Learn Backmount First

[prophet98g]

Maybe you mean Border Patrol.

 

[MSargeant]

I chose sidemount due to the fact my back is FUBAR'd, walking to and from a dive site with even a single 12 on my back becomes murder, so being able to walk to cylinders down into the water then pop my suit n harness on and take my time is a godsend.
BM is better for "Sloppy Diving" I.e. you fancy a quick dip after work or in the morning, chuck your rig in the back of the car, suit up, rig up and jump in, a lot less faff involved.

Back to the OP, i think you learn backmount because it's how diving has always been done, everyone knows it and to that extent, it's easy, just a Single cylinder, BCD and regs. Once you built your experience up then going up to twins and then Sidies or just up to Sidies is a stepping stone because you already have the inwater competence.

That said... I'm wondering whether in the next few years there will be Open Water divers learning in single cylinder sidemount, just my 2 pennies.

 

[beanojones]

It's there now for the teaching. PADI has just approved it for Open Water classes. Some of us who do intro for Japanese are trying to work out how to do it for them, because the tank weight is often the biggest problem.

 

[MSargeant]

Oh, i wasn't aware of that, ali80 are good for single cylinder, weigh very little in the water.

 

[Dive-aholic]

I chose sidemount due to the fact my back is FUBAR'd, walking to and from a dive site with even a single 12 on my back becomes murder, so being able to walk to cylinders down into the water then pop my suit n harness on and take my time is a godsend.
BM is better for "Sloppy Diving" I.e. you fancy a quick dip after work or in the morning, chuck your rig in the back of the car, suit up, rig up and jump in, a lot less faff involved.

Back to the OP, i think you learn backmount because it's how diving has always been done, everyone knows it and to that extent, it's easy, just a Single cylinder, BCD and regs. Once you built your experience up then going up to twins and then Sidies or just up to Sidies is a stepping stone because you already have the inwater competence.

That said... I'm wondering whether in the next few years there will be Open Water divers learning in single cylinder sidemount, just my 2 pennies.

I can get rigged up and ready to dive a lot faster in sidemount than in backmount. The more you do it the easier it gets.

 

[beanojones]

I can get rigged up and ready to dive a lot faster in sidemount than in backmount. The more you do it the easier it gets.

If the BM rig is doubles with a crotch strap, then in doubles SM is faster and easier if for no other reason than you can put in on by yourself without a seat. I cannot load into doubles BM without a seat or help, period. I load myself in to SM doubles and triples by myself all the time standing on a boat.

So while I value Sidemount for what it is for doubles, for single tanks, it does require more fiddling than with a basic BM rig. I can put together and put on my SP classic jacket (with my over the shoulder SPG, Air2, and underarm primary) in less than a minute, because there is no fastening needed other than the cam band to the tank. I know that's cheating because the SP jacket does not need to be fastened but that's kind of the point.

Sidemount requires the mounting points to be made secure on the body which requires more fiddling. (Versus BM's mounting points which are often to a hardpack which does not require anything but a cam band to be fastened) And that is ignoring the fact that if the tanks are rental, prepping them for sidemount requires a rather major degree of fiddling with cambands and bungies.

Of course if someone uses a neck bungie and a BP/W for backmount, some of the fasten the cam band and go advantage is lost.

 

[shoredivr]

It would have saved me a ton of frustration in obtaining correct trim and doing easy valve shutdowns if I'd started in sidemount rather than backmount doubles. Once I had taken an ow SM course from Dive- aholic and had rig and camband placement properly done for my size and specific tanks (steel 100's) trim and shutdowns are a snap. Thanks Dive-Aholic!

In the past while i am noticing noticing that dive charters seem more accommodating to SM probably coz there are more of us.

 

[TSandM]

I think a lot of the diving one would do in either sidemount or backmounted doubles has to do with gas planning and contingency planning, and those are very similar in spirit, if not in detail.

I think each configuration has its pluses and minuses. I had a wonderful introduction to sidemount diving from Rob (Dive-aholic) and found the sensation of it fabulous. I had what turned out to be an erroneous perception that sidemount would be easier for me, getting in and out of the cenotes in Mexico. It turns out that it is easier for me to carry two Al80's down three flights of stairs if they are paired up and on my back, than it is to do the same if they are single tanks.

I'm with Matt. Decide what you are going to dive, and learn to dive it. I do think it may be easier to go from BM to SM, just because you have to do so much learning to balance BM tanks and be stable with them. But if you never intend to dive BM, I see no reason to learn it first.

 

[billgraham]

My own experience is that once I learned sidemount, I never dove backmount again.

 

[mdax]

I've had the opposite experience to many here. Wife and I learned cave in side mount and did around 150ish cave dives in them. We moved over to using back mount most of the time and prefer them for most dives. For most of our diving we now use doubles.
IMO doubles rock for trimix/multiple stages, walks to mayan blue through death mosquitoes and climbing that darn ladder after temple of doom. Side mount rocks for rock bluff and other wriggling caves and river boat diving.
I think that new folks should learn both systems and decide for themselves what they like. Some make the BM/SM discussion seem like some sort of odd tech diving religion. They are just different tools.