Posted by Clinton Bauder on May 23, 2000 at 18:23:49:
In Reply to: Re: DIR DEMONSTRATION IS NOT WANTED IN MONTEREY posted by Davey on May 23, 2000 at 17:00:35:
DIR stands for "Doing It Right" and comes from the equipment and diving techniques pioneered by the cave diving community. As it turns out much of what they are doing applies pretty well to recreational diving. I've overhauled my rig quite a bit based on this line of thinking. Doing it justice in a short post is tough so I'll pass on a few links.
http://www.gue.com/
http://www.halcyon.com/
http://www.mindspring.com/~toddleonard/caverig/
The negative reaction that some people have to "DIR" is a result of several factors. First, many of the proponents of this style of diving (especially the ones populating the techdiver and caver's mailing lists - the folks on this BBS are well behaved) are arrogant, foul-mouthed and just plain obnoxious. This is really unfortunate as it scares people away from otherwise good information. I suspect it also triggers dangerous ego responses in some people who are eager to prove them wrong as well.
Another problem is that many proponants of DIR seem to think that theirs is the ONLY way to dive and allow for NO exceptions. "Deviants" tend to be ridiculed or labeled as dangerous hazards to themselves and everybody around them. I can live with this in the context of technical training or the operation of a cave exploration effort but find it a bit over the top and elitist when applied more generally.
Finally I note that the folks actually running GUE and Halcyon are much more polite and professional than the loudmouths found on techdiver and it's important not to confuse them.
Clinton