DIR Practice Group

[JMC]

Regarding Gert’s post, I’m interested in joining anyone or a group who wants to devote some dives to working on skills and drills – even better if anyone wants to shoot video for reviewing technique.

As a participant in the DIR-F class at Deep Blue last month the big takeaway for me was getting hands-on guidance on propulsion and safety skills that I can use to correctly practice – and perhaps most eye-opening of all, an understanding of what real situational awareness and team/buddy diving can and should be to maximize control, coordination and safety – and therefore enjoyment of a dive.

I got started this past weekend with a couple of dives at Gilboa Quarry in Ohio with my brother-in-law, who’s a police diver in Columbus. Both dives were no deeper than 60-70 feet with most time spent between 30-50 ft just working on my frog kick, modified flutter, horizontal positioning & trim, balancing center of gravity, arching my back, controlling ascents & descents strictly with breathing, leveling out for 30/20/10 safety stops, smoothly unclipping and clipping SPG and long hose without fumbling, timing my gas check every 5 minutes without looking at my watch, estimating my remaining gas at each check before looking, doing mask clears – these may seem pretty basic, and can be practiced on most any dive, but my objective is to treat these as workout dives, concentrating on the skills, repeating over and over, without as much concern about the dive itself. Just like working out in the gym.

I was surprised at how much progress I made in just two short (45 minute) dives. My objective now is to do at least 10 more skills-focused workout dives in the next 5-6 weeks (Brandon told me he did a dozen workout dives in as many weeks after his first DIR-F class to get all the skills down cold -- muscle memory). And I’m still working on that backward kick and helicopter turn...