I'm a rec instructor. I want to be a tec instructor. No tec experience. I'm gonna need your help.

[almostDIR]

1. Feel dumb because I used "search" thinking this would have been covered. Didn't find much. If I missed some good threads, please point me to them.

2. Padi OWSI for ten years. Bored. I need a new challenge. I want to go from tec zero to tec hero in the shortest time. Meaning one course after another as much as possible so I don't have to take unnecessary time off and I keep travel cost low. I want to avoid the take one course, come back next month for next course schedule. I don't have tech experience beyond chatting with a few tec divers on boats.

3. Pros and cons of various agencies. Which is in the most demand for employment?

4. List of courses from start to finish. PADI is Enriched Air, Enriched Air Instructor, Deep Instructor, MSDT, Tec 40, Tec 45, Tec 50, Tec Deep Instructor, then TriMix, Sidemount, Gas Blender, and CCR... Do I have that right?

5. Gear upgrades? More regs? BP/W? What else? Any specific recommendations?

6. Suggested locations or specific dive centers? I can go worldwide.

7. How long will this take? How much will it cost?

8. I'm the type that likes to get the texts months ahead of a class and read the hell out of them before I show up. What could I start reading now that will help me excel at this?

9. What else can I do to be an excellent student and an excellent instructor?

10. What questions have I not thought of yet.

THANK YOU.

I think one needs to be really interested and enthusiastic about tech diving first and then after doing it for many years it might be a possibility to become an instructor as well.
There is no way you can teach stuff you are not interested in in the first place. So the thing is, do you want to try if tech diving is for you? what would you want to do in so challenging places that you need extensive tech training to get there?
is the time and effort worth it for you?

for the learning curve you probably need to take one course, then come back for more WHEN YOU ARE READY FOR IT. it may be shortly after the course or it may take years before you want to extend your knowledge even more, to go deeper than before, to explore further and see things previously unreachable for you.

Learning tech diving will be exactly the challenge you need to keep the boredom away and it will be for many years to come if you like it and want to advance in it!
you are bored because you want to extend your limits but don't yet know how and you have probably already seen all the rec locations reachable for you. You want to explore some new stuff, new locations, new depths unreachable with rec diving experience and gear and training.

SO the big step would be, by my opinion, to find out if tech diving is really something you like and something you want to be good at. then seek training and train more and explore new depths when your developing skills allow it. and when you at some day want to see even more, go even deeper, for even longer amounts of time, you will get more training when you're ready for it and then do some more diving with the new skill set to finesse it.

It can take you couple of years or it can take any amount of time and you may even discover at some point that tech diving was not for you at all and you will want to stay in the rec limits which is perfectly OK. tech training will improve normal rec diving as well so it will never go to waste whatever you will decide to do in the end.

I am myself discovering tech diving world as well at the moment, hoping to be able to cave dive safely one day and do deep trimix dives on wrecks. my goal is to be able to take the first tech course next year and use this year for reading and practicing the buoyancy skills and doubles and maybe taking an intro course if possible to get a better hold on propulsion techniques. I WOULD LIKE to have the first tech course next year but it depends if I'm READY FOR IT and that may change during the process. It might be that it would happen already this year or it may take two years to advance to the next level. You can't hurry these things, you will have to take small steps and at each level will need to fine tune the skills to the muscle memory so that you can advance further comfortably and safely. trying to hurry things too much is both unsafe and it also limits your skill development. probably it will also take you so much out from your comfort zone, outside your limits that it would not even be fun anymore and then there would be no point even doing that.

the gear is the least of your problems, you will get more of it in small steps when you advance
standard hogarthian style doubles rig with long hose and maybe a drysuit would be the first purchases for most I believe and an alu stage/deco bottle or two with regulators when needed.

did I understand correctly that you are using normal BC for your diving now? in that case you can get a single wing bp/w setup right now and change your current regulator setup to standard long hose configuration with bolt naps tied with caveline etc. so a "DIR single tank setup" and will do all your rec dives with that setup from now on. it will be easy to get used to doubles after that when all the configuration is otherwise the same except you just add more tanks and the manifold. then adding a deco bottle or stage when you need it.
Rec diving with bp/w is also fun and for me it is much more enjoyable than with a jacket BC. I have not actually used my jacket BC at all after I got comfortable with the singles BP/W and most of my friends have made similar transition as well. another benefit is that if you manage to break something from your bp/w kit (very unlikely if not using much plastic parts) then it is very easy to replace them on the field and it should not cost much. the basic backplate/harness kit is pretty much indestructible which is one reason why it is so popular

 

[Graeme Fraser]

I think one needs to be really interested and enthusiastic about tech diving first and then after doing it for many years it might be a possibility to become an instructor as well.
There is no way you can teach stuff you are not interested in in the first place. So the thing is, do you want to try if tech diving is for you? what would you want to do in so challenging places that you need extensive tech training to get there?
is the time and effort worth it for you?

for the learning curve you probably need to take one course, then come back for more WHEN YOU ARE READY FOR IT. it may be shortly after the course or it may take years before you want to extend your knowledge even more, to go deeper than before, to explore further and see things previously unreachable for you.

Learning tech diving will be exactly the challenge you need to keep the boredom away and it will be for many years to come if you like it and want to advance in it!
you are bored because you want to extend your limits but don't yet know how and you have probably already seen all the rec locations reachable for you. You want to explore some new stuff, new locations, new depths unreachable with rec diving experience and gear and training.

SO the big step would be, by my opinion, to find out if tech diving is really something you like and something you want to be good at. then seek training and train more and explore new depths when your developing skills allow it. and when you at some day want to see even more, go even deeper, for even longer amounts of time, you will get more training when you're ready for it and then do some more diving with the new skill set to finesse it.

It can take you couple of years or it can take any amount of time and you may even discover at some point that tech diving was not for you at all and you will want to stay in the rec limits which is perfectly OK. tech training will improve normal rec diving as well so it will never go to waste whatever you will decide to do in the end.

I am myself discovering tech diving world as well at the moment, hoping to be able to cave dive safely one day and do deep trimix dives on wrecks. my goal is to be able to take the first tech course next year and use this year for reading and practicing the buoyancy skills and doubles and maybe taking an intro course if possible to get a better hold on propulsion techniques. I WOULD LIKE to have the first tech course next year but it depends if I'm READY FOR IT and that may change during the process. It might be that it would happen already this year or it may take two years to advance to the next level. You can't hurry these things, you will have to take small steps and at each level will need to fine tune the skills to the muscle memory so that you can advance further comfortably and safely. trying to hurry things too much is both unsafe and it also limits your skill development. probably it will also take you so much out from your comfort zone, outside your limits that it would not even be fun anymore and then there would be no point even doing that.

the gear is the least of your problems, you will get more of it in small steps when you advance
standard hogarthian style doubles rig with long hose and maybe a drysuit would be the first purchases for most I believe and an alu stage/deco bottle or two with regulators when needed.

did I understand correctly that you are using normal BC for your diving now? in that case you can get a single wing bp/w setup right now and change your current regulator setup to standard long hose configuration with bolt naps tied with caveline etc. so a "DIR single tank setup" and will do all your rec dives with that setup from now on. it will be easy to get used to doubles after that when all the configuration is otherwise the same except you just add more tanks and the manifold. then adding a deco bottle or stage when you need it.
Rec diving with bp/w is also fun and for me it is much more enjoyable than with a jacket BC. I have not actually used my jacket BC at all after I got comfortable with the singles BP/W and most of my friends have made similar transition as well. another benefit is that if you manage to break something from your bp/w kit (very unlikely if not using much plastic parts) then it is very easy to replace them on the field and it should not cost much. the basic backplate/harness kit is pretty much indestructible which is one reason why it is so popular

Nicely put.

 

[AJ]

I wonder, do you like to dive or like to teach? Becoming an avid tech diver is a goal itself and quite a challenge I must say from my own experience. It takes time and baby steps, even being a good rec diver. I would suggest to first become a very skilled an experienced tech diver. If you still feel the need to become a tech instructor you know what you have to do by then.

 

[Maybe]

You're probably right. Most have way more than that before teaching the courses you're talking about.

******** has been called.

 

[Maybe]

I think the magnitude of your question may be leaving people with little to recommend on the Instructor part.

There are many threads on becoming a better (or a) tech diver. I would read several of them.

Then revisit becoming an instructor of that same material. Needing Nitrox, and being unsure if you will need a BP/W suggests you may have a lot of reading ahead of you. Collect some bios of the teachers recommended in threads. Compare their backgrounds, and look at creating a similar background of diving experience.

I don't need Nitrox. I've been teaching that for ten years. I was asking if that's an accurate progression of courses. I am well aware of how BP/Ws are used. I've been using one for 11 years. I was asking for recomendations for upgrades. You can tell because I said "Upgrades...any specific recommendations?" Thanks for the help.

 

[Maybe]

You're probably right. Most have way more than that before teaching the courses you're talking about.

Lol. No.

 

[almostDIR]

I don't need Nitrox. I've been teaching that for ten years. I was asking if that's an accurate progression of courses. I am well aware of how BP/Ws are used. I've been using one for 11 years. I was asking for recomendations for upgrades. You can tell because I said "Upgrades...any specific recommendations?" Thanks for the help.

Excellent that you are experienced with bp/w! are you diving singles or doubles, if singles you can upgrade to doubles and if you already have doubles and proper hose configuration it might be best to take a intro to tech course this year or a Fundies style course with tech pass, then when appropriate and you are ready, do the basic rec trimix course with small amount of deco. after more practicing and when stage handling goes well you can do normoxic trimix and then just dive a lot and enjoy your new greatly expanded depth and time limits

after lots of normoxic decompression dives you will be ready for hypoxic training and much deeper dives if you will want to go for it

 

[Erik Forsberg]

I don't need Nitrox. I've been teaching that for ten years. I was asking if that's an accurate progression of courses. I am well aware of how BP/Ws are used. I've been using one for 11 years. I was asking for recomendations for upgrades. You can tell because I said "Upgrades...any specific recommendations?" Thanks for the help.

I undertand where you are coming from and that it would be interesting to teach more qualified stuff towards a more serious crowd; I really feel you.

However, what I think you might not think about is what is needed in terms of experience.
Someone totally new to math can go from zero to hero in arithmetics and teach 7-year old basic arithmetics is something you can learn in a few months.

But in order to teach university students in non-linear multi-variable differential equations require yourself to understand math on a whole new level, which will in itself take years and years of math studiesm, and after that you will need to learn to build a curriculum and pedagogics to teach something abstract to a crowd of, albeit motivated and highly intelligent, students that will stumble on things you can not comprehend yourself, and to learn what others have problems understanding is a skill in itself.

Right know you are, from what I understand, a masterful teacher in arithmetics and teaching 7-year olds, but you have no idea about differential equations, transforms or numerical methods and you want to teach that to university students.

That is the kind of gap we are talking about here, and it is not something you can rush.

 

[rjack321]

Let's just say you do this zero-to-hero tech diver then somehow do zero-to-hero tech instructor. The bare minimum for BOTH is what you are asking.
What value do you think such an instructor offers to a student? Why should they go to you?

 

[almostDIR]

another thing is the "cheap and fast" route the OP asked for...
it is not possible in technical diving, at least if you want to do it safely and well. you basically need to forget about the money and time, just spend everything you are able to so that you can get the best training and experience possible and all the gear you need in every step. If you cannot afford something fancy, then progress a bit slower and in the meantime practice more the skills you have already learned.

the +10k rebreather would be expensive for every diver but if you need it you have to buy it to be able to do things you want to do. If needing a specific course which is only taught by one instructor in another part of the world you will just go there if you need that course to archive your goals, no questions asked about the price. For the tech diving money is not as important as with recreational stuff and you really can't cheap on equipment and training and time (well, you can, but it is often at the cost of your personal safety and it will slow your progression and in the end takes you further away from the goals you actually want to archive)

----
I just calculated I will need close to 10 000 euros in the next three years for training and practicing if I want to progress the way I'm intending though the path may change on the way so will have to adapt on the fly. the equipment would be on top of that price as well as travelling costs other than those directly related to the diving courses or cheap local quarry/sea practicing. and I consider that a relatively small amount if I can get somewhat used to beginner level no-deco cave diving and normoxic trimix with that price. and I can get cheap helium so the gas costs are insignificant.
Progressing from there to advanced level would be at least 10-15k more for me I believe though it is too early to estimate that for now. that would again be course costs and training and practicing related travelling, no rebreather or dpv purchases etc. and limited amount of money for gas costs.
(pretty huge compared to my original scuba plans of just getting the padi ow certification and basic used rec gear with used tanks and bc and so which I used 2000euros for total including all, regulators lights etc.
And intended to stop at that level. little did I know then )