Talk:Doing It Right (scuba diving)

Will resume updates to equipment section this week.

This is more of an FYI since there has not been much activity here.

I will be updating all sections under equipment with new revised/content as well as the intro section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.95.79 (talk) 19:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Apropos the earlier discussion of the sourcing of DIR material

The problem, as I see it, is that we are confusing sourcing for "things that are DIR" with sourcing for claims as to why such things are superior. It is easy to source GI or JJ for the former, but is rather self-serving to do so for the latter. DIR is only one of several "holistic" approaches to diving techniques and equipment selection, and it is, in fact, perhaps the youngest. It has reached it's current level of market penetration because of three things: 1) the entrepreneurial bent of the originators (it would have been interesting to see how differently it would have developed and presented itself it Parker was still around); 2) because of it's extremely narrow focus on a very specialized sort of diving; 3) because of the attractiveness of the "Kosherat of DIR" to those who rely more heavily on their amygdala than on their anterior cingulate cortex (see: Biology and political orientation ). Keep in mind that I can make all the same arguments that are made for DIR (and perhaps make them better) for the holistic approach that was developed at the University of California in then 1960s and 1970s; and while DIR would likely be a better approach (at least in my mind) for cave diving, the U.C. approach would be better for everything else. Wiki4Thal (talk) 20:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Permit me to illustrate the problem: JJ write's [[1]]: "As more people took up scuba diving, however, variation in equipment, training, and equipment configuration grew. With ever-growing numbers of people finding pleasure in open water, no decompression diving, came a collective identity reflecting the interests of its participants-recreational diving. An entire industry would soon follow to serve these interests. Concurrently, another identity would take shape, one tied to a group of divers, some coming from within recreational diving, some from without, that pushed the limits of recreational diving, by committing themselves to the exploration of increasingly more demanding environments; e.g., ice, caves and deep wrecks. Over time, these two groups would diverge and each would follow its own trajectory. The somewhat vague (in part arbitrary) categories of "technical" and "recreational" diving were set up to describe these two trajectories."

It would seem perfectly reasonable to use this as a reference to the "origin" of DIR or GUE, but is it accurate? I would submit that it is not. The problem is that it ignores the true origins of all civilian (and much of the military) scuba diving in the non-Florida scientific diving community (more on that latter), which had, and continues to have, a tradition of a "holistic" approach to diving that was abandoned by the recreational community when it moved to increase the number of recreational divers by lowering the prerequisites for training and the demands of training. I offer the aside that organized Florida scientific diving grew, in large part, out of the NOAA Scientist in the Sea Program what was very different than the California model in content and organization. Anyway, in the late 1980s and early 1990s the very clear (not at all vague) distinction between recreational and technical diving was created by Michael Menduno and aquaCorps Journal. The distinction was the presence of a ceiling, either physical or physiological, that precluded a reasonable risk normal direct ascent to the surface. Diver with such a ceiling had no choice but to place their complete faith and trust in the equipment that they took with them, just like technical climbers whose nomenclature strongly influenced Michael's coining of the Technical Diver term. Cave diving was one branch of the diving disciplines that made up the "trajectory" called "Technical Diving." DIR was a twig of the Cave Diving branch and GUE a sliver carved from that twig.

JJ goes on: "Given the different orientations of recreational and technical divers, it should come as no surprise that different training practices, equipment choices, and configurations would emerge to answer to the wants of each. The evolving idea of what it meant to be "recreational" led to some divergence regarding what one needed to know to remain safe during dives of minimal difficulty. Therefore, dive training tended to become shorter, with minimal treatment of topics such as gas planning, breathing gas concerns, decompression and crisis management. Likewise, this shift led to greater variation with respect to equipment choices and to how this equipment would be configured. However, the needs of technical diving required generally greater knowledge of these areas, more precision, more attention to detail, refined skills, practiced crisis management, a sound configuration, and well-crafted and well-maintained equipment. Conventions foreign to the recreational diving community, such as the "thirds rule," the use of a long hose, and the use of a redundant regulator, emerged expressly to address the needs of the technical diver. However, in time, it became apparent that the more precision and the more proficiency that were required to pursue eXploration-level technical diving, the more need there was for a unified system. This is because it was impractical, if not impossible, to operate efficiently as a team if individuals were not functioning under a common set of constraints."

He denigrates recreational diving (I feel for good reason) saying: "The evolving idea of what it meant to be "recreational" led to some divergence regarding what one needed to know to remain safe during dives of minimal difficulty. Therefore, dive training tended to become shorter, with minimal treatment of topics ..." and praises the Technical trajectory with, "greater knowledge of these areas, more precision, more attention to detail, refined skills, practiced crisis management, a sound configuration, and well-crafted and well-maintained equipment. Conventions foreign to the recreational diving community, such as the "thirds rule," the use of a long hose, and the use of a redundant regulator, emerged expressly to address the needs of the technical diver." which is part right and part wrong. First there is the implication that everything else is somehow less and then there is the completely erroneous comment concerning the redundant regulator, which first appeared in diving within the Recreational Trajectory back in the mid 1960s and which was (at the time) rejected by the cave and wreck community as well as the scientific community, all of whom came around to it later on. In any case you are left with two mistaken ideas, the first is that the Recreational Trajectory favors lesser knowledge of these areas, less precision, less attention to detail, sloppy skills, unpracticed crisis management, an unsound configuration, and poorly build and poorly-maintained equipment and that the trunk of the tree, the West Coast Scientific Diving Community (and places like U Mich., WHOI and RSMAS) was not already there with codified manuals and training programs that dealt, in detail, with all the issues raised.

To get back to the point I was trying to make: I have no issue with using sources such as JJ and GUE as authorities for that DIR or GUE do ... but great care must be taken with using them to support either the "why" do things that way or the history of how it came about. Wiki4Thal (talk) 01:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

- My thoughts.. Since this article is only for the "Doing It Right" as envisioned my GI3, JJ and the other principals involved in the WKPP during that era and through them GUE, I do not see any issues with sourcing almost exclusively from materials authored or generated by those people or organizations. In essence this is going to be limited to published articles, videos (DIR 2004 1-3), and books written by one of those people. Trying to make this more than an article just "DIR" is not doing anyone any good. trying to prove what or whom is best is really not the point. Getting an accurate representation of the Diving system is. That is my only aim here, frankly I would like to strike out all of the unsupported info in here and start over (all sections). If there is such a strong reaction to "DIR" then (and there seems to be at every juncture) I would suggest a separate page which can be used and linked over. Anti-DIR or "why DIR is wrong" or whatever. Putting it in the article just makes it look like a mess and accomplishes nothing. The other info is interesting and should warrant its own article, however i do not think its place is here in this article. Wiki articles need to be focused pieces otherwise your trying to boil the ocean Rlynch356 (talk) 11:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I am in agreement with what you are saying. The problem (for me at least, having a somewhat broader and more distant view than most) is that hand in hand with "Doing it Right" is the clear assumption that everything else is "Doing it Wrong." It is quite impossible to separate the "how" and the "why," since the "why" is based on an assumption that DIR is the "revealed" word, rather than just one splinter of the tree that works well in certain circumstances. Philosophically, DIR is so defined by arguments as to what it is not, rather than by what it is, that, funny as it sounds, a good case can be made that much of DIR, when applied to open water, for example, is a classic, "equipment solution to a skill problem." It is not clear to me how this can be handled in an encyclopedia situation except by saying that: 1) DIR exists; 2) is controversial for a number of reasons; and 3) here are some links to websites that describe it. Wiki4Thal (talk) 18:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

we are in partial agreement here. I think that what trips people up is the word "Right" here. DIR was popularized by a polerizing character whom adopted a WWF esq persona to get his point across. It was effective in that sense. My aim with the article is to publish what it is, the history, etc. and not to get philosophical on counter points since they are generally unsupported and opinion based. If there are counter articles written by authortive sources on why DIR is wrong can you point me to them. I'll start posting up material this week on the. The equipment section will be ordered from Head to Toe in terms of how the gear is layed out with an intro on the gear system. I do want to add the DIR Rules to the article but as of yet cannot find a copy which is dated and from a principle (there are others) Rlynch356 (talk) 06:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Look, I knew George well, he had no respect for the recreational diving world, and frankly from where I stand I can see his point(s). That is not the issue. George's problem (and the ongoing problem with DIR et. al.,) was that they did not see that there were long existing alternate paths that were as least as good (and often, I feel better) paths to extreme underwater excellence and performance. He (and his) never recognized that, and do not recognize that even today. Again, that is not he main issue, it just creates the conundrum. The entire basis of DIR is that it is the "best" think thing since sliced bread, and how do we know that? Just like any religion ... look into their book, it says so right there,in their book. I do not see how you can not get philosophical on the positive points ... but where do you turn to reference that? Why the Good Book of DIR. That is not, I am sorry to say, a valid reference for anything except "how" it is done, "why" is up for argument. But you know what? None of us who know better are wasting our time writing "why DIR is wrong" books, I mean ... why bother? So my recommendation is that we have a small section that talks about the origin of DIR, it's checkered history, it's great safety record, it's evolution into GUE and UTD and then, let it go. If people want to know the details of how to set up a rig, or what an s-drill is, or why you need to have a can light on a bright day at 15 feet in 200 ft viz, point them to the sites and boards where they can find that out, because that is not encyclopedia material, it is, IMHO, better covered elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki4Thal (talk • contribs) 07:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Tell you what, let's put your first effort on a small section of gear up in a talk area, then let's see if we can come to a consensus before going further. Okay? If we get stuck perhaps we can get Gene Hobbs (who is active on wiki, whom I trust, and who is the WKPP Medicine Man) to offer an opinion. Wiki4Thal (talk) 20:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I am currently working on the Preface and History section (I have changed focus inorder to present a more whole article, since the equipment section alone would be without context), and am seeking feedback from principles whom are/were involved. The motivations behind its creation are something I am looking at as well, which centers on standardizing a system which improves safety in long exploration dives via equipment, procedures, and team work as compared to methodologies in use at that time. Its growth into a diving style and a training agency (GUE) centered on those objectives. The objective is a historical view point of DIR rather than the emotional content up today.

The equipment section I have written will go through a similar offline review before posting it once I am done.Rlynch356 (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)