dressing for tech diving? (was in What the Heck is DIR?)

[DRE]

Wow - there's tons of stuff here to which to respond but I'll keep it short and sweet.

Deano, your comment about using the air2 in the Caribean: sure it'll work, but why drive a Yugo when you've got a 911 in your garage?! The beauty of DIR is that you can use the system regardless of the type of diving your doing, plus that you're always working on or finetuning all of your skills, hence the commitment to the gear (plus it's quite a bit cheaper to always use the same thing). Also, since you're always diving within a team of DIR divers, who all go through a rigorous pre-dive checklist before jumping in the water, the unified approach to gear makes certain that everyon is on the same page at all times (and when shit hits the fan, you know who'll be SOL and who won't).

Dirk,

if you believe that DIR is a religion then go ahead - I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, but my personal journey toward DIR has come through study and analysis. There was no leap of faith involved, just a lightbulb that went on when I realized I had been a stroke for all these years, jeopardizing my life and that of others by my decisions and actions, luckily never without any real consequences. I have always strived to be a perfectionist about what I do and I don't have a problem checking my ego at the door, which has led me to take the cotton out of my ears and put it where it should have been all of these years in the first place and LEARN. I understand that in the ego-driven, extreme sport mentality of (tech) diving, this might be considered as whimpy, gay or whatever you want to call it, but at least I know now I'm conducting my dives safely, without stress and my fun factor has skyrocketed. If that's religion, boy, I'll be at church every single day.