Holistic Hogarthian - a working document (Part I)

[DRE]

\"DRE, your article is very informative and well written. I am interested in hearing how the H2 philosophy differs from DIR. The only significant philosophical departure seems to be the \"H2 Lifestyle\".
Is H2 \"better\" than DIR, more \"accomodating\" than DIR?\"

I wouldn't say H2 is better or worse than DIR, I'd say it's very similar in a lot of regards, but with some minor differences as far as content is concerned. First, I coined the term Holistic Hogarthian to refer to a diver who uses the Hogarthian gear setup (as DIR divers do), and who is similar to DIR in terms of deco procedures, team based diving and being in good physical shape. However, since Joel pointed out that you can't be DIR unless you have taken a GUE class (with which I agree since DIR is closely related to that group of divers which would eventually start GUE), there had to be a designation for all these people who had been doing this kind of diving for all these years without drawing any attention to themselves. I have never taken a GUE class so by definition I can't be DIR. However, I dove with people who are DIR and in terms of dive planning and gear config you couldn't tell a difference, hence Holistic Hogarthian.

\"Is H2 a philosophy, a set of guidelines, a gear configuration, or all of the above? How does a diver \"become\" H2?\"

I believe it is all of the above. It is a philosophy of diving in the sense that it is a well defined concept which came into being through careful experimentation and logical deduction. It is a set of guidelines, which, when followed, will make you a better diver guaranteed. It definitely is a gear configuration, developed by Bill \"Hogarth\" Main. But I guess it also is more than all of the above - it truly is a diving lifestyle, which strives for perfection in terms of diving (so maybe it's kind of utopia, cause who ever becomes the \"perfect diver\"). One of the main things that separates it from DIR, is its openness to try out different configurations if the environment demands that. Example: whereas the Hogarthian config is by far superior in all regards for open water, wide open cave and big wrecks, the backmount design limits it from going into tiny tunnels. The sidemount config is much more optimal in that regard. The DIR diver will in general avoid going into these places, but for the H2 diver he'll adapt his config to be able to go in there. This also means though, that the same procedures regarding dive safety (gasses, teams, redundancy, etc.) need to bo maintained - otherwise we'd fall back into the anything goes attittude of too many OW and tech divers.

\"Do we need to create an H2 website -- ? I can help make this happen.\"

I'm not sure whether we want to create a website - if somebody would volunteer to do so, go for it. I'd be more than willing to help out with info and stuff, but it is not my intent to create another DIR, just something for people who cannot agree 100% with DIR for whatever reason (as I said, mostly nomenclature, because there isn't a whole lot else I personally disagree with anyways) to identify with.