User:Pbsouthwood/History of DIR

=History of the DIR movement=

22-12-2011
Originally Posted by rlynch There is a wealth of info on the early days of DIR, trey, WKPP to be found archived (took about 5 minutes of searching to come up with the archives that dan mentioned)
 * 22-12-2011 02:31 PM

WKPP from rec.scuba

Jablonski on rec.scuba

Aquanauts cave - key word Trey

Aquanauts techdiver - Trey

should be fairly easy to rewrite the wikipedia entry to reflect the true history and get rid of most of the mis-informed personal viewpoints. No reason for it to stand as is... I'm a wikipedia author as well (nothing to it really, anyone can become one, and meeting the guidelines for articles is realitively easy). It will open a can of worms given the open source nature of wikipedia however.

I get the impression that the "real history" is something that the driving forces of the new wiki article, will want no part of. They are more interested in explaining DIR to match closer to their own personal agendas.

Dan Volker

I think this is the direction the wiki article should take....discussions of "strokes" and other insults are not really significant in understanding DIR.
 * 22-12-2011 03:28 PM

DIR or Doing it Right, as a style of diving, was created in 199_ by George Irvine, the then Director, of the Wakulla Karst Plains Project. DIR was and is a team based system of diving, where all divers in a team wear the same type of gear, all use the same skill sets, where each member of a 2 or 3 man team, is constantly aware of the position and status of the other member(s) throughout the dive….Should one buddy run out of gas, the accident would be as much the fault of the buddies as the diver who ran out of air, because all in a team need to have the awareness of the gas reserves of the others. In DIR, the strategy is to proactively prevent problems by dealing with them before they become problems. Situational awareness was taught, mandated, and those who did not exhibit it, could not be on a team. If one buddy suffered a problem on the dive that caused their air/gas reserve to run down to 600 psi at a depth of 100 feet, while the other members of the team still were closer to 2500 psi ( lots of gas/air), the immediate action a buddy would take would be to donate their own primary regulator to the low on gas buddy, and begin the relaxed ascent to the surface….the thinking being that this eliminates any chance of an out of air event during the ascent, and once at the surface, the low on gas diver can revert to the 600 psi they had left, to make the access to getting back on the boat much easier than if they were to do this sharing gas.

History.

In the 80’s and 90’s, there were rampant deaths in cave and deep ocean diving. The training agencies began offering technical courses in the mid 90’s that allowed them to profit from this interest in a growing segment of divers, but the standards of these agencies often contributed to many more deaths—at least this was the position taken by the membership of the WKPP. George Irvine, in response to the rampant deaths in north Florida caves, and the increasing trend for landowners to eliminate cave diving access to their caves, came up with a mandatory set of diving behaviors and gear configurations which promised to prevent the deaths so common in cave diving. As the close to 100 man team of WKPP divers ran thousands of man hours of diving without deaths or incidents, in dives far more demanding than the ones killing the masses of cave divers, the value of the WKPP’s DIR became more and more apparent to those who knew the history of the accidents, and the track record of the WKPP…More and more divers began electing to utilize the DIR ideas, to increase their safety margins, and to increase the adventures they could enjoy. Irvine soon decided the increasing death toll was getting worse due to training agencies pushing for more tech and cave divers, and training them with seriously flawed gear configurations and mindsets….things like “every man for himself”—the opposite of the buddy or team based dive system of the WKPP, and standards which allowed all manners of gear choices to be slapped on the diver any way they wanted to, another huge contributor to cave diving fatalities as far as Irvine was concerned. A decision was made that to prevent more deaths, and more shut downs of cave sites around the state, Irvine and a number of WKPP members would begin promoting the DIR ideas on the tech list, on Cavers, and on rec.scuba. The ideas regarding DIR were often directly opposed to standards of several training agencies, and this led to a severely controversial style of idea articulation, in which something more like a WWF Wrestling Persona was used to drastically intensify the arguments, and to aim insults at what were considered the culprits in the training agencies or deep diving community.. These insults and intense arguments on the internet, caused tens of thousands of internet readers/divers to read the threads, both for the extreme entertainment value, and for the safety and adventure value understanding these issues better could offer. Irvine created three Videos during his tenure at the WKPP, to show DIR concepts and diving in detail to people from all over the world that had read about DIR, and wanted to know much more. DIR 1 and DIR 2 were the major efforts to educate cave and tech divers, and were the best sources for a globally interested community, to learn about DIR, in depth….DIR 3 came around 2001, it’s purpose to show recreational divers that DIR was every bit as much for them, as it was for cave and tech divers. As GUE began to grow in response to a global community of divers that were practically demanding DIR education, in person, Jarrod Jablonski began this DIR Training agency, which became the first DIR training agency, and to this day THE training agency of the WKPP. Prior to GUE, to be trained in DIR meant either to be “mentored” by members of the WKPP over years, and becoming a WKPP team member yourself---or, just watching all the DIR videos, and then being as DIR’ish as possible.

As 2011 is now passing, many of the DIR ideas of the 90’s have been heavily infused into the agencies which were antagonistic to these ideas in the past. Animosities still exist due to the vitriol Irvine created in the creation of the stage or drama that he felt was required to expose dangerous practices and dangerous deep divers. DIR is now promoted by GUE, in a much Kinder and Gentler method. The world of diving is now a different place also…the “other” training agencies are no longer creating horribly unsafe standards, and the tech or cave death rate is down dramatically. Jablonsky is soft spoken and articulate, and his style comes across very differently than the media persona style that Irvine felt compelled to use for the different problems of his day.

Dan Volker

@ Danvolker, I like your text but one sentence seems to be biased.
 * 22-12-2011 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by danvolker the “other” training agencies are no longer creating horribly unsafe standards, and the tech or cave death rate is down dramatically. I suggest : "Most of the courses of other training agencies can now beeing taught in accordance with D.I.R. philosophy. In some courses, all D.I.R. principles and rules have to be respected".

jago

Originally Posted by jago @ Danvolker, I like your text but one sentence seems to be biased.
 * 22-12-2011 05:45 PM

I suggest : "Most of the courses of other training agencies can now beeing taught in accordance with D.I.R. philosophy. In some courses, all D.I.R. principles and rules have to be respected".

Or "Most of the training agencies are now using standards much more in accordance with DIR philosophies...In some cases, all DIR principles are respected..."

Sorry, even in a "kinder, gentler time", I still have some of the old habits from the 90's :-) But I'm working on it...

Dan Volker

Originally Posted by danvolker DIR philosophies... Is there more one (like Agent Smith in Matrix reloaded) ?
 * 22-12-2011 06:17 PM

Jago

Originally Posted by jago Is there more one (like Agent Smith in Matrix reloaded) ? OK, now that is kind of funny :-) The serious answer though is that DIR is not about creating clones or Xerox copies or unthinking robots.... It is a series of demonstrations you witness, covering virtually every aspect of diving, from which you are given a vantage point where the optimal solutions are also demonstrated, and after the massive number of problems a diver can encounter, and the possible solution ranges available, DIR solutions prevail in the mind of the diver, and they gain the DIR mindset. Put another way...a person with no education in math may need to count their fingers and toes to arrive at an understanding of how much of something while a mathematician could calculate this immediately and correctly. What I am talking about is a higher level thought process, something 95% of all divers are capable of, many non-DIR's may "approximate" often in many areas......but with DIR training, it is common to each DIR Diver. The "team" aspect also must be understood exactly the same way for each DIR diver, otherwise optimal team behaviors can not be expected....this is actually why I am about to go through Fundamentals from Errol and Bob....even though I was a very early DIR diver, and have a high level of skill, GUE has evolved team behaviors beyond what we used to use in the 90's, and for many of the projects I will be diving on in the next year, it will be essential that I know exactly what to expect of each team member at all times, and they know what to expect of me....the communication part, the delivery, all the elements.
 * 22-12-2011 06:35 PM

Dan Volker

Originally Posted by danvolker I think this is the direction the wiki article should take....discussions of "strokes" and other insults are not really significant in understanding DIR. Hi Dan, Your suggested material will be fine if you can provide references. This could be the basis of a better introduction section. By the way, your name has been used in the article by someone who edited the article recently, and the assertions this person made have not been referenced, and are not verifiable by a google search. Perhaps you would take a look. Cheers, Peter
 * 22-12-2011 06:50 PM

Hi Dan, I will look at the video. If it looks useful, I will try to find the software you mention, as it will probably be necessary to refer back to it often to get the references straight. Cheers, Peter Originally posted by Dan Volker
 * 22-12-2011 07:02 PM
 * 22-12-2011 07:17 PM

I get the impression that the "real history" is something that the driving forces of the new wiki article, will want no part of. They are more interested in explaining DIR to match closer to their own personal agendas.

Hi Dan, The real history would be ideal. The problem is that it is not recorded anywhere that I know of in a form that is within the Wikipedia constraints of verifiability. It would be great if someone would get around to writing a book or serious journal article on it so it can be referenced easily. I think there is a real danger of the real history being lost and diffusing into myth and legend if it is not recorded professionally sometime soon, and that would be an unfortunate loss, as it is one of the major developments of recreational/technical diving. Cheers,

Peter

Originally Posted by Peter Southwood Hi Dan, I will look at the video. If it looks useful, I will try to find the software you mention, as it will probably be necessary to refer back to it often to get the references straight. Cheers, Peter
 * 22-12-2011, 07:25 PM

Peter, Let's say you were doing a Wiki article on the Macintosh computer...and the BEST quotes and info you see are from a direct email by Steve Jobs to you--or to someone else, that you have access to. Let's imagine further, that you could even question him about the quote or information he wrote... Are you saying that you could not use this, because it was not published? You did have the email, and you did have the opportunity to question him and determine authenticity and meaning. I am certainly no Steve Jobs, but I was one of the people that was clearly responsible for a lot of the early DIR information dissemination. You have emails from me, and posts, and the DIR 3 video. References beyond this would seem unnecessary. Also consider that the 90's were a time when the Internet was nearly the exclusive conveyance of DIR to the diving world, and that DIR was an Internet phenomenon, much like Wiki has become....Obviously Wikipedia is exponentially larger than DIR--the point being, it is "published" only on the internet, as far as I know. Dan Volker

Originally Posted by Peter Southwood Hi Dan, The real history would be ideal. The problem is that it is not recorded anywhere that I know of in a form that is within the Wikipedia constraints of verifiability. It would be great if someone would get around to writing a book or serious journal article on it so it can be referenced easily. I think there is a real danger of the real history being lost and diffusing into myth and legend if it is not recorded professionally sometime soon, and that would be an unfortunate loss, as it is one of the major developments of recreational/technical diving. Cheers, Peter
 * 22-12-2011, 07:38 PM

I could write up an article in the South Florida Dive Journal South Florida Dive Journal > Home there are a few old articles there you could also find, like SFDJ ( though my programmers messed up the title credit when they converted to the new format...Bill Mee wrote the first part, I wrote this part 2 article. You guys at Wiki could also give me credit for the South Florida Dive Journal as being the first photo format ( inline jpegs) magazine on the Internet...When I created it in 1993, hosted by Cybergate ( my Gulfstream issue), the only thing close to a magazine was a website called Mosaic...I read the code by "view source", and figured out how to do it myself.....Beyond mosaic and the South Florida Dive Journal, there was Yahoo and several other search engines....When SFDJ started up, we were getting 100,000 hits in a week, many from silicon valley....there was nothing like us, and we were also the first model for commerce on the Internet, as the purpose was to show South Florida Diving to the world, and have them come here...dive shops and hotels were given pages in sfdj so they could be toured virtually. In any event, SFDJ had several DIR related articles in it through the late 90's. It could easily have a new one on "the Real History of DIR Diving".

Dan Volker

Originally Posted by danvolker
 * 22-12-2011, 09:40 PM

Peter, Let's say you were doing a Wiki article on the Macintosh computer...and the BEST quotes and info you see are from a direct email by Steve Jobs to you--or to someone else, that you have access to. Let's imagine further, that you could even question him about the quote or information he wrote... Are you saying that you could not use this, because it was not published? You did have the email, and you did have the opportunity to question him and determine authenticity and meaning. I am certainly no Steve Jobs, but I was one of the people that was clearly responsible for a lot of the early DIR information dissemination. You have emails from me, and posts, and the DIR 3 video. References beyond this would seem unnecessary. Also consider that the 90's were a time when the Internet was nearly the exclusive conveyance of DIR to the diving world, and that DIR was an Internet phenomenon, much like Wiki has become....Obviously Wikipedia is exponentially larger than DIR--the point being, it is "published" only on the internet, as far as I know.

Dan, That is exactly what I am saying. There is a very strict rule on Wikipedia called "No original research" If I wrote that Mackintosh article I would not be able to put it on Wikipedia, I would have to publish it somewhere else, then somone else could use it as the reference for an article on Wikipedia. The point is that one's own work is assumed to be biased, and as you may have noticed, this is often a problem on Wikipedia. We strive for neutral point of view, and are expected to provide references for anything that we claim as a fact. Opinions are only allowed if they are somone else's and you can cite a reference. And you must say they are opinions and not claim them as facts. This makes some subjects easy, as there is a huge amount of published information, or not much controversy. DIR is tricky as there is a lot of controversy and very little published in the traditional formats. Internet sources are unfortunately somewhat volatile, and often when you try to check a citation you get a broken link, which means that information becomes a grey area, and if someone doesn't like it they can challenge it and if it can't be defended, it gets removed. This is why we much prefer something published as a book or periodical on paper, as it ends up in the Library of Congress or similar and is then considered permanent. Seriously, if you were in at the start and can write a reliable history, it would be great. Best of all it might encourage other people to contribute and you could end up with good, robust records. If you do have a go at a history, it would enormously improve its credibility if you could cite as much as possible, and where the information is only available as internet pages or e-mails, attach copies as appendices, so they can be checked and are less likely to be lost. It would be a big work, but could be well worth it in the long run. I would also suggest a collaborative effort if it is more than you want to do yourself. South Florida Dive Journal would be a reasonable place to publish, and it would be very helpful if you could get it archived somewhere like the Rubicon Research Repository. Cheers,

Peter

dan i'll take a shot at adding the references (or if you can provide) for intro and history and see what i can do about providing depth (via references and wording changes) i would like to have some reviews for the material prior to publishing on Wikipedia (dan, looking to you here as well as others from the foundational group if possible, i can contact JJ via GUE. I can take lead on publishing to Wikipedia or can help with that as the case may be.
 * 22-11-2011 10:46 PM

I'll send you my direct contact info rlynch

23-12-2011
Originally Posted by danvolker I could write up an article in the South Florida Dive Journal South Florida Dive Journal > Home
 * 23-12-2011 03:49 AM

That actually sounds like a really good idea, if you were OK with taking the time to write such an article. If someone who was closely involved in the early days wrote a definitive article on the subject in a journal like that, which the article could then link to as a source, that would be hugely helpful.

Rhone Man