Determining the future of DIR

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boulderjohn

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I read Lamont's sticky in the main DIR section related to topics that are considered trolling, and in one case he gave an example of something that used to be a DIR policy but is no longer. That means that at some point a decision was made to change an existing policy through some sort of decision-making process. That reminded me of a topic that came up a year or so ago as a part of a thread, and I thought I would chew on it a little here.

In the past, if someone brought up a concept that was not DIR in the forum, it was easy to just say that it wasn't DIR. Hopefully that would be followed by an explanation of why it was not DIR, but the point is that one could say definitively that something was or was not DIR because there was a mechanism that would determine that and define it with a clear voice.

Today both GUE and UTD are considered DIR, and I am not sure about NAUI Tech. There are points on which they do not agree, and on those points of disagreement it is no longer possible to say "that is not DIR" because there is no authoritative voice to determine that.

Let's take a look at the disagreement last year related to labeling stage bottles with MODs. Although I was not part of it, I do know that UTD's position on that topic was derived after an extended and at times lively email debate among its instructional staff. One could say that its present state evolved through that discussion, and somehow (I don't know how) a decision was made.

I have no idea how GUE's contrary position was determined.

There are other differences. I have been close enough to some decision making to see that policies are continuing to evolve. Decisions are going to be made, and more differences will evolve.

I am planning to talk about one or more areas of dispute in other threads. In this thread, I am interested in seeing how others feel about this.
 
At one point, I think there was at least a general consensus on what "DIR" meant -- it was what was set out in Jarrod's book and what was being taught by GUE. It was, of course, evolving, as they watched the system used in wider and wider varieties of settings, and learned from teaching classes.

When AG split from GUE, he was still pretty close to the same teaching, with a slightly more pragmatic and tolerant attitude, perhaps. (I remember Joe telling us that some things simply didn't matter, if they didn't impact the team -- dry suit material, for example.)

As time has gone along, precisely what Jarrod predicted in his essay on the GUE website has occurred. UTD is evolving according to a vision that AG has, and some of the things that are coming out of that are really hard for the rest of us to recognize as being consistent with the "DIR" we discovered and to which we subscribed. That degree of innovation may make the UTD system much more palatable to some folks -- the ones, for example, who want to use rebreathers and sidemount, but still want to retain some degree of coherence with other core principles. It will make it less palatable to folks who agree with the reasons why GUE didn't or doesn't use those things.

Jarrod said that offshoots would evolve until they were unrecognizable, and I think he was right.
 
Agree with Lynne.

I'm happy to recommend GUE training. For the most part, though, I'm just happy to be out diving (often) with a (geographically diverse) group that shares similar ideas about how to approach aggressive dives conservatively. The less I concern myself with agency "differences", the happier I seem to be. :)
 
Jarrod said that offshoots would evolve until they were unrecognizable, and I think he was right.

Makes the whole concept of a "DIR forum" fairly difficult to figure out as well.

At some point I expect it just needs to be thrown away and we'll have GUE and UTD forums.
 
I suspect you are right, Lamont.

That's why I started the Unified Team Diving forum on DMX -- but then, of course, the name got co-opted!
 
I think that "DIR" is just a marketing term now, unfortunately. We've got "DIR" CCRs, "DIR" sidemount thing, "DIR" protocols, shenanigans. I, for one, don't consider that stuff to really be DIR. Whenever I speak of DIR, I'm talking about the GUE/ WKPP/ MCEP/ EKPP etc way of things.

I can completely understand some regional variances because of local conditions (the dual rb80s of the EKPP, for instance).

On the issue of bottle markings, I believe GUE's position was derived from the WKPP's standards, and it just stuck. There are plenty of good reasons TO mark them, and no compelling ones NOT to mark them, except to save some $ (which is total bs, imo).

To change a standard, there needs to be a compelling reason to change. The hand tight thing is a great example. People weren't checking the fittings before each dive, and hoses were leaking. That's a real issue, and easily solved. Carrying a wrench covers the eventuality of needing to swap a 2nd while (virtually) eliminating the potential of an unscrewed hose.

But the big stuff, with the CCRs, the sidemount things, the bottle markings (one of the main tenets of mixed gas DIR diving) and the associated bs just serves to muddy the waters. The little things I can look past (you can put a bungee over the top of your light if you want, go nuts. Just like I'll have a boltsnap on my stage regs). The big stuff? Veto.
 
I don't see how ONE Instructor (even one of of Andrews skill and experience) leaving GUE and starting his own agency has the power to change the meaning of DIR. To me GUE = DIR before Andrew left, and still does today. Not to say that what UTD is teaching isn't reasonably solid diving practices (because I'm sure it is), it's just not DIR to me. It doesn't even look anything like the original DIR anymore. It's not evolution, it change for the sake of differentiation.

The irony is that UTD is still using the term DIR and GUE isn't. It seems to me that UTD has positively benefited from the use of the term in the short term, but are on the road to rendering it meaningless in the longer term.
 
Agree with Lynne.

I'm happy to recommend GUE training. For the most part, though, I'm just happy to be out diving (often) with a (geographically diverse) group that shares similar ideas about how to approach aggressive dives conservatively. The less I concern myself with agency "differences", the happier I seem to be. :)

The less I concern myself with names like "DIR" the better. I have a variety of buddies, we dive together, we have fun during and afterwards.
 
The big stuff? Veto.

Who has the veto power?
 
I don't think an single person has 'veto' power (my comment was tongue in cheek). But just because some dude starts running around calling things "DIR", doesn't make it so. Like I said, when I talk about something being DIR, I'm discussing DIR as taught by GUE/WKPP/EKPP/MCEP, et al.

If you start making significant deviations from the core system (and remember, the strength lies in that system), then you no longer have the same thing. Trying to call it the same is nonsense and leads to confusion (as evidenced by this thread).

Rjack, I like diving with a lot of people, too. But if someone says "yeah I'm DIR" and we show up for a dive with different gases, different configurations, different (or nonexistant) bottle markings...
 
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