DIR for working (not GUE) instructors

[Brian Allen]

I have a setup which i like to stick to. In the perfect world this is the way i would dive all the time and prescribe the same methods. But any working instructor that has to teach beginners and those just past that grade, knows that you have to be willing to adapt. The average course is fine but every so often you have to loan your kit, swap tanks (or even regs) with a student, pass off your backup torches, and even clip things in the wrong places.

Yesterday in the pool, i had to clip my SPG off with a double ender (as had to use a school single reg setup and had no clips, even worse) [shock]. Today i had to carry an extra boltsnap just incase the AOW student dropped one when they ran an ascent (seen it happen twice when teaching spools instead of reels), my HSE Rescue diver was wearing twins with custom diver valve gards ruining a perfect 40lb explorer setup, and my Aladin Tec norm made better sense than running it in guage mode as i had ascent warnings and a NDL limit for air when i was diving 32 ... These things don't really bother me, and i still like to think i'm diving DIR. The long hose has proved more useful than the old octo, the buddies are just fun. These dives are all just work... (try and get a commie diver to DIR!) The PADI system seems to fit almost, tho you can't teach primary donation and long hose to an OW or can you?

I'm interested in how other instructors see DIR working with their agencies. I'm questioning alot of things at the moment and trying to find the best way.

For info:

I dive twin 12s with an AGIR wing for AOW and above.

I dive an eclipse when teaching an OW course. I use a short hose in the pool, and a long hose in OW.

The problem that i have is constantly changing my kit, every day i'm rebolting the STA or twinset, i found myself swapping reg ports for a while before each course before i resigned myself to using hire kit for OW courses. Thankfully i always use my harness so i don't loose too much muscle memory.

How do you guys do it, and what are your opinions?

[JS1scuba]

Quote: (Originally Posted by Brian A)

How do you guys do it, and what are your opinions?

I own a dive center here in the USA. We teach the SDI OW program. We do a lot of new open water diver courses. Our "pool" equipment is standard reg and BC with weight belt etc. We don't do anything fancy there. They will only be in this stuff for 8 hours of their life. 85% of our students do OW training dives in the new equipment they purchase, 1/2 of those will be in it by the last pool session.

some our instructors use standard reg set ups with octos, the others use long hose with an integrated inflator octo. I use a full long hose / 2nd stage set up as does 2 of my DMs.

Students get exposed to three methods they will see in the real world.

Standard Reg set up with octo.
Reg set up with AirSource (integrated).
Long Hose Hogarthian method.

Anyone who wants to try out a hog set up is more than welcome to we have complete inventory and rentals of APEKS WTX plate and WTX3 wings as well as a smattering of Abyss, DIRZone, DiveRite etc.

Regards,

[techadmin]

Hi Joel excuse the OT but nice to see you here!

Stuart