Your own definition

[Subcooled]

It seems to me now that "technical diving" is a moving boundary that separates few divers from many divers (see above: nitrox, rec trimix).
It is not a fixed form of diving. It is a subgroup selector. It is constantly redefined to define an elite.
Trimix is technical now, but if too many use it, it becomes recreational.
Ego wins

 

[Nasser]

It seems to me now that "technical diving" is a moving boundary that separates few divers from many divers (see above: nitrox, rec trimix).
It is not a fixed form of diving. It is a subgroup selector. It is constantly redefined to define an elite.
Trimix is technical now, but if too many use it, it becomes recreational.
Ego wins

It is absolutely not a fixed boundary, but I'm not sure I would agree it is refined to define an elite. It can be used that way, certainly, but I would subscribe more to its literal-technical approach rather than to an attitude or manifestation of ego. During its early years it was in the shadows... secretive, selective, and practiced by the few... and no doubt viewed as elite by it's practitioners. But as technical agencies and publishers brought it out out of the shadows and into the public, it's accessibility became much more... well accessible.

Now this sector of diving has grown exponentially over the years and many more divers are participating in this form of diving than ever before. Will technical diving as we have generally chosen to currently define it move over to the mainstream to the point that it ceases to become "technical" to the majority? Perhaps, only time will tell, but I still would choose to identify it as an approach to diving whether it is practiced by a select few or a majority rather than a manifestation of ego.

 

[DevonDiver]

It seems to me now that "technical diving" is a moving boundary that separates few divers from many divers (see above: nitrox, rec trimix).

Does that really happen? I wasn't aware....

A large amount of my technical diving is actually within recreational depth ranges (100-130ft/30-40m), but extremely long bottom times (advanced wreck penetrations with 60 min bottom time) and the resulting (accelerated) deco certainly put these into the sphere of 'technical diving'.

If screwing up a dive means I'll 100% surely get bent like a pretzel, I consider it technical.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think it is ridiculous that people can argue this long over a term.

It is an important term. It has certain meaning (to most people).

If I say "he is a tech diver" or it is a "tech dive". It means "something" .. to me it is a diver who does significant penetration, dives past 130 or does deco (with any freaking gas he wants). Pretty simple.

It has nothing to do with how many tanks he has, what deco gases he uses, if he plans his dives carefully or recklessly.

If somebody is a rebreather diver.. then just say they use a rebreather (and stay out of deco) or if they do deco - then say it.

 

[AfterDark]

I think it is ridiculous that people can argue this long over a term.

It is an important term. It has certain meaning (to most people).

If I say "he is a tech diver" or it is a "tech dive". It means "something" .. to me it is a diver who does significant penetration, dives past 130 or does deco (with any freaking gas he wants). Pretty simple.

It has nothing to do with how many tanks he has, what deco gases he uses, if he plans his dives carefully or recklessly.

If somebody is a rebreather diver.. then just say they use a rebreather (and stay out of deco) or if they do deco - then say it.

Well then let us throw another log on the fire and continue the discussion. Kelp diving, never did it but it sounds from what I’ve read of it a fairly hard overhead, in some spots, with feet of growth to be penetrated before the surface can be reached and a high risk of entanglement.

Sounds something like what I’ve been reading in post after post sans deco in this thread. Kelp dive is not tech diving, maybe it should be? Then we can have scuba police at the shore checking certs! Oh Boy!

 

[Nasser]

It has nothing to do with how many tanks he has, what deco gases he uses, if he plans his dives carefully or recklessly.

I suppose you could strap on a sh*tload of tanks with various gas mixtures and dive an NDL profile and it certainly wouldn't be a tech dive... not sure why someone would want to do that though - maybe its a good way to meet women? :cool2:

 

[NAM001]

Why would that not be a tech dive. You are doing gas changes which changes your ndl's. Wrong gas and you are history. I don't know of any rec diving class that teaches the skills of multi tank with multi gasses. They teach one tank one gas from start to finish. Keeps the planning simple/basic, with in the BASIC diving knowledge of the beginner/recreational diver. If you change gasses then your whole dive porfile changes. How does the rec diver figure this out if not with a computer? And with a computer how to do the gas change to adjust the loading and unloading computations, allowable ascent rates ect. Those are complex things to do. Not basic things to do.

I suppose you could strap on a sh*t load of tanks with various gas mixtures and dive an NDL profile and it certainly wouldn't be a tech dive... not sure why someone would want to do that though - maybe its a good way to meet women? :cool2:

 

[Nasser]

Why would that not be a tech dive. You are doing gas changes which changes your ndl's. Wrong gas and you are history. I don't know of any rec diving class that teaches the skills of multi tank with multi gasses. They teach one tank one gas from start to finish. Keeps the planning simple/basic, with in the BASIC diving knowledge of the beginner/recreational diver. If you change gasses then your whole dive porfile changes. How does the rec diver figure this out if not with a computer? And with a computer how to do the gas change to adjust the loading and unloading computations, allowable ascent rates ect. Those are complex things to do. Not basic things to do.

My point is that if you're diving a typical NDL sport dive profile you wouldn't need all that stuff in the first place...

 

[Diver0001]

I think the term may have initially been borrowed from mountain climbing. In mountain climbing, the difficulty of a climb is on a 5 point scale and "technical" climbs are the most difficult climbs. A 5/5.

R..

 

[rx7diver]

I think the term may have initially been borrowed from mountain climbing...

Somehow the adjective "technical" seems to have latched itself onto other activities, too, in the 1980's. In 1983 or so a GF and I drove up from central MO to Lake Geneva, WI to take a 4-day Annapolis Sailing School sailing course. (Rainbow sloops.) When the instructors were chatting off-line, they all were enthusing about "technical sailing." My sense then was this was a new term that described a higher level of sailing, something to aspire to! Only the worthy few need apply!

My intro to sailing occurred in the mid 1970's when I was a college student in central OH. I'm sure I had never heard the term "technical sailing" until that trip to WI.

Safe Diving,

rx7diver