DIR 11 yrs. in the big making

For those of you that already plan on calling this one a Troll...Please don't waste your time. Just move on.

I've had folks here tell me that the DIR philosphy will take over the industry one day. I for one don't see this happening in the recreational world but hey...I could be wrong.

But...Use PADI as an example here because I personally know Ralph Ericson and his family however, I never new John Cronin.

Ralph is the Co-founder of PADI along with John. Ralph has been the President for quite some time.

My point.... G.I. brought the DIR philosphy big in 1992 when he became director of WKPP. He's had 11 yrs. to broadcast it. Yet it is still far...VERY FAR from main stream. Why is this... A very small percentage of divers out there are DIR or even dive a similar DIR fashion. Why is this after 11 yrs. of world broadcasting?This

In John's and Ralph's first 11 yrs. they took PADI from something small to the mainstream teaching for North America and Europe. YMCA SCUBA was still huge in those days but not as big as PADI had become.

Again..I only use PADI since I have the most experience with them and a nice history with Ralph. I'm also an instructor with YMCA, CMAS and NAUI.

This is not bashing DIR. It's simply wondering why PADI advanced so fast over a decade when DIR has not. The question is why?




GO BENGALS 2003

Open water classes.

I don't know the exact figure, but something like 80% of OW divers never take another or advanced class.

With DIR being technically focused for so many years, its going to be a while before they become PADI.

SS

ScubaScott once bubbled...
Open water classes.

I don't know the exact figure, but something like 80% of OW divers never take another or advanced class.

With DIR being technically focused for so many years, its going to be a while before they become PADI.

SS

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Good point

CincyBengalsFan once bubbled...
This is not bashing DIR. It's simply wondering why PADI advanced so fast over a decade when DIR has not. The question is why?

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My guess is that PADI has made it exceptionally easy for anyone to dive. Young/old, fat, and smoking people call all be taught to dive. Additionally, you can do it in a weekend course at some resort in your favorite tropical destination. GUE/DIR is much more selective about who can dive and their instructors. It doesn't have the mass appeal. Additionally, they don't have the advertising dollars (or desire) to market in the way PADI does.

I would characterize PADI's sucess as taking hold of a market when no one was really advertising or promoting it. They saw an opening and jumped on it....Sort of like Microsoft.

Eventually people will Realize that Microsoft is a PITA to do anything in, but it is very easy, user friendly, and readily available. I would characterize DIR as the unix/Linus user-group...people who know how to creater their own interfaces, and know why things happen the way they do. They know what to do when Windows just craps out to the "blue screen of death".

Anyway, that's my opinion.

I will also add high requirements. GUE/DIR Open Water will presumably be about equivalent to my Advanced Nitrox course through IANTD.

This means that students will be expected to have near perfect buoyancy, complete mastery of skills, etc. almost on the level of people starting tech diving or they won't have a GUE certification.

Ask Mike F., if you have a PADI course down the street which is far less "elite", albeit for far less money and time (especially time in this busy world) invested and somebody simply wants to get in the water that is where most prospective divers will go.

Hence, my prediction is that DIR/GUE will remain as a more "elite" brand of diving while the rest of us steal ideas from them that we like and use our own personal style.

To the PADI proponents, I will say that the size of the organization can actually be a hinderance to further success in pushing higher-grade dive instruction. But, PADI and NAUI are key to bringing in new divers and supporting the environment where I can get nitrox fills and diving supplies in several places when I travel even in remote locations. The shops and instructors wouldn't be in business for me to use at more remote locations if they didn't make money. They wouldn't make much money if diving wasn't as mainstream as it is now.

In other words, both sides of this coin are useful and should be supported. My personal standards are somewhere between GUE's ultra-high standards and the BASE PADI/NAUI/SSI instruction (which I believe trains basically safe divers, but not necessarily excellent ones). There isn't much GUE influence here, but I have seen a great deal of the other three organizations and know of excellent intruction and downright poor instruction in all of the other three agencies. It is difficult to weed out poor instructors when you have a great number of them, but an agency surely won't become huge with less than forty basically handpicked instructors. Pick your poison!

From what I have read, GUE intends to stay small and fairly elite. Their goal is NOT to become as huge as PADI or their level of quality control would be impossible.

PADI = AOL...even old ladies not fit to turn on their computer manage to get on to AOL... Insert pink finned fat chick here (or green finned fat dude) and you got the same thing.

PADI = USA Today. Colorful, everywhere, not prohibitive access, inclusive to a fault, 4th grade reading level. This isn't entirely accurate, as nobody pays for USA today...but you get the idea. If USA Today is McNews, then PADI is McDive.

GUE = building and hosting your own server. Significantly more investment in the output. GUE is more like the pre-chickifyed (read: color added, a house and home section and all that other chicky crapola they did last year to ruin the journal) Wall Street Journal. Specialized, tweak, targeted, inclusive to a specialty audience, surely NOT for everyone.

This isn't PADI bashing - I have my OW thru PADI. But their job isn't making compitent divers. My read is its their job to serve as an intro program to divers (in part to sell printer materials - magazines, binders, bookets, back packs, dive logs, etc, etc.) attempt to build a community (errr...Society) and then continue to re-feed the entry level machine.

PADI served its purpose well for me - it got me in. Then I waved good bye... or I would have except the OW factory (think mid-west Puppy mill) that "certified" me went belly up 6 months after my "class."

K

Mo2vation once bubbled...
McDive.


K

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LMAO...That's a great one....The entire post was great.

CincyBengalsFan once bubbled...
For those of you that already plan on calling this one a Troll...Please don't waste your time. Just move on.

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:moving:

Mo2vation once bubbled... This isn't PADI bashing - I have my OW thru PADI. But their job isn't making compitent divers.

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I think you're being overly harsh on PADI. Their intention certainly is to turn out competent divers. They just seem to have gotten so big that they don't have a handle on quality control any more.