DIR principles applied to OW

Hello everyone, I am new here and a fairly inexperienced diver. I've been reading quite a lot about the DIR principles since I live in the heart of DIR land! The principles as I understand them are sound, and I am looking to incorporate as much of them as I can.

With that said, I'd be interested in how to best apply the principles now, as an OW diver as I progress toward wreck penetration some years from now. I understand the undertaking, the time commitment, and the risks, so lets fast forward past that.

I don't have much of my own gear right now, so I will be buying DIR based stuff. I am already on the long hose and understand why. I certifed with a borrowed computer but understand my tables and am comfortable planning with them. I intend to do tables by hand for the next few years anyway, so no biggie there.

The biggest issue I see is one of redundancy, especially with gas management. In my case, since I am diving singles, we are talking about a single point of failure for all gas. For a DIR diver this would likely approximate an isolation on the manifold, and a mandatory turn of the dive. In open water, at recreational depths, clearly this is a common scenario. I am *assuming* that your gas management plan would require you to use your buddy or buddies as your contingency plan. If I am incorrect in this thinking please help correct me.

I am assuming that somewhere, some DIR divers are on singles SOMETIME! Maybe when out with the wife in cozumel or drift diving in the keys. You can't be strapping on twin 104s for drifting.... So how do you do it? I'd suspect you keep the bp/h, the spg, the fins, appropriate wetsuit, etc. And ditch the canister light, reels, doubles, etc. Do you still use the slates and wetnotes? Do you still manage gas on thirds? Or do you lighten the mental load when you are in 40 feet of water and hit the surface with 800psi??

This is my first post in the DIR forum. Be gentle with me. And though it says DIR for me, it's only because I wanted to be associated with the ideas of the group, not trying to pawn myself off as DIR. That will come soon enough.

Thanks...

well, i am not DIR, but i learned most of my better habits from DIR concepts
(through the book and the DIR-F class)

i would say the basic concepts are:

1. work on your bouyancy
2. work on your trim
3. work on taskloading while keeping your bouyancy and trim
4. learn as much about diving as you can. read everything.
5. learn the basic skills (mask removal, out of air, share air, etc.)
6. adopt the hogarthian/DIR equipment configuration as much as possible
7. take the DIR-F class as soon as able

i dove up to intro. cave with a single tank, but i didn't let that keep me from adopting
as much of DIR principles as i could (in fact, i just have 4 dives on doubles )

Hi Perrone,

Welcome to ScubaBoard. Andy types faster than I do, but we'd tell you the same thing. DIR isn't about which type of equipment you use. It's about how you approach, plan and conduct your diving - sort of a philosophy more than a methodology.

Two recommendations would be (1) read Jarrod Jablonski's text "Fundamentals of Better Diving" - available online here:
http://www.gue.com/catalog/order

(although if you live near High Springs, Florida there is a dive shop in town that has it in stock there. It would likely be worth your drive...)

(2) I'd suggest you take a DIR Fundamentals course, and let the instructor assist you with setting up your kit. The same dive shop could help you with that, if you didn't already have a handle on what you were looking for. Call Extreme Exposure at (386) 454-8158.

Lots of guys dive single tanks and still follow the same ideas.

Best of luck,

Doc

For single tank diving your redundant gas is on your buddy's back.

DIR is all about team diving, so that means that you should be able to rely on your buddy's gas as much as you could rely on manifolded doubles. Good team contact, awareness, responsiveness, good maintenance of equipment, and maintenance of adequate gas reserves are all practices which will fall out of these requirements.

As has been pointed out, it's not a matter of equipment (though that is important) as it is attitude. I've only seen one DIR diver in a doubles rig personally so far. And he switched to a singles rig the next day... of course most shore diving in my area you have about 60 minutes on an AL80 .... or more...

thanks for the quick replies. After I posted that, I realized that it would be incredibly simple to use an H or V valve to get 1st stage redundancy on the single tank. Seems a small price to pay for redundant air sources. I'll look into that.

The remainder of the DIR stuff still applies and is something I keep in mind everytime I think about how I want to approach my diving. From the outset back in '94 when I got my OW cert, I didn't want to be the numbskull out there with a console dragging all over the place, and the pink snorkel getting caught in everything. All my gear is simple, and black. And I bought the best I could afford at the time. It wasn't about flashy, it was about getting the best performing stuff I could.

After learning about DIR and talking to a number of cavers, and wreck divers, I have a far better idea of how I want to approach my gear, and my diving. The idea of running without a computer speaks to me because I prefer not to rely on computers. I work with them everyday, and have learned not to trust my life to them. I will take that mindset to open water. I am actively increasing my fitness to be better prepared for the rigors of diving, and will not step foot in the water until I can pass the basic GUE swimming test. I don't intend to be a liability to anyone else in the water.

The GUE book will be on order in a few days, I'd already seen it on Amazon. During the WKPP dives, I lived on the webpage as I had met one of the divers and was interested and amazed at what they were doing. Again, this project happened about 25 miles from me. It captivated much of the local diving community, though I was pretty clueless about the principles. Seeing guys hauling around a full sized van full of tanks and gear is pretty awe-inspiring even if you don't know what the heck is really going on!

I will take the DIR-F course this fall, when I have another 20 dives or so under my belt, and have regained some level of water proficiency and fitness. I don't intend to waste their time or mine by showing up unprepared. Fortunately, there are some locals who have taken the course and can assist me in getting prepared.

I am incredibly grateful for this forum. Though I am sure I will ask some asinine questions during my stay here, I will try to take the answers in good humor and in the spirit intended.

Thanks everyone.

One thing to keep in mind with Fundies is that it's o.k. to be a newish diver and take the class. In many respects you will be more willing to accept the fact that you have to make changes to your diving style. The more experienced divers have a harder time, because they figure they have it dialed. When a DM or and instructor takes the course the ego takes it all that much harder.

I have to admit it's a great class and most of us get our egos handed to us.

Umm, I could be wrong, but I think this guy is taking the piss.

A "fairly inexperienced" diver who got certified eleven years ago, who sounds like a pre-teen girl with a crush on her junior high chemistry teacher?

come on, guys, I laugh at some of the faith-based DIR divers, but this is a caricature!

Why condemn enthusiasm? What does it matter if it's been 11 years... if you shoot down a person for trying to get back into a sport we all enjoy - what benefit does it serve? The logic behind DIR sits well with quite a few of us newer divers... will we all continue with DIR? I don't know - but I'm much more excited and commited to the sport as a result of what I've learned through GUE/DIR... Plus I enjoy it more... and that's the point of a "Sport" ... to have fun!


PerroneFord: When it comes to some "dumb" questions, just look at some of mine... there's a good crowd here that is pretty patient... as I've discovered...so ask away

Peter McGuinness:

Umm, I could be wrong, but I think this guy is taking the piss.

A "fairly inexperienced" diver who got certified eleven years ago, who sounds like a pre-teen girl with a crush on her junior high chemistry teacher?

come on, guys, I laugh at some of the faith-based DIR divers, but this is a caricature!

Click to expand...

I'd like to address this, as it might help some others down the road.

I was 25 when I certified. I was a working computer professional (male). I watched underwater shows as a boy like many others and had a fascination with aquatic exploration. I passed the dives hop weekly, and one day decided, what the hell. I had the money and motivation, so I took the class.

Unfortunately for me, I was fairly new in my career. I got assigned a new job and had different responsibilities, and unfortnately spent many years being "on-call" for weekends meaning that I had to be within 2 response hours with a laptop. I've since moved on in my career where that is no longer an issue, but as I approach 40, my fitness has fallen away, and I have been reluctant to pull that dive gear out for a number of reasons. Family commitments, time commitments, etc. As I have recently spilt from my ex, I have a lot more time (and money) on my hands, and after thumbing through a dive magazine last month, I decided to pick the sport back up.

I realize most people who will post here will not share my life philosophies. I tend to follow a mix of Taoist and Zen philosophies. Believe it or not, DIR diving fits neatly into those philosophical principles. I will refrain from calling them religion because that is an issue open for debate. The ideals of causing no harm to the surroundings, the ideas of minimalism, the ideas of self-sufficiency, and self-awareness apply directly. These are principles I live by and I see the DIR style of preparation, and application as simply an extension of the principles by which I live the rest of my life.

I've spent dozens of hours reading about this style of diving, and the more I read, the more I am drawn to it. Unlike some, I am not a sheep. I eschew the "latest thing" and technology for technology's sake. I began college as a Mech. Engineering major. A discipline in which you are taught to question EVERYTHING and take nothing for granted. Nothing is proven until you can demonstrate it repeatedly.

As a person with only a few logged dives, I tend to try to absorb information from any number of sources. When a group of divers engages in risky overhead diving, and pushes the envelope as much as the WKPP divers did, clearly they gain knowlege beyond the casual diver, even the normal cave diver. The environment dictates procedures that produce repeatable results in order to stay alive. And I don't know about you, but when someone with 5k to 10k dives says, "Hey this is what worked for me, here is why, and here is how you can stay alive like I did", I make time to listen. I realize that in our sport, there are a number of people who know everything already. Those are not the people I wish to learn from. It's those who are seeking knowlege every time they hit the water that I want to associate myself with.

So my apologies if I seem a caricature to you Mr McGuinness. I suspect that I will not be a diver you'll choose to buddy with and that's ok. In the meantime, I will seek to become the very best diver I can, using the most expedient means available to me. A growing number of divers choose to do the same.

1000 years ago the earth was flat, 100 years ago man could not fly, 50 years ago man could not adequately explore the ocean, and 15 years ago no one breathed a 7ft hose. What is "right" and what is "true" is about where you stand in history.