When and how did you switch to side-mount?

[Johanan]

As an AOW diver, I took a sidemount course with Garry Dallas. Arguably it was the most important course in my diving life because Garry is really great at correcting and improving his student's general skill set during his courses. I started my cave training after 50-70 SM dives in open water having obtained some automatism in sidemount techniques.

 

[Coconut Monkey]

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[karstdvr]

Those of you who are doing cave diving in side mount, how did you transition into it? Did you take your cave class in SM or did you log a few dives in backmount and then started doing your cave diving in self-taught side mount? Thanks.

I am like Ken, I made my first sidemount rig in the 90s because the cave we were exploring was bedding plane-ish. I moved to more full time sidemount because I started diving off boat, and had frequently dump my gear in the river before donning it. I think having skills in backmount and sidemount are very important,because there are times one configuration is better than the other, and having the proper configuration is useful.