[rant] DIR vs. DID

[bwerb]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
All well and good. I'm all for teaching good technique early in a divers training and the industry sure is messed up.

For those of you who realize the need for even new divers to have good basic skills, why don't you educate your friends.

Buoyancy control, trim, team diving skills and whatever are not DIR they are diving.

This is the perfect summary which should be laminated and framed in every divers wallet!

The dive "industry" is a business as screwed-up as any other.

Diving used to be about mentoring and leadership where those with experience taught those who were new how to become better. It is not about ridicule and name calling. Take someone under your wing (36# preferably ) and share your knowledge and wisdom, help them become a diver you would want to dive with.

DIR has done a great job in demonstrating that there are some problems in the industry, some of the adherents have missed the point however, it's not about the name, it's about the end result.

Thank-you Mike for such a fantastic post!

Brian

 

[WJL]

biscuit7 once bubbled... ....I don't have a firm grip on how I dive, what I want to dive, or what I want to do in the future with diving. It makes sense to me to get some of that straight before I pursue any more formal training.

I don't know what training you've already received. I don't know anything about your buoyancy and trim skills. I do know, however, that many new divers have trouble with buoyancy and trim. It appears to me that this is so because buoyancy and trim are not emphasized in most basic open water training programs by most instructors. Most new divers are told, or decide, that they just have to learn this on their own by trial and error. After a period of trial and error, most divers think they have developed pretty good bouyancy and trim skills, but really haven't mastered it. You can certainly learn by trial and error. Another way to learn is by being taught how to have good buoyancy and trim by people who know already know how and know how to teach it.

Learn to be a better diver however works best for you. If figuring it out on your own is the way you have to do it, then God bless you and good luck. If you want help, find a good teacher. There are plenty, but they are hard to find. No one agency has all the good teachers.

From what I know, GUE makes a special effort to teach good buoyancy and trim skills, as part of a fundamental set of skills that it believes all divers should have, and that any diver trying more difficult dives must have. GUE also goes through a great deal of time, effort and training to ensure that its instructors know and can teach these skills. GUE is different from other agencies in its emphasis on teaching and learning effective basic dive skills.

So, if you want to get better with your skills, you can maybe figure it out on your own if you take enough time and don't get hurt in the process. If you're willing to learn from somebody else instead of figuring it out by yourself, then taking a class from GUE is going to help you. You can also learn exactly the same skills from other instructors from other agencies, but it may not be easy to find them, because most other agencies don't make this an important issue with their instructors the way GUE does.

I think there are several instructors who haunt this board that aren't affiliated with GUE that know and teach this stuff very effectively. If the DIR label upsets you, maybe you could hook up with them.

 

[Dryglove]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
All well and good. I'm all for teaching good technique early in a divers training and the industry sure is messed up. there are many reasons it doesn't usually happen.


My class also costs more. Eight out of ten divers goes down the street where they can get a class cheaper and get it done faster.

Mike teaches openwater the way it should be taught. But like mike said the industry is so screwed up most places teach the bare minimum to get certified. Its so bad i never knew anything about hovering or better buoyancy control till i joined this board.I was the typical overweighted diver leaving a stirred up trail behind me as i swam in my 45 deg posture.Took me forever to figure out why i sank to the bottom everytime i stopped finning.

Along comes GUE and they are very aggressive in pointing out what divers are doing wrong and offer a class(dirf) to fix it.This is something that should be taught straight from the gate like mike does.Now the three letters DIR cause a hornets nest cause they publicly point out all the flaws on how divers are being taught and certified to dive. It took a set of brass balls for them to do what they did and were successful for the most part.

On any weekend you can go to breakwater in monterey and watch new divers.I would say every 30-60 minutes there is a diver walking out of the surf with his buddy carrying his tank cause it wasnt strapped in properly, divers with there 30+ pound weightbelts around their ankles, divers getting tossed in ankle biter waves, it goes on and on.

Sometimes we get a good chuckle out of these mishaps but really it is nothing to laugh about.

 

[ScubaDan]

mars2u once bubbled...


No thank you...this I don't understand...probably because I'm not DIR. But I would prefer not to jump into anything without having knowledge about it.

I hope I didn't upset anyone, I really didn't intend to...I just have gotten enough name calling from some of the DIR folks out there that even if I did follow ALL the principles I still would not want to be associated with those that have the YOU WILL DIE attitude.

It's kind of like the Harley riders driving the 20K hogs giving the finger to those of us that could only afford the 5K rice burners. Now that I can afford a Harley, I don't want one.

It's like anything you will always have those that will say things that are not how the majority are. If indeed they were DIR, I don't believe they were, but they would be one of the few that have that kind of attitude. I have been on this board for about 7 months and not seen any DIR folks call people names and most of the negative comments have come from those that do not like DIR. Yes DIR people do point our there way of doing things and the equipment but that is what this board is about and then they are attacked for bringing up DIR.

I too felt the way Mars2u and Biscuit7 feels. I will never ever want to be in that kind of equipment and never take there courses. But after reading these threads for a few months everything they say makes sense. Not saying you can't be a good diver without being DIR, which would be stupid to say. I do believe that as a whole GUE/DIR excels at teaching good diver skills that other agencies are lacking or just don't want to teach to BOW students because of the cost involved.

I know my BOW was not very good, I was not taught trim and very little time was spent on buoyancy. GUE requires that you have a good grip on the basics before you can go into tech or cave training.

 

[Dryglove]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
My class also costs more. Eight out of ten divers goes down the street where they can get a class cheaper and get it done faster.

This was posted on a CA diver forum http://www.diver.net/bbs/messages/36768.shtml

 

[bwerb]

I work in big business, I'll get that out in the open right now...

I am so saddened by what is happening in our world right now in terms of small business vs. big industry. The dive industry is but one example of much bigger trends occurring right across the business world. We have created a society in which "I" am the only important thing in the world. Worry about today and covering my own a$$ regardless of the consequences and who I'm going to hurt in the short term and the long run. The whole community ethos has flown out the window. "Screw-em, as long as I'm ok, then nothing else matters. If they can't hack-it, that's their fault for not trying harder or competing enough or being as smart as I am." appears to be the foundational thought pattern for much of industry today.

I admit, I have huge struggles with my own personal thought patterns and behavior concerning my spending patters. I'll elaborate...I have so much money to spend, being in Canada I get taxed up the wazoo so a huge portion of my income goes to the government who finds a way to spend it stupidly (different rant for a different day). So with my after tax dollars, I have to determine how to make them go as far as possible, here's where the struggle comes in.

I want to support the small retailer at every turn, I want them to be successful and be able to have good livings and be able to support their staff with good livings. I don't think there is anything wrong with making a profit. Here's where the problem is amplified, an example...Big Box retail, I could tell stories which would make you all want to start setting them on fire...

Manufacturer's bend over backwards to "get the business" and "achieve the volume" at Big Boxes. Even to the extent that they are often willing to lose money at specific accounts simply for the sake of the volume it brings to the factory to keep the doors open. There is little thought as to the long term consequences...back to how can it work best for me TODAY...the end result of this is that the Big Boxes realize they have the manufacturers under their thumb and can continue to increase their demands which sets the cycle in a further downward spiral. Now the Big Boxes want to create as much profit as possible as the upper management bonus structures are all tied into increasing profitability...again, what's in it for ME...Another way to increase profitability is to create a legion of floor employees on minimum wage or a little higher with minimal to no benefits and to download as much work as possible back to the vendors...service our store, write our orders, take-back our stock which doesn't sell, pay fines for being late with orders, pay for all our advertising, pay us large volume rebates for the privlege of us buying from you and on it goes. So, what does this little pyramid scheme ultimately create?

Smaller and independent retailers are not able to play on the same field. The factories need to make up money somewhere and guess who's going to pay the price? The little guy. What other damage does this create? Well, the minimum wage store employee certainly isn't going to go down the street to their local retailer to make their purchases; not with the staff discount and the fact that they get paid so poorly they DO NOT have the money to make any other choice. Great, now you have people caught in the system contributing to their own ongoing downfall. This is spiraling down the drain in a wicked way.

How many of you know that the latest trend in big box retail is computer monitered price adjusting? You put an item on sale at $4.99 and see how many you sell. They the next week you increase it to $5.09, then the next week to $5.19 etc. until the balance of highest profitability is attained. All this is computer tracked and analyzed. The end result of course is that you are now paying more simply because people were willing to keep paying more...ah, good old supply and demand.

So...how does this relate to diving? Well, the current business model for the dive manufacturers and some certifying agencies is driving these same trends into practice for our sport. The "consumer" is used to paying as little as possible and actively seeks out how to do it for less and as the attitude of the consumer is that they are always right, no one seems to care that buying at the big box dive shop or on-line will only help to continue this destructive trend. It is personally extremely hard to make the choices I would like to make. When you see a dive light for sale at $450 at a shop and $220 on-line the decision becomes all that much more difficult.

All I'm saying in this rambling post is that the current big business trends are destructive at multiple levels. Small businesses and heck, even huge manufacturers are currently teetering on the verge of collapse because of a selfishness and self centeredness which we are all guilty of supporting and being a part of.

There is no answer to this except to stop at an individual level and consider what you can do to help create a better community.

It hurts me when I read of small moral, community based businesses who are forced to close because of greed which they are powerless to defend against.

Sorry, rant over.

 

[wreckchick]

bwerb,

I agree with you that the "company town" structure of the Big Box retailers is killing off small businesses. Sometimes they go quickly and sometimes slowly, but unfortunately, I'm one of the poor kids that needs to save money when I can. The lure of cheap prices is very tempting. It's hard to justify the added expense of a small business when I can find the stuff for 1/2 or less from a big retailer. For me the difference may be getting it cheap or not getting it at all.

For my diving needs, I've bought the vast majority of my gear through my LDS. They are great people and run a nice shop. For lots of my day to day purchases, I am as guilty as much of the rest of the country when it comes to buying from Big Box. I hate it, but when it comes to low prices and convenience, it's hard to stay away.

What happens when all the small retailers disappear? The Big Boxes will jack up the prices, still screwing the marginal manufacturers, the consumers won't have any choices and we all lose.

Times they are a changin'

R