chance to talk about DIR principles without being harassed by those who opposed them. You have to join them, and when you do, you get the label automatically. One of the common criticisms of DIR divers was their alleged tendency to shove their methodology into the faces of others. Thus, the fact that the term "DIR Practitioner" appears below a name implies that they are of this "shove it into your face" mentality, when that could in fact be far from the truth.

 

[DaveJo127]

Is there such thing as DIR/W divers? Or would you just call them DOS divers?

Doing it wrong (DIW):