So I made a Toddy Style instructional video for liveaboards...

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I sidemount for very similar reasons to why I started sliding down snow covered hills sideways in 89’; it pisses off the purists.

I don’t care what gear my buddies are using as long as they can keep up; don’t be a gaper and don’t be a Karen.

Not arguing for the Toddy style, but the right tool for the job verbiage just gets old; if it’s recreational, do whatever you enjoy and mind your own business.
 
there is almost no uniformity amongst sidemount instructors. Most agencies let you self-certify as a sidemount instructor, so people will go dive sidemount for a weekend and proclaim themselves as sidemount instructors. Doesn't make you qualified to do it, but that's how PADI and other agencies decided to do it. It also doesn't make a tech sidemount course valid as that from most agencies is self-certified as well so there is no oversight.

What @Marie13 said tracks. You need to find a real sidemount instructor and get a day or two of real instruction.

I'd avoid sidemount on a boat unless you're on a RHIB. It's not a great configuration for boat diving.

All due respect, I would consider my instructor(s) real side mount instructors. The chief instructor has about 12,000 dives, not sure how many SM but was building his own SM BCD before the commercial ones were available. He's certified as an instructor in commercial, military, PSD, IANTD, SDI/TDI, PADI and probably others, tech and cave instructor. The other is a tech diver with cave certification and hundreds of dives in SM. These folks aren't fly by night zero-hero instructors.
 
All due respect, I would consider my instructor(s) real side mount instructors. The chief instructor has about 12,000 dives, not sure how many SM but was building his own SM BCD before the commercial ones were available. He's certified as an instructor in commercial, military, PSD, IANTD, SDI/TDI, PADI and probably others, tech and cave instructor. The other is a tech diver with cave certification and hundreds of dives in SM. These folks aren't fly by night zero-hero instructors.
Cool, name them please
 
All due respect, I would consider my instructor(s) real side mount instructors. The chief instructor has about 12,000 dives, not sure how many SM but was building his own SM BCD before the commercial ones were available. He's certified as an instructor in commercial, military, PSD, IANTD, SDI/TDI, PADI and probably others, tech and cave instructor. The other is a tech diver with cave certification and hundreds of dives in SM. These folks aren't fly by night zero-hero instructors.

My response was based on your comment that you felt you needed to take technical sidemount to fix your apparently inadequate recreational sidemount course. If you had real sidemount divers as instructors, your recreational course should have been more than sufficient...
 
My response was based on your comment that you felt you needed to take technical sidemount to fix your apparently inadequate recreational sidemount course. If you had real sidemount divers as instructors, your recreational course should have been more than sufficient...

Not fix, just increase skills and grow as a diver; I have no rec courses other than wreck that I want to pursue.
 
Not fix, just increase skills and grow as a diver; I have no rec courses other than wreck that I want to pursue.

take mentoring days, no need to take formal courses if that's all you want to do. I assume one of them is Joe, we know each other, he's the real deal in backmount but I haven't seen him in sidemount to comment.
 
take mentoring days, no need to take formal courses if that's all you want to do. I assume one of them is Joe, we know each other, he's the real deal in backmount but I haven't seen him in sidemount to comment.

Yes Joe is the chief instructor. Unfortunately we don't have mentor days but I can likely book something with Joe or the other guy when they are open.
 
@tbone1004 there are lots of reasons to dive sidemount. In the last six months I did 127 three tank dives in Cozumel. I was underwater for 15 1/2 days. Doing that in back mounted doubles would have been difficult for multiple reasons. First and foremost is that in areas where the easily available tank is a rented AL80, assembling doubles are a pain in the rear compared to clipping on a couple in sidemount. Most of the dives I did were shore dives and I find toting singles to the shore and clipping in once in the water to be far easier than my friend that walked in wearing doubles. At the end of the dive, getting out with just my sidemount rig after handing my tanks so someone else made me feel much more comfortable than Carrying everything out at once after a long deco dive. The exertion always causes me some concern.

I've done dozens of boat dives in sidemount and if I think ahead before exit and get things ready before boarding the boat at the end, my sidemount diving off a boat is not much different than handing up my camera and my scooter. A center passage boat like y'all dive in NC would be a whole other matter. I'm not sure how I would do that.

Perhaps my situation is different than others but that's kind of my point. When we decide what are valid reasons for a configuration and prescribe for someone else what constitutes an acceptable configuration based on our diving, then even if we have gobs of experience and knowledge we may not see the whole picture.

I must admit that when I saw the original post it looked like a hot mess to me and I think you were very kind in your thoughtful response. I just kept quiet because I really didn't know where to start. I do however remember that when I started in sidemount it took awhile and some help from someone else to get dialed in and I'm certain it was much easier in my Xdeep tec2.0 than in a Toddy style configuration with whatever bungee system that is. For that reason, I'll let others try to help and hope the OP finds the help he needs.
 
not officially. It is used for some true cave exploration but is outside of their normal curriculum.

Thanks @tbone1004, I did my rec SM through PADI but my dive buddy was TDI (tech) although we did the same drills less spare tanks and his trim and buoyancy was way better (I had less than 50 dives he had 300 plus). I'm considering Tech side mount through TDI for skill improvement but have no intention of going into tech diving. I've not had a chance to do SM on a boat as my wreck course has been delayed by Covid restrictions.


Actually there is an official course in the cave curriculum, but it requires 50 cave2 level dives in standard GUE configuration (doubles and/or JJ). Here's the link:

Cave Sidemount
 

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