Brining someone new onto a team

[shawnb]

I was just thinking today, that most DIR divers have a group of people they like to dive with frequently and they form a team. But new-to-team-diving divers need to dive more experienced team divers in order to grow and become more proficient. They cannot always dive with pure rec divers because it becomes difficult to cultivate the DIR skills when diving too much with non like minded divers.

What do you look for when you take on a new diver to the team (I'm talking at the Rec level all the way up to tech). How readily do you take a chance (er, welcome) on divers not yet proficient with team diving? How frequently do you set aside such dives to dive with those newer divers to help them grow?

[LCF]

One of my biggest pleasures is to dive with up and coming DIR divers -- from the curious to the folks who are well on the road. Tonight, I dove with a relatively new diver who is asking the right kinds of questions and thinking through the right issues, even if the solutions he's coming up with aren't always what I would choose. I think that diving with him for a little while, I can help him put it together -- and if he doesn't choose to continue with this path, I'll still have helped him solve some problems.

When it comes to folks who are already pretty committed, I'll go out of my way to make time for them. I know how much it meant to me to dive with "better" people when I was starting out, and I know how pleased I am even today to have any opportunity to dive with folks who are more experienced than I am. I think that ethos runs through the entire DIR world. I'm not sure why, but it sure seems like it.

As far as the practical side goes, any first dive I do with someone I don't know, I make a simple and pleasant one. I made the mistake once of overfacing someone, and I won't do it again. Once you have a sense of who someone is and what they have done, you have a much better sense of which dives to invite them to do with you.

[sbdiver]

I was just thinking today, that most DIR divers have a group of people they like to dive with frequently and they form a team. But new-to-team-diving divers need to dive more experienced team divers in order to grow and become more proficient. They cannot always dive with pure rec divers because it becomes difficult to cultivate the DIR skills when diving too much with non like minded divers.

You might think this, but I don't agree. I know many divers that follow DIR principles and dive without forming a "TEAM". No one in my circle follows this "team" stuff. Dive buddies, sure, but not the over analyzing and over thinking stuff that gets printed on forums. This DIR team stuff brews on the internet and a handful of divers that post. I would guess that 90% of this talk comes from recreational divers who have taken or want to take DIR-F. If you want to call yourself a team, go ahead, but all this talk online unfortunately create a snobbish atmosphere around the DIR concept and you become a joke for rest of us during long boat rides.

[Rainer]

Yeah, I'm not sure I have any "teams". Definitely a larger group of people I tend to dive with, and a smaller group with whom I'll do "bigger" dives. For me, the bigger issue is diving with those that share a common set of dive values, procedures, and skills. It just makes diving easier and less stressful. Ultimately, however, I dive with those I find fun. Diving is pure recreation for me. It's all about the fun.

[sbdiver]

Agreed. Even my technical is recreational. Fun is fun.

[Rainer]

Shawn, I realized I didn't address the central part of your original post. In the past, I used to try to get out with DIR-curious divers when they would appear (which truthfully wasn't all that often in MA). I was grateful to those who had helped me, and was happy to pay it forward.

Lately, I've been doing more "me" dives and dives with my wife (who is herself quite new to diving and DIR). I'm ok with that.

[shawnb]

Yeah, I'm not sure I have any "teams". Definitely a larger group of people I tend to dive with, and a smaller group with whom I'll do "bigger" dives. For me, the bigger issue is diving with those that share a common set of dive values, procedures, and skills. It just makes diving easier and less stressful. Ultimately, however, I dive with those I find fun. Diving is pure recreation for me. It's all about the fun.

That's actually what I mean by "team". Actually, I thought that's what it mean to be a team. I'm not referring to expodition teams for rec diving, I'm just referring to the group of divers you trust who shares similar dive values, procedures, and skills; as you put it.

To SBDiver, there's nothing elitist our egotistical about it. Everyone has a preferred group of divers they have the most fun with and frequent the most.

[Gombessa]

If you want to call yourself a team, go ahead, but all this talk online unfortunately create a snobbish atmosphere around the DIR concept and you become a joke for rest of us during long boat rides.

So that's what everyone is laughing at behind our backs!

I often dive with my regular buddies, and we consider ourselves a 3-man team. That basically means we found each other to be like-minded, local divers and friends who wanted to get in the water as much we could. Luckily, our schedules, attitudes and dive goals meshed well, and due to that we just got tons of dives in and also took classes together.

However, I'd say at most 50% of our dives solely consist of the team. We're all extremely eager to have other divers (both more and less experienced) join us, because we usually gain the benefit of variety (new navigation routes, new sites, new styles of diving, and occasionally, new toys like scooters). I've found that one of the keys to diving frequently is having a lot potential buddies you can reach out to, and for that you need to dive with a lot of people. We've made it a habit to reserve an extra spot on our dive reservations just so we can invite others to come with us.

But we still do a lot of "team" dives just because it's simply really fun way to dive; you can be totally relaxed since you know exactly how your buddies will dive, react to situations, communicate, etc. If that makes us the butt of someone else's jokes, so be it. We're still having 110% fun on our dives, and we can pull crap like this on each other :



But if you want to talk about going out of your way to dive with new people, you should talk to Ben_V. The dude is like the official Monterey tour guide/welcome wagon, and we're lucky to have him! In fact, I think I was introduced to our local community of divers through contact with Ben. There's gotta be someone like him in every community

[Mo2vation]

I was just thinking today, that most DIR divers have a group of people they like to dive with frequently and they form a team. But new-to-team-diving divers need to dive more experienced team divers in order to grow and become more proficient. They cannot always dive with pure rec divers because it becomes difficult to cultivate the DIR skills when diving too much with non like minded divers.

What do you look for when you take on a new diver to the team (I'm talking at the Rec level all the way up to tech). How readily do you take a chance (er, welcome) on divers not yet proficient with team diving? How frequently do you set aside such dives to dive with those newer divers to help them grow?

Even us non-DIR types have a team we like to dive with.

For me, it's Chica first and then basically anyone else that we can dredge up from time to time!

Seriously - the core team of she and I have reached out to a grip of new and newish SoCal divers over the years.

Some like diving with us and will from time to time dive with us again.

Many had their fill after a dive or two and we never see or hear from them again.

Whatever.

We're (Chica and I) both GUE trained, but we're patently non-DIR. And it doesn't impact us to fall into a DIR team as we speak that language fluently, or fall into a non-DIR team as we also speak that language fluently.

Our experience has been it's helpful to speak both languages and spend time with both cultures. When you only dive one language (generally xUE) and only hang out with xUE divers, dive on xUE boats, loiter on xUE sites, dress in xUE gear when you're not diving, bum around xUE shops when you're out of the water and all that - it's these people that we prefer to steer clear of. They're simply in their own world, and that's fine for them.

It's not fine for us.

Our team is very, very strong. At well over 600 dives together we're pretty tight. We invite the team-diving curious to dive with us quite often.

---
Ken

[shawnb]

What is xUE?

[Mo2vation]

What is xUE?

X = insert geographic initials here.

Global Underwater Explorers

Peoria Underwater Explorers

Bay Area Underwater Explorers

Des Moines Underwater Explorers

San Diego Underwater Explorers

Hoboken Underwater Explorers...

LMNOUE


-K

[scubamountaingirl]

i dont have a team nor a buddy. Any one who lets me dive with them is doing me a favor. I dive a gue, dir utd profile but have never dove with a true dir, utd gue buddy yet. I hope this year changes that for me.

anyone in NY areas reading this, i am looking for a buddy for April 1st. when the quarry opens..


ww

[LCF]

I think it's only a lucky few who have a "team", in the sense that Team Bunny and Team Kitty do. Most of us have a set of buddies that mix and match. I had a solid, regular buddy to do Fundies practice and several other classes with, but we had random other buddies in those classes.

If you find two other divers you "click" with, and you can dive together all the time, I would imagine you take the whole thing to another level. Even just diving with Kirk all the time, we got nearly telepathic (which, unfortunately, drove other people who dove with us a little nuts, because we wouldn't realize that nobody else knew a glance and a little raise of the shoulder meant, "This isn't working, let's go THAT way" ).

[liuk3]

Shawn, your original post is confusing to me. You talk about not being able to dive with pure rec divers to progress. Aren't you a purely recreational diver? I know that I progress and continue to progress very much diving with purely recreational divers. Also, I've always just thought of team diving as the same as having good buddy skills. I think that all agencies I've ever trained with preach good buddy skills. Some agencies probably emphasize it more than others.

I've always been big on the term "team" long before I started diving. I like that concept and have always tried to foster the mentallity whether in sports, at work, volunteering, or diving. The team mentality is very important to me in my life and something I enjoy. My friends and family are a part of my team.

On the other hand, I'm not big on the term DIR. I don't call myself DIR. I don't think that I do it right all the time by anyone's standard. I'm human and am continuously trying to get better at this stuff. Also, I'm realizing that I don't really even know what the heck DIR means. If I dive a long hose, am I DIR? What else does it take? I dunno. The term is just plain too confusing to me.

I'd rather tell people that I am GUE-trained or LA County-trained or XYZ-trained. For those who have gone through the same programs, it at least may quickly better align mentality or skill sets before diving together. If we haven't gone through the same training, no big deal. We'll probably just talk about things before we go dive together.

The reality though is that I'll dive with just about anyone at recreational/sport depths so long as they are safe and fun. If you don't have these two qualities, our diving partnership is likely to be very short lived.

[shawnb]

Shawn, your original post is confusing to me. You talk about not being able to dive with pure rec divers to progress. Aren't you a purely recreational diver?

Many non-GUE/UTD divers (not everyone but by and large most of them) don't understand and therefore don't appear to care about bubble checks, rock bottom gas management, allowing me to do a modified-S at the surface to make sure THEIR lifeline is deployable (not tangled), precision bouyancy (always smacking creatures and reef structure), etc.

So the whole point of the "practicing" with more experienced (what I refer to as DIR but I'm really just referring to the way we're trained GUE/UTD/N-TECH) is to dive with people that also have trained the way I have and understand and we all strive together towards *that* level of excellence, and share it with like-minded divers. It makes it easier to progress.

I like diving with those I dive with (or I wouldn't) but I also like much more to dive more with other GUE/UTD divers. That's really my point regardless of the reasons. But I will always dive with most anyone that is fun and safe.