UTD Journal Volume 2, Issue 6, June 2014 | Page 5

The divers and instructors I was developing were awful. They were all learning on their knees, all skills learned without regard to a standard or metric – just simply clear you mask, “Yep, that’s good, next skill.” But there was no measure of whether or not the skills met a standard. It was simply ‘check box’ teaching. I was NEVER exposed to the ideas or philosophies such as minimalism, gas management, proper weighting, consistency, Team Diving, Ocean Friendly or even neutral buoyancy. The curriculums were so dumbed down to the point of nothingness/worthless. Between the ages of 24 and 30 I spent a considerable amount of time undoing all my bad habits – skill wise and team wise – and my lack of understanding of the basics, such as decompression or configuration or general philosophy or approach to my diving. Through my passage and co-development of “DIR” I was able to rectify many of those issues and ultimately pass them on. From ages 30 to 37 I was the training director of a new agency and was responsible for developing a curriculum &6VB