Why?

[Clare Gledhill]

I was doing something this morning which made me think back to when I first decided that DIR was the way I wanted my diving to go. Given that it is still a niche area of diving (growing but still small) I wondered...

If you are - why DIR for you?

Did you fall in to it - meeting up with others perhaps...

Why did you make a conscious decision to train with GUE...

Or move to a "DIR" kit set up...

My own story is that I was throughly dissatisfied with my PADI training - and felt distinctly unqualified to dive in the UK. I met with another diver who dived a Hogarthian set up and who had the Patience and generosity to help me gain experience.

I already felt that I didn't want to feel dependant on his time and good nature and felt that I should seek training from elsewhere - when he and I dived with a DIR diver. That diver's obvious skill in the water made me look into DIR on the internet and I eventually got in touch with a few others who helped me and answered my questions. I signed up for DIR F and this, together with a few other experiences confirmed that DIR/GUE is the way I wanted to go.

Now you ...

[jb2cool]

Firstly, i'm not really DIR yet but well on my way.

I learned to dive earlier this year with PADI and as Gledders, I feel that i'm underqualified. I started buying up kit but rather than going for the jacket style BCD like most divers would, i went with the recommendation of some diving friends i have and went the wing/backplate route. From there i started looking more in depth into hogarthian rigs to see how to set it all up and i keps coming across this term DIR.

What is DIR i thought?

So i look it up and find that it extends upon the ideas already laid out by hogarthian principals. The more and more reading i do, the more sense DIR seems to make and thus that's the way i've been leaning ever since.

I'm yet too do any proper DIR training but i'll get there some time next year. Going to do the DIR-F and then PADI Advanced.

[LCF]

My story is similar to Clare's.

I took my initial training with a PADI shop, and felt woefully incompetent to dive at the end of it. Even after completing the AOW class, I was a pretty sad excuse for a diver, and I knew it.

Through a Scubaboard initiated "big buddy" dive, I made a connection with a NAUI instructor who had done DIR-F, and who dives with a lot of DIR friends. When I saw the elegance of these divers in the water, I knew that was something I wanted. My mentor encouraged me to take Fundies, and, bless his heart, lent me the gear required for over a month so that I could practice and be comfortable in it before the class.

In the class, I learned that the buoyancy and trim I had admired was only one part of a multifaceted approach to diving, the underlying philosophy of which seems to be reducing the unavoidable human error factor as far as it can reduced. As a friend said, when he reads about people dying when diving, the relatives always seem to say, "He died doing something he loved." My friend doesn't want anybody to say that about him, and I don't want anybody to say it about me, either. DIR seems a good way to avoid it.

And I have nothing against looking good in the water, either

[limeyx]

Quote: (Originally Posted by Gledders)

I was doing something this morning which made me think back to when I first decided that DIR was the way I wanted my diving to go. Given that it is still a niche area of diving (growing but still small) I wondered...

If you are - why DIR for you?
...
Now you ...

Luckily for me, my PADI instructor (who worked in the next cubicle to me for 5 years) went ahead and made all the mistakes (er, blazed the trail

He was always trying to talk me into getting certified but (for some ungodly reason) I resisted, until me and a buddy did some Intro to SCUBA dives on Maui (so I guess those things *can* work

I had spent years listening him go on about how he was paying hundreds of dollars to go down to San Diego for a week and have some instructor steall/break all his gear and still expect him to make it out of the water alive. Little did I know...

I came back to the US and begged him to certify us (He's a PADI instructor)
Told him I wanted to buy rather than rent gear (cause I had read it was cheaper), and he uttered the words that defined how I dive
"Do you want me to recommend PADI gear to buy or the right kind of gear"

I told him "Recommend whatever it is that you would use if you were starting today" and couple of weeks later I had a full DIR setup (minus light and long hose)

He then pointed me to a few DIR websites (gue.com, wkpp etc.) and the light turned on for me -- I think DIR is just entirely satisfying to engineering brain maybe (I can only imagine what would happen if the marketing department learned SCUBA

We still had to go through PADI training, but luckily in a class of just 3 of us, and even with him helping we were still somewhat "underqualified" to be running our own dives in the ocean.

Luckily we used our "advanced" class to go over DIR fin kicks, OOA, Basic 5, shooting a bag etc. which prepared us for DIR-F which we took around 40 dives.

Now, It's *me* that's paying ungodly amounts of money to have an instructor yank my mask off, tell me I'm OOA and that the team died following the line in zero vis back to the boat.

Yup, I'm 99% signed up for Tech1 next year

[Meng_Tze]

My excuse is that after the PADI / TDI route I met a 'DM' on a dive trip in Malaysia. He was doing DM work for a dive school to basically dive for free.

But he dove differently..... frog kick, had perfect trim and buoyancy. He had this 'sun beam' that lit up the clear waters. I got to talking with him and over a number of dives/weeks (I was in that area for quite some time) we befriended. He told me of GUE..... little did I know... once I got to know his friends I started to see the light. I did the fundies quickly after that ...... the rest is history as they say.

[A-M]

I started with trimix-stuff a few years ago. Bought al the equipment I could think of and followed some courses. During the 3 years thereafter I stripped everything I didn't used/need and replaced some stuff I wasn't satisfied with. And ended up with almost an hogarthian rig.
Than since last year I had some people around me starting to tell about Gue, emphasizing teamwork (he, I was familiar with that part as a manager but what does it had to do with diving???), that they learned so much in the F classes about trim and bouyancy (and I had thought they were pretty good divers before already).... So if they could learn so much, I centainly can.
So my fundamentals class is soon to be started.
I let you know how it went :D

A-M

[Little Pete]

I think what I saw was a picture of some Technical divers on the net somewhere and soon after a picture of a DIR tech level diver.

I admit it was the kit at first that got me. On one hand you had these techies weighed down with tanks everywhere and hoses by the dozen. I was dead impressed by all this as it showed they were really cool and had all the gear

Then seeing a DIR tech diver in comparison I just was shocked. How is that diver managing the same dive with what looks like bugger all gear compared to the other folks. I can't see any reels and bits hanging off, his torches are tucked away not dangling etc etc.

I duly chased up some web info (particularly liked the Divernet reports of the fundies and RecTriox courses) and the more I read the more it made sense. I started to shy away from those who wanted to 'go to 60m on air (in tropics admittedly) just to see what it's like'. Bear in mind that I was a 19 year old Divemaster trainee (who was of course going to live forever and could do anything) so this came as quite a turnaround and I think set me back a bit.

Now I realise how good I 'should' be to get myself going on a technical route and how being in the proper setup, mindset, team and everything can make 'difficult' dives much easier and possibly safer.

Is it just me that cringes reading reports of Technical courses where the first thing you read is 'We started off going down and kneeling on the bottom in 6m to practise skills'? Personally I feel nobody who is aiming for that level and 'risk' of diving should be requiring kneeling on the bottom at any time.

[Chrisch]

Hi Clare, (nice to talk other than YD!!)

I'm 80%+ HOG not DIR and hanging about on the forum to pick up some diving tips!!

FWIW I think that the development of DIR following on from WKPP and the experiences of JJ, GI and co has brought diving (notably deep diving) into focus. I was PADI trained and happy for 15 years before I ventured into the more technical and deeper aspects of diving. It worries me to see the way some people rush into "advanced" diving without really understanding what they are doing.

I dive with my partner and she is someone that has not enjoyed diving beyond 30m in the past. As a result we took an (IANTD) trimix course aimed at the 35-50m diver. It has made such a difference to us and to what we are prepared to do that it is difficult to express. Our instructor was an hogarthian diver (as are most IANTD instructors) and we have changed our diving and our equipment accordingly.

Full-blown DIR is some way off yet. We would both like to do the DIR-F at some point, but our equipment is not yet compliant. Perhaps we will get there, perhaps not, but much of what I read makes sense even if some of the "detail" seems a bit over the top, or perhaps more cave-oriented than our current diving.

My partner and I have been diving much longer than you (and perhaps many of the DIR divers on the forum) and I have enjoyed reading about how you have developed from a PADI newbie to the diver you are today. I wish all this information had been around when I started!!

It annoys me when DIR is seen as a closed shop by those outside (and inside) it. Wanting to be better and safer divers is something we should all aspire to.

I'm fed up with the silly arguments elsewhere. I hope you all do not mind that I visit here both to learn and to share my experiences and my views.

Best regards and a happy new year one and all.....

Chris

[Clare Gledhill]

Quote: (Originally Posted by Chrisch)

I'm fed up with the silly arguments elsewhere. I hope you all do not mind that I visit here both to learn and to share my experiences and my views.

Mind? Don't be daft - it's what the forum is for

Good to see you here Chris.... and thanks for posting your reasoning - like I said in my original post I am more than aware that we have hogarthian, GUE, DIR interested and non DIR but diving interested and open minded people on here - we can all learn different things from each other... and have fun talking diving as well

[QBU]

I fell into DIR by accident. My husband and I have been dive buddies for many years. He decided to get into tech diving and I stayed out of it because I didn't want him to feel I was competing. After watching and listening to him, I realized I was foolish and decided to follow my best dive buddy.

I shudder to think about the fact I started out with independent doubles and deep air.

Somewhere along the line the realization of the need for trimix came in to view. Problem became the cost ($110 per fill of double AL 80's). That coupled with a few other needs, led us to the realization that an SCR would be the best tool for the job. A lot of research went into finding the SCR we thought was the best to meet our needs and that turned out to be the RB80.

Not knowing a thing about DIR, we suddenly became immersed in a crash course (not a quick crash course but a sudden wake up to reality) of DIR. I decided to stick with DIR-F and my husband and a few others went from DIR-F into the RB80. I watched this entire process and decided I wanted to go that route because it made so much more sense than the training I had done through other Tech training agencies. So awhile down the road we brought back the same GUE instructor and held more DIR-F, Tech 1 and another RB80 course which I went through.

Since then there has been no turning back. I have a lot of respect for what GUE has done in trying to integrate their version of tech diving into the general populous without losing focus.

Besides I love the gear.:D I've always been a gear fanatic and finding gear that makes so much sense and yet at the same time simplifies everything...it's awesome!

My next venture is Cave1.