Quote Originally Posted by Thalassamania View Post
I dive the most minimal configuration that I possibly can.

When we have a DVD that I can engage in a dialectic with then I will consider it as a replacement for a good human instructor. How you back that instructor up and provide more depth and breath, be it book or DVD I really don't care. BTW: I have not seen a black and white textbook in a long, long, time.

That is true, and I do not expect there to be a on-line system that approaches what I teach, at least in terms of the scope of the material, so the discussion is moot.
Forget about the business model of dive shops and resorts, it doesn't "fit" a rapidly changing environment like the Ocean. I see it kinda like the story of the oak and the willow. UTD and GUE standards are high, their student's skills are excellent, but their approach is rigid with a limited suite of "right" responses. It is sort of like totalitarian central economic planning, I refer to it as "cave blind:" the promulgation of a single "best" response, descended from the single "best" response of diving in the ultra stable environment of the Florida caves. I much prefer a non-systematized approach that is less dependent on gear configuration and specific technique and more dependent on establishing the highest possible degree of comfort in the water combined with more generalist approach to gear and technique. As someone who stands rather to the side of the whole rec, tec, DIR thing, I understand how the DIR self-congratulatory attitude comes about, but I fear that it stems as much from comparing themselves to the abysmal failure of much of the recreational community to produce a quality product, as from anything else.
You said it way better than I ever could have.