Most scuba instruction begins with the new diver breathing from a regulator in shallow water on their knees.  These are the first few breaths that transform thousands of people every year from pavement praising pedestrians into aquatic adventurers.

Over-weighted, the negatively buoyant student diver begins to grow more comfortable with the workings of a demand valve regulator.  It is from this kneeling position on the bottom of the pool that students are introduced to various skills necessary for learning to scuba dive.  DIR education is trying to change this behavior and enlighten new divers and instructors to the logic behind neutrally buoyant skill development.

For a student diver, the position of kneeling negatively buoyant on the bottom of the pool becomes a basic ready position.  Stable and rooted, the student learns to remove and replace their regulator and partially flood and clear their mask.  Eventually, more advanced skills are introduced like full mask clears, mask removal and replacement, air sharing, etc., all learned on the bottom of the pool, negative and upright.  Much like in martial arts, the ready position associates the body with comfort and control.  However, the diver is not in control and is only ready for sinking and falling.  In the three-dimensional world of scuba diving the only position of universal control is the prone, balanced, neutrally buoyant position.

Unfortunately, neutral buoyancy is a skill that is usually presented somewhere towards the middle or the end of a course.  Instead of being taught to associate neutral buoyancy with comfort, control and basic skills, new divers subconsciously fall into a head-up, knee down negative position every time they perform a skill.  This is why we see divers plummeting to the bottom while clearing their mask, clutching the mooring line with a death grip while making an ascent, kneeling in a cloud of silt while tying a reel or perched on top of brain coral while trying to take a picture.  The learning law of primacy tells us that we should start these new students the right way.  Start with a base of balance, buoyancy and positioning; on top of that we can build personal regulator and mask skills.

This is one of many ways where DIR education differs from traditional scuba training.  The law of primacy tells us that the first thing a student learns is the most remembered.  Subconsciously these are the natural responses that occur when we are forced to react to a situation underwater, where conscious decisions cease and instinct takes over.  DIR education introduces the student to the underwater world with neutral buoyancy, weighting, balance and positioning.  Through this building block approach the student then learns additional personal skills.  Regulator removal, recovery, mask clearing, mask removal and replacement, air-sharing, etc.… are all done while maintaining neutral buoyancy, with proper trim and body mechanics.

As the year 2009 comes to a close, the time to reexamine how we present underwater education is long overdue.  The law of primacy upholds the DIR educational model.  The building block approach not only gives the student a solid base to grow as a diver, but also reassures the student and instructor both that when faced with a problem underwater, whether it is a mask clear or an air share, subconscious instinct is to remain neutral, stay in trim, breathe regularly and solve the problem.

James Mott

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