TDI Advanced Nitrox and Deco Procedures

[Deep Blue]

Thanks for the kind words on the class. As I said in class, my goal is to turn out divers that I would trust to dive with my family members. I also want to make sure that my students have the skills to progress toward a trimix card if they so desire. There are so many other skills that are needed to safely dive mix, that your basic skills need to be really solid before entering class.

This class is one of my favorites to teach because I am able to see so much growth in all of the students from start to finish. Also, it is the class where the whole DIR philosophy really begins to shine. The more task loading that you introduce, the more critical simplified, streamlined gear and procedures become.

As far as the whole stroke thing, The most common definition is that a stroke is an unsafe diver. The other, more stringent is a diver that is not totally DIR. I prefer the first, since what many people call rule 1 "don't dive with strokes" is pretty unrealistic if you are only dive with DIR divers at all times, especially as an instructor.

That said, depending on the environment, there are times when I will NOT dive with divers that are not DIR in their equipment setup and philosophy. This is primairly when we are diving conditions that are outside the recreational limits. Among DIR divers, the term is thrown around pretty loosely, in fact, I have been accused of being a stroke for some small deviations from what some people consider DIR.

If you get called a stroke, you just need to decide two things, first do you want to dive DIR? If not, so what if you get called a stroke. Don't sweat it. The second thing is if you are trying to dive DIR, evaluate why someone used that term and decide for yourself if it is a valid label and what should you do to change your diving.

I also know divers that are safe, while not being 100% DIR, although many of them are moving in that direction. For myself, I do prefer diving with divers that use DIR as their approach to diving though. I can get in the water with another DIR diver and be confident that their equipment is squared away and their skills are solid. In addition, I know that their procedures will be the same as mine.

One caveat though, there are a lot of divers that say that they are DIR, but are not even close. I am not talking about simply equipment setup, but personal diving phylosophy, as there is much more to DIR than just equipment. The good news is that a predive conversation will usually separate the pretenders from the actual DIR divers.

I am sure that I have missed something, but I know that Jon will have a response and will cover whatever I have forgotten, so have at it guys!!!!