 |
Basic, primary, essential, elementary, underlying (dictionary definition of "fundamental")
MOST DIVERS ARE NOW AWARE OF THE TERM "DIR". Their reaction is often scorn and scepticism, but is this justified? Are we judging the hardcore by the wannabes (the Territorial Army guys who want you to think they are Special Forces)? Are DIR divers elite or elitist?
Earlier this year, the UK's inaugural Global Underwater Explorers course was taught. I went along with photographer Craig Nelson to see if I fitted the DIR mould.
But first I had to visit the GUE website and fill in six student registration forms. Along with the regular disclaimer/medical stuff, I had to give a detailed account of why I wanted to take the course and my diving experiences, and a list of previous courses and trainers. I also had to register every item of equipment I used, right down to my underwear!
I had to attest to a regular exercise programme, that I was not overweight and was a non-smoker. I was informed that should my position change, GUE would withdraw my certification card! Already, this course was looking unusual.
At Portland, a bleary-eyed Andy Kerslake and Andrew Georgitsis introduced themselves to a nervous bunch of divers. They had shot down to the coast to prepare for the course straight from the London International Dive Show.
Andy Kerslake is the UK's resident GUE Instructor. A long-time member, he was far from the arrogant stereotype I had half-expected. Andy was part of the team that developed the widely acclaimed Deco Planner Software and was trained by the GUE's founder, Jarrod Jablonski. On this occasion, he would act as assistant to Andrew Georgitsis, GUE's Training Director.
Some of you who attended LIDS will have heard Andrew's presentation on the Britannic expedition, on which he was a pivotal team-member. One of the world's most accomplished technical divers, Andrew also invented the course we would be taking.
He started by explaining how the GUE Fundamentals class had been conceived.
GUE was founded in 1995 and at present offers no entry-level training, though this is rumoured to be less than a year away. Its first level of qualification used to be its Tec1 and Cave 1 courses. Unfortunately, divers kept turning up for these without the required skill level or equipment, so before teaching the courses proper, Andrew would run pre-class workshops.
"It quickly became obvious that these classes were not just desirable but essential," he explained.
"Consequently, the Fundamentals class became a mandatory prerequisite."
I was surprised to learn that, as an introduction to DIR diving or simply for the learning experience, recently qualified divers as young as 16 were eligible to attend this course. However, from June it will be a pass/fail affair for anyone seeking to go further with GUE.
The pass level is so strict that there are three distinct levels of failure: outright (go away and don't come back); go away, practice and then re-take the course; and provisional pass (requiring demonstration of previously failed skills).
Our group contained the maximum 12 students. Two were women - a welcome change on a tech-orientated course - and two others had travelled from as far as Portugal and the Netherlands.
Experience varied from 50 open-water dives to instructors with 500-plus.
The course could be taken using single or double-cylinder set-ups and both configurations were in evidence. But while number of cylinders and range of experience could vary, the equipment could not. GUE promotes a standardised approach.
Most students had already decided to take this route (or at least their interpretation of it) and had brought their own gear.
For the remainder of us, Underwater Explorers, just across the road, had full sets for hire. I agreed to go the whole hog and use all the prescribed equipment - right down to my underwear!
Things then progressed at a rapid pace. All the students were asked to reach back and touch their second vertebrae, which even the least mobile of us could do comfortably. "If you can do that, you can shut down cylinders easily, provided your equipment is properly set up and your clothing correctly cut," said Andrew. We climbed into undersuits and repeated this test, with varying degrees of success.
Over the next hour, Andrew set out what he meant by "correctly cut" and the desired properties of an undersuit; how some allowed better movement than others, how they keep you warm and why more air in the suit will not make you warmer. I thought I knew all this stuff but I had obviously not thought it right through.
We were told to lie on the floor while Andrew balanced on a coffee table and told us how to find correct trim and control it.
"Trim and buoyancy are the platform on which everything else is built, so logically they need to be taught first," he said.
"Imagine you are a see-saw and balancing on a point around your stomach. Now, by straightening my legs, I go head up.
"By dropping my head and pulling my feet back to my butt, I tip forward. By using our legs and heads in this way, it's possible to float at any angle we choose."
I had never thought of trim or of using my body in this way. On the floor with our backs arched and knees bent, we tried different finning methods, including frog-kicking, flutter-kicking, helicopter turns and my own nemesis, finning backwards.
These techniques were first developed for cave-diving. "By mastering these techniques in conjunction with proper trim, it's possible to virtually eliminate disturbance of silt in any environment," Andrew went on to explain. He then broke down each finning technique into its component parts.
Convincing the class by providing a compelling rationale and inviting debate was to be a recurring theme. I am familiar with this powerful teaching method through my work with Olympic-level cycling teams, but I had never experienced it on a diving course, or even attended a course on which finning techniques or trim were given more than a fleeting mention.
Already hot in our 400grm undersuits, we climbed into drysuits before trying to reach our vertebrae again.
Some people really struggled now, and Andrew pointed out the precise changes needed to the various suits to allow a full range of movement, as well as other features desired in a suit.
It was time to discuss the one-piece webbing harness and backplate that, along with the long-hose regulator, most people associate with DIR diving. The set-up and components were explained in great detail. It was another hour before we even fastened our waist straps.
Less is defiantly more in DIR. After all the harnesses had been re-adjusted, a heap of superfluous webbing, clips, D-rings and other paraphernalia lay in the middle of the floor.
Obviously people were not yet as DIR as they had thought. None of us had the same equipment as when we had arrived.
With an hour to go before pooltime, and sweating profusely, we tie-wrapped our regulators to the back plates. We then went through the rationale for DIR hose routeings and "S-drill" (safety or emergency air-sharing procedures).
GUE teaches you to donate the regulator being breathed to the out-of-air diver. This ensures that he receives gas quickly without having to hunt for a stowed octopus, but also gets a guaranteed working regulator with a breathable gas appropriate for the depth (even more relevant when using multiple gases).
With the other hand, the donating diver pops the back-up regulator - tucked neatly under the chin on a necklace - into his mouth. We practised these procedures, including re-stowing the long hose behind the wing, until they started to become almost intuitive.
Three information-packed hours later, it was time to do the 100m dash to the local pool for another long stint of tuition.
We lay on the edge of the pool and repeated the prone finning and trim techniques - a little more difficult for those with stiff drysuit boots. Yet another novel touch was the use of a video camera. The whole session was being taped for review later.
In groups of three we lapped the pool, and with each change of direction changed fin kicks.
At every corner we practised helicopter turns and backwards finning. An ankle-aching hour later, we assembled at the deep end (all desperately trying to look slick, not touch the bottom, sides or each other, and failing) to watch Andrew show us how to do it properly.
I have seen many divers on my travels, but this was the slickest bit of buoyancy control and technique I had ever witnessed. Unfortunately, we then had to demonstrate each technique ourselves and were given help where necessary, which was often demoralising.
Ever tried to fin backwards? All I seemed to achieve was to look as if I was having a seizure. I was going nowhere!
Another three hours, numerous S-drills and much humiliation later, we emerged from the pool a wiser set of individuals.
After a brief lunch, we returned to the classroom to review the skills we had practised, and watch video clips of them being performed correctly.
New skills to be introduced the following day were discussed and demonstrated. Each was broken down and the thinking behind it explained.
Included was DSMB deployment using a spool rather than a reel. GUE prescribes a spool because it stows more easily and has no moving parts to snag or jam.
To further avoid entanglement, the primary regulator is used to inflate the DSMB. I had always thought that this was a no-no in cold waters.
"Trying to inflate from your regulator exhaust leaves you at increased risk of entanglement, " Andrew explained. "If you remove the regulator and hold everything out in front of you, this is less likely to happen.
"It is of course important not to jam your finger on the purge button in cold water, but if you're careful, why would there be more stress on the regulator than if you were breathing from it?" This was irritatingly logical.
"In addition," he continued, "if your trim is horizontal rather than vertical, it's quite easy to fin gently, slightly head-down, countering the small amount of gas in the DSMB until you're ready to let go. This method takes away the panic to let go of the buoy." More logic that demonstrates how one method is effective only in conjunction with the others.
Watching the pool video was like watching You've Been Framed. Video cameras are powerful learning tools, and again we use them a lot with the national cycling team. What you look like and what you think you look like are seldom the same thing.
The footage allowed us to work out where we were going wrong and have remedies suggested. After some final questions on GUE procedures, philosophy and general technicalities, the day ended. It had been a non-stop 12 hours.
Andrew Georgitsis believes that every skill should be heavily practised on land before going near open water. "If you can't do it slick in the classroom, you sure as hell won't be able to while hovering horizontal with no visual reference."
So back in the classroom with harness and regs we went through air-sharing procedures again, plus team configuration/positioning, using lights to communicate, shutdown procedures and a pre-dive check format. Now that everyone was using the same equipment, this was performed a little differently.
When shutting off cylinders in an emergency, I had been trained to close the centre isolator first to prevent at least half the gas escaping before seeking the problem.
GUE teaches you to shut down from right to left. "Isolating first provides no useful feedback as to where the failure has occurred," Andrew explained. "By shutting down from right to left (primary regulator first), each step will yield information. It's 100 to 1 that it will be the reg you're breathing off anyway, not the one sitting passively around your neck."
Lights can be a useful tool, as when swimming in single file. If the second diver keeps the beam of his light largely in front of the first diver, diver one knows his partner is there and OK, without having to turn round all the time.
After another full morning we headed outside to prepare for our first dive in the murky waters of Portland's Castletown beach. We did our pre-dive checks and headed off in groups of three to a depth of only 3m.
"The hardest place to perform skills is at 3m," said Andrew. "If you can do them here you can do them at 150m. The only differences depth brings are psychological."
The skills to be performed included descent with horizontal trim to 1m from the bottom; regulator out; swap to back-up regulator (clipping off the primary with the right hand only); flood and clear mask; mask removal, hover with no mask, then replace; out-of-air drill, donor and receiver (re-stowing the long hose behind the wing each time); and out-of-air swim at constant depth.
These seem straightforward, but as they had to be performed hovering horizontal and motionless 1m above a very silty bottom, with almost no visual reference, it was harder than it sounds. Some 25 embarrassing minutes later, it was back to the surface for debriefing.
After lunch, we dived to practise DSMB deployment and shut-down drills. Surprisingly, these went OK. I think I was helped by getting a visual fix on an old lobster pot through the gloom to provide a depth reference (no, this was not cheating, it was using my initiative!).
Using a spool is - different. Controlling your buoyancy while winding in line and ascending requires the user to be on the ball. The key, I realised, is horizontal trim. In this position, if you get a little too buoyant, it is possible simply to fin down gently until the volume of air in the wing allows you to regain neutral buoyancy.
It was yet another demonstration of why one DIR skill will not necessarily work without employing the others.
At 4pm it was time for the final four-hour classroom stretch, covering dive-planning, gas-management and gas dangers.
GUE advocates the use of standardised gases and, ideally, the use of helium from just 30m down. I won't get bogged down in the detail as this was a good hour of the session, but once again the rationale was compelling and obviously based on years of research by GUE as part of its extreme exploration activities.
The course was over. It was time to drive home, and for a lot of thinking.
Without doubt, this was the most powerful and professional learning experience I have ever had in diving. Whether you have technical aspirations or not, if other GUE instructors can teach as well as Andrew Georgitsis, I would challenge anyone not to come to the same conclusion.
My only criticism was of the venue. The exceptionally silty conditions off Castletown beach made it difficult to get the most from the exercises, and use of the video camera was quickly abandoned (we redid the illustrating photographs at an inland location). I think this course would be well suited to a good inland site with classroom facilities.
So intense was this 48-hour experience that three of the original 12 students quit before the end of day two.
When I asked them why, their answers were similar: "My skills were just not up to it. Without having truly mastered trim and buoyancy control, it was impossible to do the skills to the required level."
Even more telling was that each of them remained adamant that this was the best course they had ever attended. "The best two things for me," said one, "was having the skills broken down and the video feedback. Now I know what to practise and, most importantly, how to practise it."
GUE's approach appealed to me. The organisation is clearly committed to pursuing excellence and will accept no compromise. While that's great for those who want to push themselves, it is not for everyone. You can, after all, enjoy cycling without having to train for the Olympics.
Arrogant? No. Elitist? Maybe. Elite? I would have to say yes. Unfortunately, all elite organisations attract morons who simply want to belong. Ever sat in a football crowd and listened to the thousands of Premier League coaches around you?
GUE has its fair share of these. Visit any tech forum on the net and you'll find them ready to put you straight in condescending, even vitriolic terms. These hangers-on may prove to be GUE's biggest hurdle in spreading the DIR word - but, then again, do they even care?
UK courses cost £250 per person. The group pays the instructor's expenses. Call Andy Kerslake on 0118 973 6747 or via www.gasdiving.co.uk. For training abroad the GUE website carries an instructor database (www.gue.com/info/instruct.shtml).
|
|
Andrew Georgitsis demonstrates the DIR trim technique with the help of a coffee table, using hands and feet to control orientation
a student has his harness "modified" - check out all the banished components
A student receives help with backward finning
they've been framed - the video review session
dry-land finning
trying for a helicopter turn, rotating on the spot above the torch (roughly!)
|
