Mr Chattertons Self Reliance Article...

[lowviz]

AhHa!!! All the way around the barn and back...

 

[ScubaInChicago]

I think that's kinda what John was considering in his article..

Nope, John said "Let me be clear, if you have nothing to breathe, or nothing you feel like breathing at the time, and you jump me for my regulator, I will fight you for it, and I will win. Period."

I'm saying I would share at depth (tech/rec) with a diver who would otherwise die. I'm further stating that there is no clearer way to show someone who is not your normal buddy that he should conserve HIS gas than shutting down the center post. Would I do that to my normal buddy, NO WAY IN HELL.

 

[lamont]

The problem I see with much of the objection to John's original article was that John wasn't talking about buddy diving in the first place. He was talking about being a self-reliant diver

He uses the word 'buddy' nine different times in a fairly short article. The problem really is that he was talking about self-reliant diving *versus* buddy diving and setting up quite clearly as a contrast.

IF YOU ARE DIVING DEEP (like 200' or more) and IF you can't be self reliant, THEN you shouldn't be there.

We actually all agree about this.

The people who are critical of him are critical because there's a third path which is both to be self-reliant *and* to be a good buddy (and in fact to practice team diving -- which addresses the problem with buddy diving of buddies being unreliable...)

There's NOTHING WRONG with having a plan and a plan with a buddy, and team gas management, but that wasn't what the blog was about... The blog was about being SELF-RELIANT. Being able to rely on yourself and your skills to save yourself. That's all.

You can state that over and over again, but it quite clearly was not. Again, the world self-reliant was used five times, the word buddy was used nine times. On the weight of word count it looks like it was more about slamming the buddy system than being in favor of being self-reliant.

The problem is divers who don't have a plan and expect that if they mess up someone else will save them. That was his point. Plain and simple. The latest blog does provide further insight into divers like dead Ed.

And the problem is that he's creating an dualism between "self-reliant divers" like him on the one hand, and divers like Ed on the other, while slamming the buddy system in the process.

Don't be surprised when the team divers in the audience simply don't buy it.

And, really, its not just the DIR divers. I can point to a group of CCR wreck divers here who fairly recently had their buddies heart explode on them during a dive (due to a medical illness) who attempted to rescue him and blew off a significant personal deco obligation in order to do it. That's team. Another case in the Red Sea also of a CCR diver who managed to ventilate his buddy from ~100m all the way to the surface through deco stops and rescued them. Also team. Both of those divers were completely incapacitated and beyond any self-rescue or self-reliance.

And we really object to the statement, "breathe your own damn gas, any gas, even the wrong gas, and return to the surface as quickly and safely as possible." If that statement was directed against the guy in the most recent write up its kind of understandable. But, really, that guy is what "don't dive with strokes" was all about. He got banned off the Seeker, which is a bunch of NE wreck divers putting George's "rule #1" into action. That has nothing whatsoever to do with team or buddy diving, that diver was just a liability. And one way to avoid diving with people like that is that when you start to triage how much support you're willing to give someone underwater, you should stop diving with them. One you're down on a dive with someone and you start to figure out how far you'll go for them and when you'll cut them lose to kill themselves, that is the time to cut them loose as a dive buddy, and in doing that it makes diving a whole lot more enjoyable when you're not doing that. I'd find it extremely unpleasant to be diving, much less tech diving, with the kind of thoughts John has in his head, I don't know why he would do continue to do that. Find better people to dive with if that's a problem.

And I actually *agree* with him that there's no reason to come to someone else on the bottom for gas. You should have at least two regs and a pile of gas and you can isolate and get yourself home, and often can just switch off/on a stage bottle. But it still happens sometimes because someone gets stressed and they go their buddy instead of solving the problem. The solution there is not to punch your buddy in the face, but donate, sort out the problem, fix their gas availability problem and get them back onto their own gas. Its then a discussion for topside about what caused the spiral down into the hole where the diver couldn't sort out fixing their own issue.

And to say it bluntly it's a little ironic that so many people who see the work stroke as a four letter word, are fawning all over John's article where what he's doing is bashing a stroke and talking about how bad of a diver he was and how they had to rule #1 him and how he wound up dead. Its very nearly classic George Irvine, just written in a kinder and gentler style. And I agree with John completely about that guy. But I'll bet a lot of the fans of his writing aren't going to like my drawing that parallel between him and George at all...

 

[dumpsterDiver]

He uses the word 'buddy' nine different times in a fairly short article. The problem really is that he was talking about self-reliant diving *versus* buddy diving and setting up quite clearly as a contrast.



We actually all agree about this.

The people who are critical of him are critical because there's a third path which is both to be self-reliant *and* to be a good buddy (and in fact to practice team diving -- which addresses the problem with buddy diving of buddies being unreliable...)



You can state that over and over again, but it quite clearly was not. Again, the world self-reliant was used five times, the word buddy was used nine times. On the weight of word count it looks like it was more about slamming the buddy system than being in favor of being self-reliant.



And the problem is that he's creating an dualism between "self-reliant divers" like him on the one hand, and divers like Ed on the other, while slamming the buddy system in the process.

Don't be surprised when the team divers in the audience simply don't buy it.

And, really, its not just the DIR divers. I can point to a group of CCR wreck divers here who fairly recently had their buddies heart explode on them during a dive (due to a medical illness) who attempted to rescue him and blew off a significant personal deco obligation in order to do it. That's team. Another case in the Red Sea also of a CCR diver who managed to ventilate his buddy from ~100m all the way to the surface through deco stops and rescued them. Also team. Both of those divers were completely incapacitated and beyond any self-rescue or self-reliance.

And we really object to the statement, "breathe your own damn gas, any gas, even the wrong gas, and return to the surface as quickly and safely as possible." If that statement was directed against the guy in the most recent write up its kind of understandable. But, really, that guy is what "don't dive with strokes" was all about. He got banned off the Seeker, which is a bunch of NE wreck divers putting George's "rule #1" into action. That has nothing whatsoever to do with team or buddy diving, that diver was just a liability. And one way to avoid diving with people like that is that when you start to triage how much support you're willing to give someone underwater, you should stop diving with them. One you're down on a dive with someone and you start to figure out how far you'll go for them and when you'll cut them lose to kill themselves, that is the time to cut them loose as a dive buddy, and in doing that it makes diving a whole lot more enjoyable when you're not doing that. I'd find it extremely unpleasant to be diving, much less tech diving, with the kind of thoughts John has in his head, I don't know why he would do continue to do that. Find better people to dive with if that's a problem.

And I actually *agree* with him that there's no reason to come to someone else on the bottom for gas. You should have at least two regs and a pile of gas and you can isolate and get yourself home, and often can just switch off/on a stage bottle. But it still happens sometimes because someone gets stressed and they go their buddy instead of solving the problem. The solution there is not to punch your buddy in the face, but donate, sort out the problem, fix their gas availability problem and get them back onto their own gas. Its then a discussion for topside about what caused the spiral down into the hole where the diver couldn't sort out fixing their own issue.

And to say it bluntly it's a little ironic that so many people who see the work stroke as a four letter word, are fawning all over John's article where what he's doing is bashing a stroke and talking about how bad of a diver he was and how they had to rule #1 him and how he wound up dead. Its very nearly classic George Irvine, just written in a kinder and gentler style. And I agree with John completely about that guy. But I'll bet a lot of the fans of his writing aren't going to like my drawing that parallel between him and George at all...

I don't remember George ever talking about having a plan to fight with a buddy underwater and winning the fight.

 

[lowviz]

...//...And to say it bluntly it's a little ironic that so many people who see the work stroke as a four letter word, are fawning all over John's article where what he's doing is bashing a stroke and talking about how bad of a diver he was and how they had to rule #1 him and how he wound up dead. Its very nearly classic George Irvine, just written in a kinder and gentler style. ...//...

I just had to "like" your post for that. OK, maybe a few other things, but mostly that observation.

I also see that I'm the only "non-practitioner" in the lot. -maybe a mod can sort of gray my name out to help preserve polarization.

 

[flots am]

I just had to "like" your post for that. OK, maybe a few other things, but mostly that observation.

I also see that I'm the only "non-practitioner" in the lot. -maybe a mod can sort of gray my name out to help preserve polarization.

You're not the only "non-practitioner." The DIR guys certainly wouldn't recognize me with my split fins and sidemount, but I've stolen mercilessly from them, and it's made my diving a ton safer.

"Rule #1" is a big one: "Don't dive with unsafe divers". The trick is that "unsafe" is situational. I'll dive with anybody in 20' of clear, calm water within 100' of the boat or shore. As things get deeper/longer/less forgiving, the list of people I'll dive with shrinks dramatically. If there's a significant chance of injury or death, the list shrinks down to about a half-dozen specific individuals.

While I'm solo-certified and fully capable of saving my own bacon, and with any luck will not be having any preventable disasters in the first place, I also find that having a competent buddy adds tremendously to the safety of more challenging dives.

While this is almost guaranteed to annoy both sides, I don't actually think they're all that far apart. There's nothing wrong with being both self-reliant and having a competent buddy.

flots.

 

[boulderjohn]

Still trying to figure things out. Glad to have the help of others on this quest.

And so I really don't know what he actually meant, and can therefore offer no meaningful response. It seems to me that by this point we should be able to discuss whether or not we agree with his position rather than be puzzling out what that position might be, as if we were arguing over the hidden meanings in the quatrains of Nostradamus.

There seem to be a lot of references in this thread to the "two sides". What exactly are the two sides? It appears that GUE/UTD/DIR are one side, but what is the other side? all other divers?

My original question was merely aimed at identifying the two groups. On the one hand the team divers seem to be DIR focussed, but the other group doesn't appear to be very well defined.

What is the right plan?
I think John's intent was to discourage that divers behavior ahead of time instead of lecturing him about it afterwards.

What I read in Chatterton's article is a simple acceptance that there are factors which can come into play that exceed even the most carefully and conservatively planned parameters. When that happens, you've got hard decisions to make... and self-survival becomes the over-riding mission.

I think that's kinda what John was considering in his article..

Nope, John said "Let me be clear, if you have nothing to breathe, or nothing you feel like breathing at the time, and you jump me for my regulator, I will fight you for it, and I will win. Period."

He uses the word 'buddy' nine different times in a fairly short article. The problem really is that he was talking about self-reliant diving *versus* buddy diving and setting up quite clearly as a contrast.
...
You can state that over and over again, but it quite clearly was not. Again, the world self-reliant was used five times, the word buddy was used nine times. On the weight of word count it looks like it was more about slamming the buddy system than being in favor of being self-reliant.
...
And the problem is that he's creating an dualism between "self-reliant divers" like him on the one hand, and divers like Ed on the other, while slamming the buddy system in the process.

 

[lowviz]

Still trying to figure things out. Glad to have the help of others on this quest.

Re-read posts 100, 263, 301, 328, and 373. Trade your poser UTD card in for a real GUE one and all will be revealed.

This thread is all about posturing.

 

[nimoh]

Re-read posts 100, 263, 301, 328, and 373. Trade your poser UTD card in for a real GUE one and all will be revealed.

This thread is all about posturing.

thanks for pulling out those posts, they were good ones to review, although why do you think that UTD is somehow a GUE wannabe? My impression is that UTD is a good organization in its own right.

 

[lowviz]

Oh come on, I'm just stirring the pot in the spirit of John's post.