Gilldiver
Contributor
divechk, to get back to your original question. People have tried to define for you what technical diving is, and they have trouble, because it isn't well-defined. Some things almost anybody would agree fall into the realm of "technical" diving: The cave diving I do, for example, or deep wreck diving with multiple deco gases. Other things sort of lie in a gray area, like long scooter dives, or recreational helium.
What is common to all more complex diving is that the diver needs very well developed skills, sharply honed emergency procedures, and above all and MOST critically, the diver needs to be able to remain calm, focused, and thoughtful in the face of problems. Anxiety and apprehension are major problems for ordinary divers, but can be lethal to someone at 200 feet.
My advice to you is not really to think about it, except perhaps to set your original gear up so that it would be compatible with a move to double tanks later on (which you have already done). Just go diving. Find a mentor or mentors, and work on good skills, and above all, work on becoming confident and calm in the water. Get in a hundred or so dives, and then take NAUI Intro to Tech or GUE Fundamentals, and get a sense of where the bar lies for more ambitious diving, and then go off and work until you're there.
Don't rush things. There is a TON of absolutely fantastic diving to be done in our area in recreational depths. Puget Sound can also teach a lot of lessons, about functioning in low viz, and dealing with current and cold. Enjoy all of those lessons, and move on when you're really ready. As Joe Talavera told us in our Rec 2 class, "Do all the dives you can do with the training you have, and when you're really bored, then get technical training."
To add to what TSandM stated it can also depend on the conditions of the dive site.
We do some common dives, for us, in Long Island Sound that due to the conditions of current, low to very low visibility, entanglement hazards from nets, fishing and lobster pot lines all add up to very technical diving problems. This in anywhere from 40 to 200 feet. Many Technical divers just do not have the skills to successfully do this dive never mind accomplish anything on the dive.
Is a dive of this complexity a recreational dive at 60 and a technical dive at over 130 feet? The added decompression is one of the most easily accounted for of all the problems.
So what is "Technical Diving"? Well as a judge once said about pornography, "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."