Learn Doubles or Sidemount first?

[tomcatbubba]

Doubles are easier to deal with off boats, SM is great in caves.

Perhaps. I run a down line with mushroom weight and clip my right tank, stages, or deco bottles on the down line. Giant stride in with my left tank, clip in to all my gear underwater. Easy peasy........Getting out is the same thing. I've seen people damage knees, back etc. getting out of the water onto a pitching boat in backmount doubles. Even with a full sidemount rig, the center of mass of properly hung sidemount tanks up under my armpits seems easier to walk around than backmount doubles.

 

[tomcatbubba]

What's your ultimate goal?

Good thought. And what is your geographical situation? Up here in the DC Metro area, there are very few places to train deep, so we do a lot down in the Keys and South Florida. Finding doubles is often challenging, especially with a large class. Every shop in the world has single 80's, which you can rig in a matter of minutes.

Plus, I am fond of "train like you dive, dive like you train" so on trips where I am doing shallower NDL dives, sidemount profile lets me keep my skills sharp. A lot of shops I dive with in the off season are larger volume and geared to recreational dives. Finding doubles is often a challenge.

Not saying one should completely ignore backmount, quite the contrary a good technical diver should be familiar with both configurations. But, if finding doubles in your area is a challenge, don't ignore sidemount as a gateway into the Tec world. I do enjoy backmount doubles on deeper dives with multiple stages. Seems to be a bit cleaner configuration.