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> I agree that uniformity of team procedure is of great value. The only > problem occurs when an individual diver wishes to dive with another team. In some ways, the same applies to a "team" of two (i.e., buddies). For what I do, solo diving is without question the "BEST way. However, I can only use the word "BEST" in the conext of ALL the variables associated with my diving, including my own personal knowledge, skills and psychology, what equipment I presently have access to, my personal body of experience (both size and shape), what specific tasks I endeavor to accomplish, my funding source, etc., etc. This brings to mind two related items. The first has to do with equipment standardization. Phil Sharkey and I coauthored a presentation and followup article at the AAUS meetings a couple of years ago about my trimix rig design for use by diving researchers. Phil and I had many long philosophical discussussions about rig designs and training protocols when he came out to Hawaii for a visit. Phil used to teach scientific divers at the University of Rhode Island. His philosophy was to use *extremely* consistent standards for each and every student, and would force them all to conform to the same set of standards. His point was that any two of these divers would be able to get in the water together and know exactly how each other's rigs were configured, and would know exactly how each would respond in a certain situation, etc, even if they'd never dived together before. In many applications, I can understand the value of this way of doing things. However, my system is more fluid. My philosophy is to *optimize* the rig and proceedures for a particular set of conditions, which means your rig changes regularly to suit the specific needs of a specific dive. The weakness of my way of doing things is that it is more difficult to develop automatic, reflexive responses to situations. Phil's system, because of its consistency across a wide variety of dive conditions, allows divers to develop such reflexive responses more easily. The only problem I have with reflexive responses is that they tend to by-pass the brain; i.e., they don't involve thought. If the diver is not too bright, or is prone to narcosis, then it is better to bypass the brain. If the diver is sharp and quick, then the brain can sometimes intervene and effect a more intelligent response. This can often be valuable in the sense that, because no two problems are exactly alike, no two ideal solutions are exactly alike either. The second issue, which is a related one, is based on a debate I listened to on one of the tapes of the tek95 meetings. It was in one of the summary sessions, and the issue was the "do as I say, not as I do" dilema. Some folks were not happy with the fact that certain experienced mixed-gas divers did things a certain way when they were doing cutting-edge, outer-envelope, exploratory-type dives, but then turned around and told their students to follow a different set of standards. The aforementioned unhappy folks suggested that if these people wanted to advocate standards to their students, then they should set a good example by adhereing to those standards on their exploratory dives. The flip-side of this argument (which I side with), is that the guys doing the cutting-edge dives cannot afford to serve as "good examples" to their students by following such standards -- there is just too little margin for error. Cutting-edge dives require precise optimization of equipment and proceedures. Standards for training must account for the "lowest common denominator". These two things (precise optimization and standards) are, for the most part, mutually incompatible. By definition, a diver-in-training is not anywhere near ready to be a "cutting-edge" diver, and should therefore adhere to a different set of rules. The point of this message is to start a thread on the value of customizing and optimizing versus the value of equipment and procedural standardization. Is there one answer? Are there many answers? If instructors are to maintain the "do as I say, not as I do" position, then what is the best way to prevent over-confident students from taking the "well if he can do it, so can I" approach? Any thoughts? Aloha, Rich P.S. Not wanting to lose my status as someone who posts more information than flamage, I hereby resign as the list humor-judge.
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