What if DIR Evolved Elsewhere...

[Bob3]

I think this is something you might love to read


SCUBA Diving Equipment and gear for Technical, Wreck and Cave Diving: Dive Rite, Inc - Historical Timeline

There went a good 2 hours of browsing through the historical archives (instead of working); no wonder we can't get much done around here!~
For folks so inclined, the Historical Diving Society is always looking for a few (or many) good people to join up!
Historical Diving Society | Home Page

 

[jeckyll]

The reality is that "DIR" as a philosophy and approach was invented elsewere, decades before the WKPP, but the philosopy was not preached with a great beating of the chest and remained excusive to U.C. Divers and their offshoots. Credit Lloyd Austin at UC Berkeley for that.

I read the article. It should seems like a thorough and tough training program, but I wouldn't equate it with the DIR philosophy.

 

[lamont]

I read the article. It should seems like a thorough and tough training program, but I wouldn't equate it with the DIR philosophy.

Well, if you took that instructor, got a bunch of like-minded divers together and had them create a training agency and replaced the DIY gear with a company that manufactured it, you might wind up with something fairly similar. You're still missing a little bit of the 'pressure cooker' of the cave environment where the margin for error is so low that it causes divers to be forced to work together even more tightly. I don't know if you could get a bunch of people with egos that big to work together as smoothly if the stakes and the need for co-operation weren't high enough.

 

[jeckyll]

Lamont: While paying careful attention to the buddy was mentioned, it seemed to me the idea of a team was missing.

And the exercises, while they sure sound like they build in water comfort, didn't seem to be build on specific diving goals. One of the guys I dive with got certified with CMAS in europe, and he also tells stories of tough ditch & dons etc. *shrug*

Just my $0.02

 

[Gilldiver]

Well, if you took that instructor, got a bunch of like-minded divers together and had them create a training agency and replaced the DIY gear with a company that manufactured it, you might wind up with something fairly similar. You're still missing a little bit of the 'pressure cooker' of the cave environment where the margin for error is so low that it causes divers to be forced to work together even more tightly. I don't know if you could get a bunch of people with egos that big to work together as smoothly if the stakes and the need for co-operation weren't high enough.

You might as well ask 'What if Emile Gagnon and Jacques Cousteau had never met? An old History professor once said, History is what it is, not what you would like it to be. So with any of these what if history questions, it doesn't really matter, the what if didn't happen, what we know did.

But going back to the original question, You really need to add in the advent of the Internet as the great enabler. The cross pollination and development of Hog and DIR styles were greatly advanced by its use. If this were 1985, DIR would still be what some had heard about through a very narrow grapevine.

As for the development and/or perfection of many, but not all, of the gear and procedures, the cavers had the one great advantage over the wreckers, it is just easier to get to the cave and you can do it year round. Up here it is a rare time that we can get out on a weekday and we are at the mercy of the weather a lot more then cave country. It is also just about impossible to find a boat between November the May.

Then add in the individual factors, the yeast that makes the whole much more then the sum. What if we didn't have the divers like Exley, JJ, Irvine, Billy Deans, and many others? What if Doc Hamilton decided he didn't want to work with sport divers and we never got his mixed gas DECO algorithms in the early 90s?

 

[PerroneFord]

As for the development and/or perfection of many, but not all, of the gear and procedures, the cavers had the one great advantage over the wreckers, it is just easier to get to the cave and you can do it year round.

Please bear in mind I have no desire to delve into a wreck v cave argument. I actually love both environments, and prefer wrecks to caves, but I like freshwater.


While I would agree that we can dive the caves year round, and they are often fairly easy to get to, diving them is another matter. My very first open water dive was a wreck in panama city. I was in class getting certified. Actually getting to do your first cave dive is a much longer process, and a lot more involved.

When wreckers head off to dive a wreck, you know the location (for a known boat), you know the depth, and once you drop into the water, you know the general conditions. Diving a new (to you) cave is quite a bit different. You have zero idea of the cave profile, the depth, the openings, the linear penetration to get to something, etc.

So yes, we can cave dive year round. But the path of experience and gear to get there is another matter.

I'll relate something I said to a friend after diving the Oriskany. A massive ship at 888ft long. We were discussing the massive size of the ship, and he was talking about wreck diving. Then I said, "on my first dive in intro class, we did a 1100ft penetration into the Peanut tunnel. And then I had to swim back out. Nearly three times the length of the Oriskany, just to get back to open water. And that was dive 1.

DIR may have initially evolved from caves in Florida, but evolutions have come from caves in Mexico, Europe, Australia, etc. Evolutions have come from doing dives on the Britannic, Dives on wrecks in Italy and Greece, etc. I think those who view it as a "cave only" system are missing a large portion of the picture.

TS&M mentions DIR being built around scooters. The WKPP didn't have scooters at the outset. They were swimming everywhere. Scooters and the change in configuration were made to accommodate. The WKPP for many years did not use rebreathers. But that again, forced an evolution in DIR at that level.

It's a system that's evolved over a fairly good period of time, and a wide variety of environments. And I think that is why it has an influence on technical diving outside of all proportion to the people using the system.

 

[OneBrightGator]

But going back to the original question, You really need to add in the advent of the Internet as the great enabler. The cross pollination and development of Hog and DIR styles were greatly advanced by its use. If this were 1985, DIR would still be what some had heard about through a very narrow grapevine.

I would say that has had more of an effect on DIR then the development location, wether it was good effect or bad is another good question.

DIR is a universal system, so I don't think the location would have made a difference. It was built to dive in the most demanding environments in the world, that trumps it's location of origin as far as developmental effects go.

 

[Thalassamania]

Well, if you took that instructor, got a bunch of like-minded divers together

You mean like, Lloyd Austin and Jim Stewart and Glen Egstrom and Lee Somers and John Henie and Mark Flahan and the DSO's at most of the major academic institutions?

and had them create a training agency

You mean like the consensual standards of AAUS?

and replaced the DIY gear with a company that manufactured it, you might wind up with something fairly similar.

Actally all the DIY gear is available from a manufacturer, but we'd rather our divers know how to get their hands dirty.

You're still missing a little bit of the 'pressure cooker' of the cave environment where the margin for error is so low that it causes divers to be forced to work together even more tightly.

I'd say that our courses and working enrironment(s) more than meet that spec.

I don't know if you could get a bunch of people with egos that big to work together as smoothly if the stakes and the need for co-operation weren't high enough.

But we've been doing just that with no ego problmes of any significance, and much more riding on the dives, since 1951.

 

[grazie42]

One thing that would be different would be the attitude towards thermal protection...
One of the "founders" of DIR is famous for having a talk here where he told a large gathering that gloves had no place in diving...maybe diving outside of florida made him change his mind...

"dir divers" who dived plura decided that neoprene drysuits where the "dir solution" to diving in that enviroment (there´s a report somewhere on the net where they explain why)...

 

[RTodd]

Thal, not sure what the agenda is, but that program isn't even remotely DIR. I spent two semersters learning to dive in university program too. Learning in a 20' diving pool (the other kind) and having a huge amount of time for training does create better prepared divers. Plus, there is so much time that the instructors get bored and add giant strides from high dives, ditch and don in 20' of water, and other stuff like that described in the link Probably good for increasing comfort level (and causing some divers to wash out) but useless from a DIR perspective. It is simply what the old guard that originally learned to dive from the military does with its training programs.

As for neoprene drysuits, these guys weren't really DIR then.

If you guys want to keep it on the original topic, fine. But the stuff that is completely off from DIR will just get the thread closed.