DIRF Trip Report
By O-ring
July 19-21, 2002 Raleigh, NC
Instructors: Jarrod Jablonski, Dave Sweetin, Mike Kane, Marc Singer (video), Chris Elmore (WKPP)
Day 1
On July 19, we rolled into Raleigh, NC for a DIR Fundamentals class hosted by Down Under Surf and Scuba. I was lucky enough to be taking the class with 2 buddies from the DC area and one buddy from the NC area that I dive with regularly, so we were anxious to see if what we had been practicing had been close to what was expected of us in the class. We had all read the books, Internet information, and watched the FifthD videos, etc. but wanted to get the real deal.
The class was supposed to start at 6:00 pm, but thanks to some speedy driving we got there a couple hours early and checked into our hotel. We quickly dropped all our junk, grabbed our gear, and headed over to Down Under to de-strokify ;-) our gear before JJ, MHK, and Dave got a hold of us. Basically, this mostly involved a few last minute bolt snap attachments, hose protectors, and a couple hose switchouts. Down Under was very cool and after we bought all our parts they let us use their tools and their classroom to work on our gear. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the local Chinese restaurant and headed back to get underway. At this point, based on what I have read on the Internet, I was thinking JJ and MHK would come roaring out of the back of the shop, take some sea snips to my gear, and be at least 7 tall. I couldnt have been more wrong they were absolutely some of the coolest guys I have ever met in diving and all the GUE guys that came up were equally approachable and knew their stuff.
While standing around in the shop, we met some of our future classmates and had a chance to break the ice a little. We were all shuttled into the classroom and were introduced to our instructors for the weekend. They were all really nice guys and we went around the room introducing ourselves and talking about our diving experiences. We had a wide range of people in the class, ranging from 6 months experience and 30 dives to decades of experience. Roughly half of the class was diving dry in doubles and the other half mixed wet/dry and diving singles. We had one student who had completed an intro to cave course with another agency and about half our class were instructors or higher with other agencies.
The first night covered the basics of DIR and outlined all the skills and knowledge we would be receiving throughout the class. We went through a bunch of PowerPoint stuff with MHK and JJ giving the bulk of the lecture. We watched videos demonstrating the skills we would be practicing the next day and finished up lecture around 10:30 or so. We were supposed to have all our dives at Fantasy Lake/Rolesville Quarry, but there was a lot of concern by the GUE guys about doing the class there since the vis was reported to be about 3. One of the main teaching tools that the GUE instructors use is video of you in the water to point out proper technique and to address deficiencies. The instructors felt that the video would seriously be hampered by the vis at the quarry, so they made a backup plan and we decided to do the dives at Lake Rawlings in Rawlings, VA (about 2 hours away). They could have easily just compromised the quality of the class and had the dives at Fantasy Lake (only 30 mins away). They didnt even when most of them were running on 4-5 hours sleep and had flown across the country to be there, they went that extra mile to make sure we had the best class we could. I was already impressed. We beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel since we now had to get up at 5:30 am and drive 2 hours.
Day 2
We met at Lake Rawlings around 8:30 am the next morning and got all our gear setup near the entry point. We spread out a number of big tarps so we would have enough room (Rawlings gets pretty crowded if you dont stake out a large area early on) to kit up and practice our skills on dry land. The first order of the day was exposure protection. There were about half of us in wetsuits, and not much time was spent on those. They went over all the drysuits in the class and looked at the undergarments as well. Good fit and functionality was the topic of the day and they had all the drysuit guys get in the water to get a little suit squeeze going on to demonstrate proper fit. I am glad I hadnt yet bought a drysuit, because this gave me tons of information to use when I start shopping for one. The gear portion of the class came next, and we all ziptied our first stages to our backplates and donned our rigs sans tanks. The GUE guys then went over each piece of our gear, but were nowhere near the gear nazis I had heard about online. If they hit upon a piece of gear that they felt was inadequate, they would just ask the diver why he/she was using it and explain any problems they saw with that piece of gear (entanglement, failure points, streamlining, etc.). Almost everyone in our class had their harnesses too loose. When JJ was finished adjusting my harness, the extra webbing was enough to go past my buckle, knife, and almost around to my left D-ring. It wasnt too tight, but much tighter than I had been diving on it previously (more on this later). When we finished the gear adjustment, we removed our rigs and hit the mat (tarp in this case) for some propulsion training. MHK got down on the tarp and demonstrated various propulsion methods (frog, modified frog, backwards kick, helicopter turns, modified flutter). We all then hit the tarp and started practicing while the other GUE guys walked around and helped us get the technique right. I had been frog kicking and modified frog kicking for a while now, but I learned quickly that I wasnt doing it right. After we learned how to properly kick (hint a lot is in the ankles), we donned our rigs and headed toward the water for dive 1.
Dive 1 was basically focusing on buoyancy, trim, and the propulsion techniques we had learned throughout the day. The instructors laid out a line course and we followed it in buddy teams practicing different kicks. While practicing, instructors would pull teams out of the line course and work with them on buoyancy, trim, and more kicks. The focus on team was evident from the beginning, and we were pretty lax on our team skills. I had a pretty good opinion of my buoyancy and trim, but when asked to do seemingly simple things by my instructors I found my skills woefully lacking, although my rig felt a ton better than it had before due to the adjustments JJ made. When I stopped concentrating on my kicks long enough to look around, I was absolutely floored by the skills of the GUE guys underwater. Their buoyancy, trim, and propulsion techniques were absolutely everything mine were not. Anywhere in the water column they wanted to be they could place themselves while making it look easy. I think they could have held their position, absolutely motionless, for hours had they wanted to. We were all not measuring up to the bar at this point, regardless of experience level prior to class. It was pretty funny to have a novice diver buddy teamed with an instructor and have them both looking like OW students. The scariest part of the dive was Marc Singer and his candid camera of shame. As soon as you felt the strobes on you, you tried like hell to look good because you knew you were headed for the projector screen later. I debated hiding under one of the OW platforms to avoid the camera, but I was here to learn and I wouldnt learn anything if I wasnt on the video. We survived dive 1 and the single tank guys went to switch out tanks. We had a debriefing on the surface and headed back to shore to gear up for dive 2. We got back to the tarps to gear back up and one of the students (an instructor with another agency) quit the class. He was packing up his gear and said that he couldnt do anything they wanted and he wasnt ready. What had I gotten myself into?
Dive 2 was basically the same except for the addition of some OW-type skills such as remove and replace the regulator, remove and switch to backup and then replace, flood and clear mask, and remove and replace mask. The kicker was these all had to be done with perfect buoyancy and perfect trim. The first 3 were not too bad, but removing and replacing your mask had a little twist to it you had to remove your mask, hand it to either MHK or Dave Sweetin, and then hold your position in the water until they were happy with it and handed it back to you. I knew something was wrong when I suddenly felt a little colder (thermocline) and felt a *bump* as I dive-bombed the platform. Oops guess I have to work on that. I was handed my mask at this point, cleared it, and moved out of the way for the next student.
After dive 2, we cleaned up all our gear and headed back to the hotel for the debriefing and the video analysis. Heres where we got to see how bad we really were. It would have been enough to just watch the video without the GUE critique man, we were bad. They werent harsh, just candid and helpful. I was surprised how well the video worked as a training tool. Dave could tell me until he was blue in the face and pass me all the wetnotes he wanted, but until I saw the video I wasnt sure what I was doing wrong. My trim was pretty off (heavy legs), and while getting my critique (damn..I swear Marc was videoing me a ton I must have been on there for 10 minutes. TIP: Dont wear blue Quattros for DIRF, I was soooo easy to spot on the video) I asked MHK about my weighting. I dropped half my ditchable weight for the rest of the class and my trim was much better. The video wrap-up and analysis took us until around 11 pm and we hastily retreated to our hotel to try to get some sleep for our 7 am start the next day.
Day 3
Day 3 was the opposite of day 2, in that we started out with lecture in a hotel room (7 am) and then moved out to the quarry for dives 3 and 4. We talked about gas management, and learned that our team skills were basically horrible and that if our teams behaved like we had yesterday, we would get some random OOAs thrown in on us, etc. We covered s-drills, horizontal ascents while air sharing, and valve drills in the briefing and then headed over to the quarry to see if we could handle doing them in 20 of water.
My team (2 of us) drew Dave Sweetin as our instructor for the day and we dropped in to do some drills on dive 3. Our team attempt at an s-drill was pretty bad, but we survived and each got gas. Our drills with Dave as our buddy went significantly better due to the fact that our ability to stay together and ascend horizontally facing each other was much easier with only one of the buddy team having crummy trim and buoyancy control. Dave was able to compensate for our inadequacies, but with the two of us buddied together it was pretty bad MHK called it WWII dogfighting
. We debriefed and exited for dive 4 after we concentrated too hard on trying backwards kicks, forgot our buddy awareness, and got an OOA pulled on us.
Gearing up for dive 4 found us all (single tank people anyway) a little apprehensive about turning off our gas. For us single tank guys, we only had to turn it off, breathe it down, and then turn it back on (without removing our hand from the valve). I dont think I breathed mine down all the way before I was furiously turning it the other way. I think I must have moved 10 feet off the platform while doing this skill so much for maintaining buoyancy and trim. One of the students in our class had a real OOA when he turned his gas off and then couldnt reach it to turn it back on. As soon as he gave the OOA signal I swear there were like 5 regs in his face for him to choose from those GUE guys can FLY through the water when they want to. We wrapped up with a debriefing and then went to analyze the video.
Video analysis and final lecture was again one of the most useful exercises of the weekend. We could definitely see where our buoyancy, trim, and breathing all went to heck once we were task loaded. MHK, Dave, and JJ wrapped up the lecture and we went through some additional course material. At the end, they all encouraged us to email them with any questions (we have already) and they would respond as soon as they could (they already did nice guys!).
Bottom line dont be apprehensive about the class based on what you have heard on the Internet or put it off because you dont think you are ready take it. There are a lot of misconceptions about DIR and GUE floating around the net, and everything will be cleared up in the class. Definitely the most bang for your buck in dive education that I have been a part of. You wont regret it.
By O-ring
July 19-21, 2002 Raleigh, NC
Instructors: Jarrod Jablonski, Dave Sweetin, Mike Kane, Marc Singer (video), Chris Elmore (WKPP)
Day 1
On July 19, we rolled into Raleigh, NC for a DIR Fundamentals class hosted by Down Under Surf and Scuba. I was lucky enough to be taking the class with 2 buddies from the DC area and one buddy from the NC area that I dive with regularly, so we were anxious to see if what we had been practicing had been close to what was expected of us in the class. We had all read the books, Internet information, and watched the FifthD videos, etc. but wanted to get the real deal.
The class was supposed to start at 6:00 pm, but thanks to some speedy driving we got there a couple hours early and checked into our hotel. We quickly dropped all our junk, grabbed our gear, and headed over to Down Under to de-strokify ;-) our gear before JJ, MHK, and Dave got a hold of us. Basically, this mostly involved a few last minute bolt snap attachments, hose protectors, and a couple hose switchouts. Down Under was very cool and after we bought all our parts they let us use their tools and their classroom to work on our gear. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the local Chinese restaurant and headed back to get underway. At this point, based on what I have read on the Internet, I was thinking JJ and MHK would come roaring out of the back of the shop, take some sea snips to my gear, and be at least 7 tall. I couldnt have been more wrong they were absolutely some of the coolest guys I have ever met in diving and all the GUE guys that came up were equally approachable and knew their stuff.
While standing around in the shop, we met some of our future classmates and had a chance to break the ice a little. We were all shuttled into the classroom and were introduced to our instructors for the weekend. They were all really nice guys and we went around the room introducing ourselves and talking about our diving experiences. We had a wide range of people in the class, ranging from 6 months experience and 30 dives to decades of experience. Roughly half of the class was diving dry in doubles and the other half mixed wet/dry and diving singles. We had one student who had completed an intro to cave course with another agency and about half our class were instructors or higher with other agencies.
The first night covered the basics of DIR and outlined all the skills and knowledge we would be receiving throughout the class. We went through a bunch of PowerPoint stuff with MHK and JJ giving the bulk of the lecture. We watched videos demonstrating the skills we would be practicing the next day and finished up lecture around 10:30 or so. We were supposed to have all our dives at Fantasy Lake/Rolesville Quarry, but there was a lot of concern by the GUE guys about doing the class there since the vis was reported to be about 3. One of the main teaching tools that the GUE instructors use is video of you in the water to point out proper technique and to address deficiencies. The instructors felt that the video would seriously be hampered by the vis at the quarry, so they made a backup plan and we decided to do the dives at Lake Rawlings in Rawlings, VA (about 2 hours away). They could have easily just compromised the quality of the class and had the dives at Fantasy Lake (only 30 mins away). They didnt even when most of them were running on 4-5 hours sleep and had flown across the country to be there, they went that extra mile to make sure we had the best class we could. I was already impressed. We beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel since we now had to get up at 5:30 am and drive 2 hours.
Day 2
We met at Lake Rawlings around 8:30 am the next morning and got all our gear setup near the entry point. We spread out a number of big tarps so we would have enough room (Rawlings gets pretty crowded if you dont stake out a large area early on) to kit up and practice our skills on dry land. The first order of the day was exposure protection. There were about half of us in wetsuits, and not much time was spent on those. They went over all the drysuits in the class and looked at the undergarments as well. Good fit and functionality was the topic of the day and they had all the drysuit guys get in the water to get a little suit squeeze going on to demonstrate proper fit. I am glad I hadnt yet bought a drysuit, because this gave me tons of information to use when I start shopping for one. The gear portion of the class came next, and we all ziptied our first stages to our backplates and donned our rigs sans tanks. The GUE guys then went over each piece of our gear, but were nowhere near the gear nazis I had heard about online. If they hit upon a piece of gear that they felt was inadequate, they would just ask the diver why he/she was using it and explain any problems they saw with that piece of gear (entanglement, failure points, streamlining, etc.). Almost everyone in our class had their harnesses too loose. When JJ was finished adjusting my harness, the extra webbing was enough to go past my buckle, knife, and almost around to my left D-ring. It wasnt too tight, but much tighter than I had been diving on it previously (more on this later). When we finished the gear adjustment, we removed our rigs and hit the mat (tarp in this case) for some propulsion training. MHK got down on the tarp and demonstrated various propulsion methods (frog, modified frog, backwards kick, helicopter turns, modified flutter). We all then hit the tarp and started practicing while the other GUE guys walked around and helped us get the technique right. I had been frog kicking and modified frog kicking for a while now, but I learned quickly that I wasnt doing it right. After we learned how to properly kick (hint a lot is in the ankles), we donned our rigs and headed toward the water for dive 1.
Dive 1 was basically focusing on buoyancy, trim, and the propulsion techniques we had learned throughout the day. The instructors laid out a line course and we followed it in buddy teams practicing different kicks. While practicing, instructors would pull teams out of the line course and work with them on buoyancy, trim, and more kicks. The focus on team was evident from the beginning, and we were pretty lax on our team skills. I had a pretty good opinion of my buoyancy and trim, but when asked to do seemingly simple things by my instructors I found my skills woefully lacking, although my rig felt a ton better than it had before due to the adjustments JJ made. When I stopped concentrating on my kicks long enough to look around, I was absolutely floored by the skills of the GUE guys underwater. Their buoyancy, trim, and propulsion techniques were absolutely everything mine were not. Anywhere in the water column they wanted to be they could place themselves while making it look easy. I think they could have held their position, absolutely motionless, for hours had they wanted to. We were all not measuring up to the bar at this point, regardless of experience level prior to class. It was pretty funny to have a novice diver buddy teamed with an instructor and have them both looking like OW students. The scariest part of the dive was Marc Singer and his candid camera of shame. As soon as you felt the strobes on you, you tried like hell to look good because you knew you were headed for the projector screen later. I debated hiding under one of the OW platforms to avoid the camera, but I was here to learn and I wouldnt learn anything if I wasnt on the video. We survived dive 1 and the single tank guys went to switch out tanks. We had a debriefing on the surface and headed back to shore to gear up for dive 2. We got back to the tarps to gear back up and one of the students (an instructor with another agency) quit the class. He was packing up his gear and said that he couldnt do anything they wanted and he wasnt ready. What had I gotten myself into?
Dive 2 was basically the same except for the addition of some OW-type skills such as remove and replace the regulator, remove and switch to backup and then replace, flood and clear mask, and remove and replace mask. The kicker was these all had to be done with perfect buoyancy and perfect trim. The first 3 were not too bad, but removing and replacing your mask had a little twist to it you had to remove your mask, hand it to either MHK or Dave Sweetin, and then hold your position in the water until they were happy with it and handed it back to you. I knew something was wrong when I suddenly felt a little colder (thermocline) and felt a *bump* as I dive-bombed the platform. Oops guess I have to work on that. I was handed my mask at this point, cleared it, and moved out of the way for the next student.
After dive 2, we cleaned up all our gear and headed back to the hotel for the debriefing and the video analysis. Heres where we got to see how bad we really were. It would have been enough to just watch the video without the GUE critique man, we were bad. They werent harsh, just candid and helpful. I was surprised how well the video worked as a training tool. Dave could tell me until he was blue in the face and pass me all the wetnotes he wanted, but until I saw the video I wasnt sure what I was doing wrong. My trim was pretty off (heavy legs), and while getting my critique (damn..I swear Marc was videoing me a ton I must have been on there for 10 minutes. TIP: Dont wear blue Quattros for DIRF, I was soooo easy to spot on the video) I asked MHK about my weighting. I dropped half my ditchable weight for the rest of the class and my trim was much better. The video wrap-up and analysis took us until around 11 pm and we hastily retreated to our hotel to try to get some sleep for our 7 am start the next day.
Day 3
Day 3 was the opposite of day 2, in that we started out with lecture in a hotel room (7 am) and then moved out to the quarry for dives 3 and 4. We talked about gas management, and learned that our team skills were basically horrible and that if our teams behaved like we had yesterday, we would get some random OOAs thrown in on us, etc. We covered s-drills, horizontal ascents while air sharing, and valve drills in the briefing and then headed over to the quarry to see if we could handle doing them in 20 of water.
My team (2 of us) drew Dave Sweetin as our instructor for the day and we dropped in to do some drills on dive 3. Our team attempt at an s-drill was pretty bad, but we survived and each got gas. Our drills with Dave as our buddy went significantly better due to the fact that our ability to stay together and ascend horizontally facing each other was much easier with only one of the buddy team having crummy trim and buoyancy control. Dave was able to compensate for our inadequacies, but with the two of us buddied together it was pretty bad MHK called it WWII dogfighting
. We debriefed and exited for dive 4 after we concentrated too hard on trying backwards kicks, forgot our buddy awareness, and got an OOA pulled on us.Gearing up for dive 4 found us all (single tank people anyway) a little apprehensive about turning off our gas. For us single tank guys, we only had to turn it off, breathe it down, and then turn it back on (without removing our hand from the valve). I dont think I breathed mine down all the way before I was furiously turning it the other way. I think I must have moved 10 feet off the platform while doing this skill so much for maintaining buoyancy and trim. One of the students in our class had a real OOA when he turned his gas off and then couldnt reach it to turn it back on. As soon as he gave the OOA signal I swear there were like 5 regs in his face for him to choose from those GUE guys can FLY through the water when they want to. We wrapped up with a debriefing and then went to analyze the video.
Video analysis and final lecture was again one of the most useful exercises of the weekend. We could definitely see where our buoyancy, trim, and breathing all went to heck once we were task loaded. MHK, Dave, and JJ wrapped up the lecture and we went through some additional course material. At the end, they all encouraged us to email them with any questions (we have already) and they would respond as soon as they could (they already did nice guys!).
Bottom line dont be apprehensive about the class based on what you have heard on the Internet or put it off because you dont think you are ready take it. There are a lot of misconceptions about DIR and GUE floating around the net, and everything will be cleared up in the class. Definitely the most bang for your buck in dive education that I have been a part of. You wont regret it.
