DIR

[JoelW]

I don't think that I am stuck on terminology, I think that others are the ones with the issues. You know, diving is a bit of an odd duck in a lot of ways. It really is one of the few activities that I can think of where there aren't a fair number diverse, well-established schools of practice. So along comes a group, more or less codifies what has been happening into a single form, gives it a name guaranteed to annoy people and lots of people get peeved. Who cares where the origins of DIR are. I am sure that there were a lot of people out there that were doing large parts of the philosophy. Yeah for them. They should have taken what they did and organized it so that it could be applied to others. Are they DIR? Well, if what they do is compared to what is being established as DIR and they don't match up, then no, they are not DIR. Are they diving safely in a well organized manner? Yes. But that was not the question. That is similar to asking if someone is doing Aikido when they are studying Tae Kwon Do. Both styles get you someplace, but they don't get you there the same way.

What comes out of GUE is a school of training that can be replicated on a larger scale and benefit a lot more divers, ie. safer divers. But you raised a good point, do you have to take a GUE course to be DIR. For a lot of more experienced tech divers, probably not. They are probably already doing lot of the steps anyway and can recognize the subtleties. But, most of the people asking DIR questions don't appear to have that level of experience and you're right, it isn't going to happen on the net.

So in the end what may have been a better move was to name it something else, but it's too late now.

JoelW