Doing It Right (scuba diving)

Doing It Right (DIR) is a holistic approach to scuba diving that encompasses several essential elements, including fundamental diving skills, teamwork, physical fitness, and streamlined and minimalistic equipment configurations. DIR proponents maintain that through these elements, safety is improved by standardizing equipment configuration and dive-team procedures for preventing and dealing with emergencies.

DIR evolved out of the efforts of divers involved in the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) during the 1990s, who were seeking ways of reducing the fatality rate in those cave systems. The DIR philosophy is now used as a basis for teaching scuba diving from entry-level to technical and cave qualifications by several organizations, such as Global Underwater Explorers (GUE),Unified Team Diving (UTD) and InnerSpace Explorers (ISE).

The DIR approach (and name) evolved out of the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP) in the mid-1990s, where the objective was conducting dives in a very high risk environment: Not only cave diving, but also deep, long duration and exploration of previously unknown parts of a very large cave system. The origins of the approach to equipment taken by DIR practitioners can be found in the 'Hogarthian' equipment configuration attributed to William Hogarth Main. These individuals, along with many others, were attempting to develop equipment and procedures to allow the safer exploration of the deep submerged caves in the area. Successfully carrying out the advanced diving required for deep cave penetration, as in the Woodville Karst Plain Project, places a great need to focus on the fundamentals of exactly how such diving should be carried out, and how equipment should be selected and configured for this type of diving, to maximise mission effectiveness and minimise risk.The DIR approach was originally confined to cave diving, but soon spread to other forms of technical diving. Since recreational diving is the natural source of future technical divers, the DIR philosophy was extended into this field, although the recreational practices were already considered acceptably low risk by most diver certification agencies and insurance companies.

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