What event made you head toward/away from DIR?

[Chris H]

Agreed, GUE makes it clear that DIR is a building block to be used in all aspects of diving from OW on up to whatever.   The next time I make it to the tropics, if I can get past the bad tasting water, you can bet that I will be wearing my BP/and an appropriate single tank wing.   There won’t be stages and the like, but there will be a long hose and all of the other things I typically have on my harness will be right were they are when I'm in 200ft on a wreck in the Great Lakes.   That is the reason DIR-FUNDAMENTALS is called what it is.  GUE has chosen skills that it believes are essential to being a good diver and makes ''passing" that class a prerequisite to any other GUE courses.   Fundies covers things like buoyancy, control, situational awareness, trim, and bunches of other important things that don't get covered in a "typical" OW setting.   Oh yeah, it also states that you need to have Hs all over your gear. Wait a minute, in our course we were specifically told that the brand doesn’t matter, the fit, function, and overall performance of the equipment are what matters.