Quote: (Originally Posted by choong)
a friend of mine has been extolling the virtues of DIR and i'm very keen to investigate it further. fortunately (or unfortunately), i haven't bought any of my own gear yet, although i definitely want to.
I'd definitely recommend being comfortable with your own kit before the course and not starting the course with completely alien gear. You say that a friend has been talking about DIR, so (huge assumption here) can you hook up with other DIR divers locally and borrow some kit to try out?
As Rob says a backplate and wing is not only DIR, but nice to dive. The long hose configuration is also useful even if you don't follow DIR in the future. You can get the basic kit together that will do you well for quite some time.
You at least have the advantage that you don't have a pile of non-DIR kit already that you're trying to make look DIR
