Lessons learned?

[Rukkian]

Going to be jumping into sm for the first time. Have an xdeep stealth tec and a pair of sm regs on order. Have a technical sm training planned for next month. Just looking for anything that people may have learned after starting down the road that would have been good to know before they started. I am still a fairly new diver but looking forward to new challenges, and always want to have new goals.


Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[grassgreen]

If you haven't found a specific instructor yet...do your research...there are many interpretations of sidemount diving. Iv attached some pictures so you can see what you should and shouldn't look like..

 

[grassgreen]

Plus if your Sidemount instructor is a cave diver...all the better.

 

[Rukkian]

Plus if your Sidemount instructor is a cave diver...all the better.

That was one thing I looked for, as there are not a ton of instructors for sm near me, so I am traveling a bit for one that seems well regarded. The instructor I found is a full tdi cave instructor and that is what he normally teaches.

 

[Marie13]

You’re jumping straight into tech SM without any SM dives under your belt?

 

[Rukkian]

You’re jumping straight into tech SM without any SM dives under your belt?

The instructor gave the options and said either could work, but he would be doing a few extra dives either way. Since I am not a tech diver yet, it will only be doing simulated deco on regular air, instead of increased o2, but that way I could learn up front how to deal with extra tanks.

I am open to suggestions if people think it is a bad idea, that was part of the reason for this post. From what I read, it sounds like tech sm covers both rec and tech, and rec is not a prereq.

 

[Marie13]

The difference between rec and tech is adding deco bottle(s), rigging and carrying them. Rec SM gets your rig set up and tanks trim. The usual recommendation is to do 20-25 dives in the configuration before going tech.

So you’re just doing the tech SM class as your first SM class?

 

[Rollin Bonz]

I'm with @Marie13 on this. I did tech SM after roughly 2 or 3 years and a couple of hundred recreational SM dives... and the dives for the tech SM class were buggers. My dive buddy had an additional year or so of rec SM, and he felt the same way. And we'd already done Tec40 in BM doubles at the time. Adding deco bottles to BM doubles is not too big of a deal. Adding deco bottles to SM... that's a whole nutha story.

Our instructor is known for being a hard a$$, but even so, I would suggest holding off on the tech SM until you have some proficiency in recreational SM if possible. You may otherwise be overwhelmed and be setting yourself up for failure.

 

[grantctobin]

Who is the instructor?

 

[Rukkian]

Who is the instructor?

bjorn loftis