Why should I do the TDI Intro to Technical Diving course on my next trip to Playa del Carmen?
Often I will be sitting in the dive shop sorting through and answering emails, and I will get an email (sometimes even a phone call) from someone asking about the Intro to Tech course.
The first question is usually “Why would I want to do this course if I have no interest in Technical Diving?” Well, the beauty of this course is that you don’t have to be interested in tech diving to do it. You just have to be interested in becoming a better diver.
What this course does is improve every aspect of your diving and introduce you to technical diving in a gentle way. What does that even mean, you might be asking yourselves…
Well, the term “technical diving” is a very broad term. It describes any diving beyond recreational diving limits. This could be deep dives over 40 meters, or dives requiring decompression stops and even overhead environment penetration dives (such as cave, mine and/or wreck diving).
However, technical diving is about more than just doing “crazy dives”. It is about mastering every aspect of your diving. From your equipment configuration, to your buoyancy and trim, calculating gas mixes and dive profiles, and even mastering your own mind. After all, the mind is both your most powerful ally or your biggest enemy when it comes to diving.
So what do you learn in the TDI Intro to Tech course?
Well, we teach you what real mastery is about. We get your gear configuration cleaned up, properly trimmed out and neutrally buoyant in the water column. This helps you move with more ease.
We teach you proper, non-destructive propulsion methods. Methods such as the frog kick, modified flutter kicks, helicopter turns and backward finning so that no sediment is disturbed as you gracefully glide along a reef, lake or whatever environment you dive in.
We teach you to use technical diving equipment. This includes double tanks, backplate & wing rig and all other equipment used in technical and cave diving.
Ok. That sounds cool, but…
The beauty of this is that the training transfers back to all of your diving. Whether you choose to continue on and do overhead environment training (such as cavern, intro to cave or full cave), open water technical diving or you just wish to go back to a single tank and do some nice reef dives, what you learned in this course will stay with you always.