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Tom et al, I thought that since several people seemed curious about my opinion on this that there must be some confusion. I don't particularly understand why people choose some of the equipment configurations that I see in diving but I recognize that this will remain a fact of life. It does not really bother me but I do not want people to imagine that I don't believe there to be an easy and sensible way to configure equipment. Perhaps in my desire to be fair and professional about my convictions I failed to state them clearly. It seems self-evident to me that the Hogarthian style that we evolved into a more comprehensive DIR is the one that makes sense to me. I know George feels the same way and imagines that people should hear about this whether they want to or not<g>. Personally I think if people want my opinion they can listen to what I am saying, ask me questions, or read our web pages etc but I think that both of us do what seems right to us personally. I do know that there has been a huge resistance to some of our ideas and an allegiance to the status quo. For example, when I first started teaching most of my "mentors" were very careful to be sure that I understood how inappropriate it would be to indicate that there might be a preferred way to configure their equipment. None of that ever made any sense to me at all. There was and to some extent is still a fair degree of resistance to the DIR style. George has helped create an atmosphere where instructors can be challenged and where DIR has been heard. Much of this process has not been the way I would have proceeded. Maybe worse, maybe more effective. Maybe there is a need for both of our styles, maybe one, or maybe none. In the end it is for all of you to decide for yourself what you want and how you respond. I do think that there is a lot of reforming to do in the world of diving and scuba education and hopefully some of these efforts will have an ultimately positive impact. George and I have been friends and diving partners for more than 10 years and together we took the early ideas of Main and Gavin to what I feel was their natural conclusion. We have had our share of arguments and disagreements but they were personal and political and usually somewhat beside the point. We do not need to debate equipment or configuration because these tenets seem self-evident to both of us. Truth be told it is not rocket science. We could pretend there was some magic behind these decisions but then that defeats the purpose of DIR and what each of us is trying to accomplish- each in our own way. I may not agree with all of G's politics or personality but then again I have never met anyone with whom I did always agree. Yet when it comes to being in the back of some cave at 300' politics just don't seem relevant. Best, JJ JJ states" "two things will undoubtedly remain constant there will always be new equipment for people to obsess over, and there will > always be people arguing over how that equipment should be configured Your > response to these arguments should be based on your actual needs, and on the requirements of your diving environment." Seems to me that JJ's statement agrees with most of us and is more in line with Bill Gavins "have an open mind and always seek perfection" in contrast to yours so where is the one mind bit? It would appear that JJ and Bill encourage people to think to be logical to try to improve them selves not blindly follow a hypocrite Jarrod Jablonski President- Global Underwater Explorers www.gue.com CEO Extreme Exposure www.extreme-exposure.com VP Halcyon Manufacturing www.halcyon.net, www.browniedive.com, www.tankfill.com Global Underwater Explorers www.gue.com GUE is a non-profit educational, research, and exploratory organization with hundreds of dedicated members around the world. Extreme Exposure www.extreme-exposure.com Extreme Exposure and Halcyon manufacturing produce some of the scuba industries most novel and robust diving equipment designed by many of diving's most active explorers. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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