DIR Name Proliferation and its Meaning

[boulderjohn]

This is an offshoot of a discussion that started in the Wikipedia thread but was really off topic. I don't know how accurate the title of the thread is to what I hope to discuss--it's the best I can do. I actually want to talk about several related things, and I will separate each of them with different posts. They really all mesh together, though.

The impetus came when a poster found an advertisement for a TDI course titled Intro to DIR. The person posting it was surprised, as was, I imagine just about everyone else who saw it. I think everyone knows that historically TDI and DIR were not exactly brethren, and to see a TDI course with that title is surprising.

The first point is to ask a very real question: what is to prevent any agency from using the term DIR in its marketing? The name is not registered, and I believe GUE has actually stopped using it. (My DIR background is UTD, and I have no GUE experience per se beyond a very interesting email conversation I had with JJ and some experience as an EE customer.) UTD is still using the term, although it has been usually writing it UTD/DIR. (I am no longer a UTD member, so I am not in on their latest work.) Why couldn't any other agency create a course that teaches what they perceive to be DIR principles?

What would that mean if they did? It seems to me it would mean that DIR has become a name in the public domain. Years ago only Bayer could market a product named aspirin; now anyone can. The difference is that the formula for aspirin is clear. If one company makes it, the contents should be the same as another. With scuba instruction, someone could create a course called Intro to DIR that almost no resemblance to what DIR was historically.

Does this kind of proliferation make the name meaningless?

[TSandM]

Yes. I think JJ has summed it up neatly:

The unavoidable division of DIR is the result of many factors, ranging from breakdowns in channels of communication, to differing interpretations, to personal agendas, to private experiences, to power plays, to simple disagreements among proponents. As individuals and groups appropriate DIR they will often make choices very different from those that I and other founders of D IR would have made. It is now necessary for us to recognize that DIR will be repurposed by those it has influenced in ways that serve their own interests. Nonetheless, in the end, I believe that these systems that appropriate DIR can only benefit the future of the diving industry. Even so, I believe that to enhance the safety, fun and efficiency we sought to ensure when we first started to build DIR, it is necessary for us to ensure greater standardization across a series of domains.
From the outset I believed that a diver's training, his/her equipment, his/her configuration, his/her knowledge and skill set should all contribute to greater safety and enjoyment in the water. For this reason, I founded GUE. The DIR system is at the core of GUE training. This is not surprising, given the extent to which my efforts helped to shape both DIR and GUE. However, with the passage of time, GUE has shaped its own identity, one that is not identical to that of DIR. And though being DIRis a necessary condition of being a GUE diver, it is not a sufficient condition; it is not enough. There is more to being a GUE diver than being DIR, among other things, it entails a standardized measure of competence (training) and commitment to both civility and non-smoking, aspects to which DIR in-itself does not speak. Over time, GUE Vice-President and long-time DIR supporter Dr. Panos Alexakos and I came to see that there was really no way to reign in the particular interpretations of the ever-growing numbers of DIR advocates and that it would be a waste of resources and energy to struggle with them over the correct interpretation of DIR. With this in mind, we have struck out on a new road, a distinctly GUE road that looks fondly upon DIR as the foundation that can empower the organization toward a new and unique future.

[boulderjohn]

In this post I am going to talk about what the specific implications of TDI naming a course Intro to DIR.

I am assuming, first of all, that the course must be something like a PADI Distinctive Specialty, a course created by an individual instructor and given the approval of the agency to be offered by that specific instructor. I don't see the course listed on the official TDI web site.

I have some insight into this issue because of my personal history. I started tech instruction with TDI and then crossed over to UTD when the agency was created and my TDI instructor joined it. I had to redo a lot of my TDI instruction to conform to UTD standards in the crossover, and then added new UTD certifications. In time I came to the conclusion that for purely practical reasons related in large part to the low number of appropriate UTD instructors and my own personal situation, I needed to cross back to TDI for my advanced trimix certification. I was not unhappy with my previous training--it was a simply circumstances that would take too long to explain here.

The TDI course manuals and courses are to a degree a lesson in history. The trimix book (which includes the extended range/deep air course that I did not take) includes several sections that anyone who knows DIR will read as a direct attack on it. There is even an unmistakable slap at GI3 himself. It has a number of recommendations (key word) that are not consistent with DIR. The book was written in 2002. Only two years later the Advanced Trimix book was written. It has a very different writing style, and it does not have any clear attacks on DIR at all. Its recommendations include some that are different from the trimix book and more in keeping with DIR. For example, the Trimix book recommends an END of 130 feet; the Advanced Trimix book recommends 100 feet. New books are due to come out soon, and it will be interesting to see how they will change. It is my understanding that the extended range/deep air course will disappear.

The word 'recommendation" is still where the big difference lies, and that is what I find most interesting. TDI still mentions a number of places where one can make a decision as to what works best for you. END is one. Deco on 80% or 100% is another.

I find that interesting because the idea of recommendations rather than edicts extends to its instruction as well. Even tough the manuals clearly say that divers can make these choices, it is permissible for an instructor to say the opposite. The reason my first TDI instructor crossed to UTD was because he had been GUE trained under AG. His UTD instructor trainer was also very much GUE in background and taught him accordingly. It was made very clear to our group that our TDI training was following GUE standards rather than TDI's. At one point we were told that we had already exceeded TDI standards but would not be certified until we surpassed GUE standards. At that point I was a bit miffed, and I contacted TDI about it. The reply was that this was not a problem. If a TDI instructor wanted to insist on DIR instruction for us, then that was his right to do so.

When I mentioned this in the other thread, Lamont pointed out correctly that the instructor had not had GUE instructor training, but that was not my point. My point is that these once diverse groups had come close enough together that TDI does not object to its instructors teaching those principles to the best of their ability, and it explains why a TDI instructor can create a course called Intro to DIR.

[boulderjohn]

Yes. I think JJ has summed it up neatly:

Thanks. I had not seen that. It says it nicely.

[boulderjohn]

So now I want to take this to a personal level. I am about to design a new course for the shop with which I teach. (I have actually mapped it out. in general terms; now I have to get specific enough for them to price it out.) It is a PADI shop with nothing but fairly beginning levels of recreational instruction right now, but they want me to take them to a more advanced level. I want to offer a class offering something similar to primer/fundamentals. (I haven't nailed it down yet.) It will have the same basic idea as that kind of instruction, the absence of which I feel forms a big hole in standard recreational scuba instruction. I am not sure about how it will be presented--it may possibly be submitted to PADI as a Distinctive Specialty.

So what do I call it once it is designed?

I certainly won't use the term DIR anywhere in the title, tempting as it may be.

It seems to me that we may be entering a new era in which some of the key ideas that were pioneered by DIR are entering mainstream instruction, both in recreational diving and in technical diving. As that happens more and more and as the distinction between DIR and other agencies becomes less and less, perhaps the need for a term like this will disappear forever. In that case, it will have served its purpose well.

[leabre]

I'm tempted to suggest it in jest, "Extreme Buoyancy Speciality"

[TSandM]

Well, are you going to require a Hogarthian equipment setup for your class? Or just a long hose and non-split fins? Or allow whatever the students show up in, and do what you can?

We have a NAUI instructor here who teaches a Primer-like class that only requires a long hose and non-split fins, and he calls it Elements.

[SeaCobra]

Well, are you going to require a Hogarthian equipment setup for your class? Or just a long hose and non-split fins? Or allow whatever the students show up in, and do what you can?

We have a NAUI instructor here who teaches a Primer-like class that only requires a long hose and non-split fins, and he calls it Elements.

That's a bit odd, why not just teach the NAUI Intro to Tec course?

[Centrals]

when a poster found an advertisement for a TDI course titled Intro to DIR. The person posting it was surprised, as was, I imagine just about everyone else who saw it.

Intro to DIR Rebreather. Do It Right!!

[jago]

The impetus came when a poster found an advertisement for a TDI course titled Intro to DIR. The person posting it was surprised, as was, I imagine just about everyone else who saw it. I think everyone knows that historically TDI and DIR were not exactly brethren, and to see a TDI course with that title is surprising.

I wasn't surprised. I would be surprised if TDI hasn't any "D.I.R." course. Their goal is to offer a all the courses divers want or need.

In this post I am going to talk about what the specific implications of TDI naming a course Intro to DIR.

I am assuming, first of all, that the course must be something like a PADI Distinctive Specialty, a course created by an individual instructor and given the approval of the agency to be offered by that specific instructor. I don't see the course listed on the official TDI web site.

I know 2 TDI instructor who offer this course : Pascal Bernabé ( Pascal Bernabé » DIR Courses ) and David Mayor ( Présentation. )

It is my understanding that the extended range/deep air course will disappear.

Several TDI instructors -- me included -- adapted Extended Range to become a sort of expedition diver class and forewent the deep on air aspect... FYI, the outline I developed for my old extended range course is the framework for a new course and book I am working on specifically for expedition and support team divers.

Intro to DIR Rebreather. Do It Right!!

I think the transferability of D.I.R. philosophy to CCR and SCR (including active SCR) diving would deserve a dedicated thread. My 2 cents.