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On Tue, 19 Sep 1995, "Ken Sallot" <KEN@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*> wrote:
>This came in from Tom Mount...
>On deleting George from tech diver---As a recipant of much of his stabs I
>should be the one who is delighted.
>However this is a free country and George has the right to be on the list.
The problem with Tom is that he is too nice to too
many people. They expect him to tell them what to
do (defering to his years of experience), and he
listens to their bullshit instead. I saw him at
Ginnie trying to train three of the biggest strokes
I had ever met. These guys were from California,
and wre wearing "team doria" t-shirts, and
pontificating heavily about everything. These guys
had their long hoses stuffed down the back middle of
their doubles, where sharing air would be impossible.
Mount allowed them to do this. Bill Mee and I
suggested to Tom that he refund their money
and send them home.
There is a distict possability that Tom knows some-
thing that I don't - namely that most people will
never really put this stuff into practice, so it
is better to just let them do what they want, and
make it sound "sexy", like the deep air courses. I
would be willing to bet that Tom gets a fair amount
of requests for this.
In fact, I remember when I first started trying to
get deeper. Not knowing the score, I saw Hal Watts'
ad in Florida Scuba News and thought about taking
his deep air course. Luckily, one phone call to him
and I was cured of that thought. As soon as he
answered, I realized what I was dealing with, and
I couldn't resist telling him that I wanted to
do the three hundred foot dive first, and if I
liked that, I would consider buying some gear and
taking scuba lessons.
Besides pissing Tom off, which was not my intent,
I think we are in fact giving him some support in
resisting the strokes, and some support in
simply reorganizing his standards into a cohesive
program. Many people ask me what to do to learn,
and the fact is that while I did it by hunting
down all of the information myself, Tom has made
this process a lot easier by doing the same thing
and putting it into one book, "Mixed Gas Diving".
I would suggest reading the book for starters,
then reading "The Physiology and Medicine of Diving",
by Peter Bennett and David Elliot, in which the
more advanced subtleties are discussed, and
then taking some of these courses. I would
suggest renting or borrowing some gear and
trying different pieces until you know what
you want, or until you know enough to ask
someone like me to where the answer I give
would make some sense.
The only thing I would say is it is a lot
easier and safer if you avoid narcotic mixes,
avoid high PPO2's, and avoid cluttered gear
configurations or complexities. It is a lot
more fun if you get in shape, it is a lot
more fun if you understand what you are
doing and are not afraid of the unseen demons.
Get a physical, get checked for PFO, and then
you don't have to worry about DCS and other
weenie topics.
I appreciate Tom's siding with me on the
stroke battle, and I really have to say that
while there may have been inconguities in
the presentation of his standards, they
look like the Holy Grail next to the others,
like ANDI. I have never seen TDI's stuff,
simply because they have people involved
with whom I disagree so strongly as to never
be willing to even look at them (John Comly).
My only purpose is to cause some reflextion,
and even the strokes have to admit I have
probably cast enough doubt on their
practices that they will never really be
able to "do their thing" without wondering
if I am , in fact, correct.
I do argue with Tom at every opportunity,
but usually on a much friendlier basis
while we are diving together, and I need to
appologize to him for making him a lightning
rod for my frustrations with people he has no
control over, and with an image of technical
diving which has soured due to no fault of
Tom's.
The only reason I ever wanted him to do
things our way is because he has first shot at
so much raw material that we could really use
for divng here, in the bahamas, and in north
Florida.
The strokes , however, can still kiss my ass.
- George Irivine
>
>--
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>Ken Sallot "Sallot's law of patches - A person's diving
>CIRCA ability is inversely proportional to how
>(904) 392-2007 many patches(stickers) they have on their
>kens@uf*.ed* jacket(car)"
>http://grove.ufl.edu/~ken
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