Intro to Tech, to make a better Rec?

[Bigeclipse]

After a lot of reading here, I think my thought process might be sound. I'm considering taking an Intro to Tech, primarily to make me a better recreational diver. I will never dive caves, or serious wreck penetrations. Chances are I'll never use a CCR.

But what I want to do is perfect my trim, and be as proficient and efficient at diving as I can. I'm sure much of this will come with more experience, but I don't see how taking the course would not be a considerable benefit.

How is my thinking on this? Sorry, this has probably been discussed before, but my Google-fu is weak.

I recently took intro to tech so I have a different perspective than many people on this thread who are instructors themselves and not students (no offense). I think you are on the right track here. Intro to Tech is an EXCELLENT course for a recreational diver in my honest opinion. First of all, be prepared to do many different skills all while hovering in open water. This sounds maybe trivial but until you do it you do not realize how intense it truly is. For example, sending up an SMB without your buoyancy/depth changing more than 1 ft in either direction. Learning all the different styles of kicks (frog kicking, helicopter turns...etc.) I think I will eventually be going on to technical diving but even if I do not...I would do it all over again knowing what I know now. It truly makes you a much better diver. Also, the course does not break the bank compared to other courses (at least with my instructor). Other than our normal scuba gear we needed a lift bag or large SMB with finger spool. It was recommended to have other things such as drysuits, doubles, or gas switching type bottles if you had them but not mandatory. Half the class had some of these things while others did not. I had a set of doubles available and I had a 40cf pony bottle slung available so on top of doing the standard course I also learned how to set the doubles up, I dove with them on several of the dives, I did gas switching with the pony/stage bottle (although it was filled with regular air...so not a true gas switch) all while trying to maintain hovering. Great class in my opinion.

 

[Compressor]

So much of what the student gets out of the class has to do with how good the instructor is and how much he/she inspires the student to learn and achieve a higher level. IMO there is nothing worse than an arrogant instructor. I'm glad you had a nice experience Bigeclipse.