First Ever DIR-f Ireland!

PS1 · August 2nd, 2006, 03:44 PM

After some organising & patience the notable event referred to above finally took place over 22/24th July in Connemara, west of Ireland.

Given the location I'm not sure if that made Rich Walker a "Paddy" instructor for the weekend? Anyway, Rich & Clare made the trip over and were joined by students consisting of myself, Steve Cooper, Mike Whitty and Matt Randall. ScubadiveWest near Killary harbour provided the facilities necessary for the course & we were well catered for in a local B&B. Given the way that fundamentals courses have been thoroughly documented in the past, I'm not sure if it's entirely useful to give a blow by blow account - so I'll spare those details & give a, perhaps, more summative account of the course - but save to say that all the drills & skills hitherto commited to cyberspace were played out in front of the ever honest video camera!

Day One
Lectures, discussion, sweaty kit fitting & dry land drills preceded the first dive (which as with all the others took place in front of the dive centre in 'Little Killary'). Again, as with all the other dives, the viz was perfectly good - perhaps a little too good as things turned out since Clare on the video got everything - poor trim/buoyancy and ability to perform drills in shallow water without looking like a total novice - oh dear - weighting/trim adjustments necessary on the first evening.

Day Two
As with yesterday, more lectures, discussion, demonstration, dry-land drills and dives - just adding more skills into the mix all the time and really focusing the mind. One fun diversion was practising backward kicking in dry suits, masks & hood only (no fins or any other kit) - which is relatively 'accomplishable' when you're shown what to do! Dive 2, again, afforded us the opportunity to practice everything from dive 1 with layered on skills & drills - it was feeling better but still had some way to go. We practiced dry land valve shut downs again and again prior to dive three and then went in for our third dip. Skills demonstration felt alot better on this dive and, generally, things just started to feel as if they were coming together now - maybe the minor kit adjustments took effect or I was blowing away the slight lack of practice of a slow spring (diving wise) or all the muscle was kicking in or just getting used to doing all this stuff in front of an Instructor and video camera or just all of the above, who knows? Anyway - starting to feel a bit more like a diver now. Video review wasn't just so ugly now.

Final Day
Swim test (in the bl**dy sea!) woke every body up and preceded lectures and dry land drills (bag building) and then the final, and longest, dive. The same format is carried on where all the previous skills are required with some new ones (shooting a bag for example or OOA ascents for example). Things felt OK on this dive so then onto the last video debrief, final lectures and individual debiefs.

In answer to some (what appear to be) FAQ about this course, I'll concluse by throwing in my thoughts;

Is the course worth doing? Without a doubt - it's absolutely excellent. Being able to see (in the flesh as it were) accomplished divers perform the skills flawlessly and the use of video to demonstrate what you need to do to start moving toward that bar is one of the very powerful teaching tools used on this course. Allied to the academic stuff and to put it simply, I fail to see how anyone interested in DIR (or even just improving their dive skills) could fail to have fun and take away alot from this course. A ringing endorsement.

What should I do to prepare for the course? Trickier one this! Primarily, my advice would be, with the help of your buddy(ies), get your buoyancy and trim sorted prior to commencement of the class and, if necessary, work on your fitness/swim skills. Of course if your equipment (or lack thereof) won't allow you to perform some of the drills then rectify that if you can but otherwise don't get too worried about the stuff you'll do on the class - just get the buoyancy and trim worked out and go diving! You'll get every opportunity & encouragement to work on the specific skills, and every opportunity to demonstrate them, in the duration of the class.

Well, so much for my 2p's worth.

Finally a big word of thanks to Jack Purcell who originally got the ball rolling on this, to Rich & Clare for their effort, enthusiasm & patience - you were fantastic, to the partcipants who weighed in as necessary and to scubadivewest who provided excellent facilities and an excellent location for a fundamentals class.

Sterny · August 2nd, 2006, 04:07 PM

Nice course report! What results did you all get?

Rick · August 2nd, 2006, 04:14 PM

Nice one Paul!

Did you give my batteries to Rich?

Chris L · August 2nd, 2006, 04:15 PM

nice report mate and well done, my turn on friday.
chris

PFM · August 2nd, 2006, 08:53 PM

Nice report, as Chris L said, we're up next of Friday

hopefully the camera will be kind to us

steve_cooper71 · August 2nd, 2006, 10:17 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Sterny)

Nice course report! What results did you all get?

I cant bring myself to use the 'F' word in front of a thousand odd people but suffice to say I need to take the course again...

To be honest I'm not surprised, I wasn't prepared at all having not dived in almost 2 years!! Basically I was total crap on dive number one but I believe I got a little less crap with each dive but that still left me quite crap by the end. I missed my first dive because of a wing inflator problem clearly I didn't check my kit properly

. My first dive could be used to demonstrate what bad trim and buoyancy control look like . Not having these basics nailed made practicing drills next to impossible. By the final epic (90 min) dive, which for me was dive 3, I had dropped weight, shifted it around and felt I was starting to get trimmed out, I even managed to assemble and shoot a bag while barely moving from the spot. This small personal triumph was over shadowed by more than a few disasterous performances e.g. screwing up as the 'victim' in a 'surprise' OOA drill. I'm sure Rich thought I was a bit slow when he tried for a few minutes to tell me to give an OOA signal to my buddy. The penny finally dropped and I went through the motions of frantically chopping my neck. Matt quickly responded and i took the reg but started to lose buoyancy control and had to leave him to it! I also managed to have my longhose tangled round my backup which I discovered during an S-drill. There possibly hasn't been another system of donating air in the whole history of diving that has had so much thought, discussion and planning put into it in and I managed to make it look like a total CF! All in all the course was a very educational, if humbling, experience. Probably the biggest take home message for me was that you can be kitted out like you just bought out the entire Halcyon (or other compliant dive kit producer) catalogue but without the proper skills and drills you just ain't doing it right!

Regardless of my result I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would second Paul's praise of both Rich W. and Clare.

Now its just down to me to learn how to dive again, and have another go!

...Any takers for DIR-F Ireland II ?

Moz · August 2nd, 2006, 10:44 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by steve_cooper71)

I cant bring myself to use the 'F' word in front of a thousand odd people but suffice to say I need to take the course again...

To be honest I'm not surprised, I wasn't prepared at all having not dived in almost 2 years!! Basically I was total crap on dive number one but I believe I got a little less crap with each dive but that still left me quite crap by the end. I missed my first dive because of a wing inflator problem clearly I didn't check my kit properly

. My first dive could be used to demonstrate what bad trim and buoyancy control look like . Not having these basics nailed made practicing drills next to impossible. By the final epic (90 min) dive, which for me was dive 3, I had dropped weight, shifted it around and felt I was starting to get trimmed out, I even managed to assemble and shoot a bag while barely moving from the spot. This small personal triumph was over shadowed by more than a few disasterous performances e.g. screwing up as the 'victim' in a 'surprise' OOA drill. I'm sure Rich thought I was a bit slow when he tried for a few minutes to tell me to give an OOA signal to my buddy. The penny finally dropped and I went through the motions of frantically chopping my neck. Matt quickly responded and i took the reg but started to lose buoyancy control and had to leave him to it! I also managed to have my longhose tangled round my backup which I discovered during an S-drill. There possibly hasn't been another system of donating air in the whole history of diving that has had so much thought, discussion and planning put into it in and I managed to make it look like a total CF! All in all the course was a very educational, if humbling, experience. Probably the biggest take home message for me was that you can be kitted out like you just bought out the entire Halcyon (or other compliant dive kit producer) catalogue but without the proper skills and drills you just ain't doing it right!

Regardless of my result I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would second Paul's praise of both Rich W. and Clare.

Now its just down to me to learn how to dive again, and have another go!

...Any takers for DIR-F Ireland II ?

Steve,

Well done mate!
You didn't walk away with a cert, but that isn't the point. It's made you think about HOW you dive

I have dived the area before, and may be back over soon(working in Knock), just have to see what the outcome of my fundies in Oct will be!

It's a fantastic site for any training although I do wonder what the staff from the centre made of all this DIR stuff?

David

steve_cooper71 · August 2nd, 2006, 11:15 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Moz)

Steve,

Well done mate!
You didn't walk away with a cert, but that isn't the point. It's made you think about HOW you dive

I have dived the area before, and may be back over soon(working in Knock), just have to see what the outcome of my fundies in Oct will be!

It's a fantastic site for any training although I do wonder what the staff from the centre made of all this DIR stuff?

David

Cheers, it was never about getting a cert on this occasion, but for future progression I'd want it, but all in good time. Yeah I got a few bemused comments as to why we were doing a 'tech' (we were all in doubles) course in 10M of water...........

steve.

Divingniknaks · August 2nd, 2006, 11:31 PM

Hi

That wouldn't be Dr Cooper would it ?

Don't beat yourself up too badly, sounds like you got a lot out of it despite the setbacks.

You had more success with a bag than Neil, Jonathon or I did by the sound of it

And remember Rich is supposed to look that good, just to piss you off even more

Onwards and upwards

Cheers

**neilh** · August 3rd, 2006, 09:42 AM

Good to see more folk starting the journey

Steve - good on you for going into the course with a healthy attitude. I'm sure you'll soon have it nailed!

As knackers so kindly pointed out you aint the first to demonstrate how it shouldn't be done for the video

August 2nd, 2006, 03:44 PM	#1 (permalink)
PS1(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 77	First Ever DIR-f Ireland! After some organising & patience the notable event referred to above finally took place over 22/24th July in Connemara, west of Ireland. Given the location I'm not sure if that made Rich Walker a "Paddy" instructor for the weekend? Anyway, Rich & Clare made the trip over and were joined by students consisting of myself, Steve Cooper, Mike Whitty and Matt Randall. ScubadiveWest near Killary harbour provided the facilities necessary for the course & we were well catered for in a local B&B. Given the way that fundamentals courses have been thoroughly documented in the past, I'm not sure if it's entirely useful to give a blow by blow account - so I'll spare those details & give a, perhaps, more summative account of the course - but save to say that all the drills & skills hitherto commited to cyberspace were played out in front of the ever honest video camera! Day One Lectures, discussion, sweaty kit fitting & dry land drills preceded the first dive (which as with all the others took place in front of the dive centre in 'Little Killary'). Again, as with all the other dives, the viz was perfectly good - perhaps a little too good as things turned out since Clare on the video got everything - poor trim/buoyancy and ability to perform drills in shallow water without looking like a total novice - oh dear - weighting/trim adjustments necessary on the first evening. Day Two As with yesterday, more lectures, discussion, demonstration, dry-land drills and dives - just adding more skills into the mix all the time and really focusing the mind. One fun diversion was practising backward kicking in dry suits, masks & hood only (no fins or any other kit) - which is relatively 'accomplishable' when you're shown what to do! Dive 2, again, afforded us the opportunity to practice everything from dive 1 with layered on skills & drills - it was feeling better but still had some way to go. We practiced dry land valve shut downs again and again prior to dive three and then went in for our third dip. Skills demonstration felt alot better on this dive and, generally, things just started to feel as if they were coming together now - maybe the minor kit adjustments took effect or I was blowing away the slight lack of practice of a slow spring (diving wise) or all the muscle was kicking in or just getting used to doing all this stuff in front of an Instructor and video camera or just all of the above, who knows? Anyway - starting to feel a bit more like a diver now. Video review wasn't just so ugly now. Final Day Swim test (in the bl**dy sea!) woke every body up and preceded lectures and dry land drills (bag building) and then the final, and longest, dive. The same format is carried on where all the previous skills are required with some new ones (shooting a bag for example or OOA ascents for example). Things felt OK on this dive so then onto the last video debrief, final lectures and individual debiefs. In answer to some (what appear to be) FAQ about this course, I'll concluse by throwing in my thoughts; Is the course worth doing? Without a doubt - it's absolutely excellent. Being able to see (in the flesh as it were) accomplished divers perform the skills flawlessly and the use of video to demonstrate what you need to do to start moving toward that bar is one of the very powerful teaching tools used on this course. Allied to the academic stuff and to put it simply, I fail to see how anyone interested in DIR (or even just improving their dive skills) could fail to have fun and take away alot from this course. A ringing endorsement. What should I do to prepare for the course? Trickier one this! Primarily, my advice would be, with the help of your buddy(ies), get your buoyancy and trim sorted prior to commencement of the class and, if necessary, work on your fitness/swim skills. Of course if your equipment (or lack thereof) won't allow you to perform some of the drills then rectify that if you can but otherwise don't get too worried about the stuff you'll do on the class - just get the buoyancy and trim worked out and go diving! You'll get every opportunity & encouragement to work on the specific skills, and every opportunity to demonstrate them, in the duration of the class. Well, so much for my 2p's worth. Finally a big word of thanks to Jack Purcell who originally got the ball rolling on this, to Rich & Clare for their effort, enthusiasm & patience - you were fantastic, to the partcipants who weighed in as necessary and to scubadivewest who provided excellent facilities and an excellent location for a fundamentals class. __________________ Paul

August 2nd, 2006, 04:07 PM	#2 (permalink)
Sterny(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: The limpid tropical lagoons of Ealing, West London Posts: 550	Nice course report! What results did you all get? __________________ "I thought I had a great idea today, but it never really took off. In fact, it didn't even get on the runway. I guess you could say it exploded in the hangar." - Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

August 2nd, 2006, 04:14 PM	#3 (permalink)
Rick(Offline) Jock Exley Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Falkirk/Stratford UK Posts: 730	Nice one Paul! Did you give my batteries to Rich? __________________ Forget Everything And Remember http://phreaticzone.thedeepstop.com/ http://www.dublinbaydiving.com/

August 2nd, 2006, 08:53 PM	#5 (permalink)
PFM(Offline) Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Humberside Posts: 105	Nice report, as Chris L said, we're up next of Friday hopefully the camera will be kind to us __________________ On the long swim to Tech1...

August 2nd, 2006, 10:17 PM	#6 (permalink)
steve_cooper71(Offline) New Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 41	Doing it wrong Quote: (Originally Posted by Sterny) Nice course report! What results did you all get? I cant bring myself to use the 'F' word in front of a thousand odd people but suffice to say I need to take the course again... To be honest I'm not surprised, I wasn't prepared at all having not dived in almost 2 years!! Basically I was total crap on dive number one but I believe I got a little less crap with each dive but that still left me quite crap by the end. I missed my first dive because of a wing inflator problem clearly I didn't check my kit properly. My first dive could be used to demonstrate what bad trim and buoyancy control look like . Not having these basics nailed made practicing drills next to impossible. By the final epic (90 min) dive, which for me was dive 3, I had dropped weight, shifted it around and felt I was starting to get trimmed out, I even managed to assemble and shoot a bag while barely moving from the spot. This small personal triumph was over shadowed by more than a few disasterous performances e.g. screwing up as the 'victim' in a 'surprise' OOA drill. I'm sure Rich thought I was a bit slow when he tried for a few minutes to tell me to give an OOA signal to my buddy. The penny finally dropped and I went through the motions of frantically chopping my neck. Matt quickly responded and i took the reg but started to lose buoyancy control and had to leave him to it! I also managed to have my longhose tangled round my backup which I discovered during an S-drill. There possibly hasn't been another system of donating air in the whole history of diving that has had so much thought, discussion and planning put into it in and I managed to make it look like a total CF! All in all the course was a very educational, if humbling, experience. Probably the biggest take home message for me was that you can be kitted out like you just bought out the entire Halcyon (or other compliant dive kit producer) catalogue but without the proper skills and drills you just ain't doing it right! Regardless of my result I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would second Paul's praise of both Rich W. and Clare. Now its just down to me to learn how to dive again, and have another go! ...Any takers for DIR-F Ireland II ?

August 2nd, 2006, 04:15 PM	#4 (permalink)
Chris L(Offline) New Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: scun...thorpe Posts: 132	nice report mate and well done, my turn on friday. chris

August 2nd, 2006, 10:44 PM	#7 (permalink)
Moz(Offline) New Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Gateshead Posts: 205	Quote: (Originally Posted by steve_cooper71) I cant bring myself to use the 'F' word in front of a thousand odd people but suffice to say I need to take the course again... To be honest I'm not surprised, I wasn't prepared at all having not dived in almost 2 years!! Basically I was total crap on dive number one but I believe I got a little less crap with each dive but that still left me quite crap by the end. I missed my first dive because of a wing inflator problem clearly I didn't check my kit properly. My first dive could be used to demonstrate what bad trim and buoyancy control look like . Not having these basics nailed made practicing drills next to impossible. By the final epic (90 min) dive, which for me was dive 3, I had dropped weight, shifted it around and felt I was starting to get trimmed out, I even managed to assemble and shoot a bag while barely moving from the spot. This small personal triumph was over shadowed by more than a few disasterous performances e.g. screwing up as the 'victim' in a 'surprise' OOA drill. I'm sure Rich thought I was a bit slow when he tried for a few minutes to tell me to give an OOA signal to my buddy. The penny finally dropped and I went through the motions of frantically chopping my neck. Matt quickly responded and i took the reg but started to lose buoyancy control and had to leave him to it! I also managed to have my longhose tangled round my backup which I discovered during an S-drill. There possibly hasn't been another system of donating air in the whole history of diving that has had so much thought, discussion and planning put into it in and I managed to make it look like a total CF! All in all the course was a very educational, if humbling, experience. Probably the biggest take home message for me was that you can be kitted out like you just bought out the entire Halcyon (or other compliant dive kit producer) catalogue but without the proper skills and drills you just ain't doing it right! Regardless of my result I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would second Paul's praise of both Rich W. and Clare. Now its just down to me to learn how to dive again, and have another go! ...Any takers for DIR-F Ireland II ? Steve, Well done mate! You didn't walk away with a cert, but that isn't the point. It's made you think about HOW you dive I have dived the area before, and may be back over soon(working in Knock), just have to see what the outcome of my fundies in Oct will be! It's a fantastic site for any training although I do wonder what the staff from the centre made of all this DIR stuff? David

August 2nd, 2006, 11:15 PM	#8 (permalink)
steve_cooper71(Offline) New Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Northern Ireland Posts: 41	Quote: (Originally Posted by Moz) Steve, Well done mate! You didn't walk away with a cert, but that isn't the point. It's made you think about HOW you dive I have dived the area before, and may be back over soon(working in Knock), just have to see what the outcome of my fundies in Oct will be! It's a fantastic site for any training although I do wonder what the staff from the centre made of all this DIR stuff? David Cheers, it was never about getting a cert on this occasion, but for future progression I'd want it, but all in good time. Yeah I got a few bemused comments as to why we were doing a 'tech' (we were all in doubles) course in 10M of water........... steve.

August 2nd, 2006, 11:31 PM	#9 (permalink)
Divingniknaks(Offline) Resident purveyor of shiney kit.... Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Midlands UK Posts: 1,038	Hi That wouldn't be Dr Cooper would it ? Don't beat yourself up too badly, sounds like you got a lot out of it despite the setbacks. You had more success with a bag than Neil, Jonathon or I did by the sound of it And remember Rich is supposed to look that good, just to piss you off even more Onwards and upwards Cheers __________________ Phill ----------------------------- Salvo Lights, DirZone Gear , Frog Wings Dive ? http://www.divingniknaks.com

August 3rd, 2006, 09:42 AM	#10 (permalink)
neilh(Offline) Haemoglobin on the bus... Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Barnsley, UK Posts: 1,900	Good to see more folk starting the journey Steve - good on you for going into the course with a healthy attitude. I'm sure you'll soon have it nailed! As knackers so kindly pointed out you aint the first to demonstrate how it shouldn't be done for the video