Posted by Kendall Raine on November 06, 2000 at 16:58:19:
In Reply to: But you can see why I fear the CULT of DIR. posted by Wayne on November 02, 2000 at 17:01:06:
Wayne;
I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In this case the baby is DIR and the bathwater is the method of certain individuals. Your references to "They" and "We" is misplaced. Perhaps some context is in order.
In the last three years, MHK has been involved with three rescue attempts. All were fatalities. All involved divers doing things which DIR is vocally against. I was involved in one of those rescues. We worked on the guy for over an hour. We never had a chance. I attended the guy's funeral. Personally, it messed me up for weeks. If those people had been more focussed on the safety principles of the sort DIR embraces-mind you I didn't say "invent"-they'd probably all be alive today. I was friends with Darren Douglass, whom many of you will recall perished along with his 14 year old son on the Moody in 1995. Darren was an old time wreck diver who smirked at IAND-before it was IANTD-and all the "Tech" diving stuff. Darren's gear was circa 1965-teel 72's with a single outlet manifold, O2 bottle mounted between the doubles, no BCD, etc. Darren spent so much time diving and teaching other people how to dive he forgot he was subject to the same lessons. Darren basically stopped learning.
The point is people get killed and maimed in this sport regularly and much of it is avoidable. Yes its a wonderous sport and one of the few chances any of us get for pure, guiltless hedonism. That's why we all do it. You're all absolutely right that name calling, invective and the childish raving that goes on in other forums-particularly Techdiver-is unwelcome here. Just don't forget that MHK and others, despite their excesses, have other people's safety at heart. Don't believe me-ask Karl Huggins at the Catalina Chamber about MHK's commitment to the safety of California divers.
By the same token, DIR was created to promote diver safety and combat practices which, over the years, have shown themselves flawed. The evidence for these conclusions is body count. Many of the most vocal proponents of DIR teaching are aggressive in the face of argument. They should be. The forces of habit and self-satisfaction are tough to break. Some of those proponents sometimes go over the line in that aggressive commitment. They get personal. That's not the fault of DIR or most of the people who observe its principles. Put simply, DIR is not a cult, it's a commitment to a philosophy and a process that has as its physical manifestation a gear configuration which stresses simplicity. Many of the people most committed to it are people who've had their fill of seeing dead divers.
This is not to forgive or condemn anyone's actions. I'm just trying to put some of those actions into context.