Take a Class, or Join a Team?

This weekend I held a free Mott Underwater DIR tune-up weekend at Gilboa Quarry.

No certifications. No cards. No sales pitch... just divers showing up to work.

Some students come back to clean up old problems they’ve been struggling with. Some want to push forward toward technical training, while others simply want more time around people who care deeply about becoming better divers. And some… came down just to help. My teaching is not cheap, but that’s because I put my soul into each class and student. So, this weekend is a little way, I try to give back every year.

One of the biggest misunderstandings about DIR training is that people think it’s all about perfection. But, really… It’s not. It’s about pursuit. Believing in something that takes work. Shared experiences and struggles in a pursuit for philosophic community in and around the water.

DIR diving is different, and The Essentials is the class that introduces you to that world. Nobody shows up already good enough, it’s not the skills we do but how we do them. How we scale them. What used to be an advanced certification for most, is our foundational building block.

Every diver who looks comfortable now once struggled with buoyancy, trim, valve drills, awareness, team positioning, stress management, or simply feeling overwhelmed by the standards. Every single one.

DIR works because it creates a culture where divers continue training together long after the class is over. You stop being a customer and start becoming part of a team. The standards stay high, but you’re no longer climbing alone. At its core, DIR is about the TEAM.

I told my students this weekend that taking the Essentials of DIR creates two kinds of divers. 1- The diver who is intoxicated with improving themselves and cannot stop thinking about this new philosophy of diving. Or 2-. The diver that wishes they never heard the letters DIR. .

Everyone gets frustrated with this, especially in the early days. Usually because it’s the first time a scuba instructor told them to keep working and get better and didn’t just hand them another card at the end of the weekend. That frustration can become devastating or it can become fuel. That part is up to you.

What most students don’t understand, is that the divers they admire have already lived through those same moments. They just kept showing up. That’s why I’m trying to grow this Mott Underwater community. Because community is the secret treasure of this kind of diving.

Not your ego or your certification rating. Not your agency or pretending to be elite. It’s not about acting perfect, it about being a team player. A team mate.

This weekend was a reminder that real diver development doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens through mentorship, repetition, honest feedback, encouragement, and time in the water with people who genuinely care about doing things well. We had a group of divers, from Canada and the US, willing to spend their own weekend helping each other improve. Not be cause we expect everyone to be perfect. But because, we realize none of us gets there alone.

My philosophy with Mott Underwater has never been to simply produce certified divers. The goal is to help build capable teammates. Divers who are a pleasure to be in the water with. Divers who boat captains want to come back on their boats. And the best part is watching former students come back later to help newer divers through the exact struggles they once faced themselves.

That’s when you realize this is becoming something bigger than a class. It’s becoming a community.