Professional Advice Needed

[To_Narced]

Hey everyone,

Im 23 yrs old and am a PADI MSDT and am looking to get into some serious tech diving. My question is can you make more money in diving as a tech istructor or is the market not big enough yet? Any responses would be apprecitaed

Ps. Any suggestions on good tech agencies to train with?

 

[ScubaFreak]

perhaps this post would get a better response in Instructor panel mods?

SF

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hey everyone,

Im 23 yrs old and am a PADI MSDT and am looking to get into some serious tech diving. My question is can you make more money in diving as a tech istructor or is the market not big enough yet? Any responses would be apprecitaed

Ps. Any suggestions on good tech agencies to train with?

I guess how much money you can make depnds on lots of things. A recreational instructor often gets the new tourist divers who go to the most convenient or the cheapest and reputation seems to have lttle to do with it.

A tech instructor, on the other hand, who has a name may have students travel a long way to study with him/her and may get students from all over the world. I'm not talking about the instructor who zips through the tec-rec stuff and becomes an instructor though. I'm talking about the experienced and skilled instructor who is known in the technical community.

When OW classes are going for...say $300 and trimix courses are going for say...$1000 guess who "can" make more money at least for the time they put in (hte rec instructor is liable to have more students).

Of course the first thing to do is to go and DO some serious tech diving to see if you can even do it before you think about teaching it. IMO, you really need tons of experience before thinking about teaching. You can find my former cave instructors name on the survey team list of Florida and Mexican caves. You can find my former trimix instructor giving wreck presentations and showing his video of wrecks like the Guinilda. Something to ask yourself is why would I take a class from you?

Some agencies will allow you to become a tech instructor with as few as 25 technical dives. I've seen candidates doing bounce dives in quarries to meet the requirements. I wouldn't dive with these guys let alone take a class from them and even at 25 dives? Well...it's a joke.

Have you given any thought to who you will learn technical diving under?

 

[matt_unique]

Hey everyone,

Im 23 yrs old and am a PADI MSDT and am looking to get into some serious tech diving. My question is can you make more money in diving as a tech istructor or is the market not big enough yet? Any responses would be apprecitaed

Ps. Any suggestions on good tech agencies to train with?

From the perspective of a tech student, reputation and recency of actual tech dive experience were the most important considerations for me. My instructor had about 3500 dives and was one of two CCR Trimix instructors in NE (that I am aware of). This instructor does deep trimix dives for pleasure. I knew going in I was learning from someone with serious experience. Doria, U869, and other deeper wrecks (etc.)

This is in no way a knock on you, we all have to start somewhere, but I think you would have difficulty building a student base for tech students at your experience level. There are lot's of "junk food" type of instructors out there as mentioned by others with the minimum requirements. I hope you do not seek out this route. Build your experience and try to learn from the best divers/instructors available to you.

--Matt

 

[Mako Mark]

Hey everyone,

Im 23 yrs old and am a PADI MSDT and am looking to get into some serious tech diving. My question is can you make more money in diving as a tech istructor or is the market not big enough yet? Any responses would be apprecitaed

Ps. Any suggestions on good tech agencies to train with?

First of all, go buy yourself a truck, you will need it for all the gear, then follow Mikes advice; become a tec diver and earn your reputation, then you may decide that teaching tec is for you or not.

I have been a tec diver for a long time and a full time dive instructor for a lot longer, but I made a concious desicion that tec diving was what I do for fun, not profit. It is HARD YAKKA teaching tec, and is a very long road to go down.

Dont take this as discouragement, but you need to find yourself a mentor and learn that one of the greates attributes a tec diver can have is patience. Once you have done that, you will be on the right track. There is money to be made teaching tec, but only a very few manage it. Good luck.

 

[MikeFerrara]

You ask about tech diving and all the surly characters come out huh?

I didn't really mean to discourage you with my post either it's just that I think you should really have a bunch of experience before teaching it. A problem at 250 ft can really suck but imagine a problem with a student under those conditions.

I'm not real new at it and in the beginning I was planning on teaching it. After doing it for a while and getting to know some divers who are good technical instructors I decided that I don't get to dive enough to ever have experience that will measure up to theirs. I'll just let them teach it.

No doubt if you really want it you can do it but there's dues to pay. Send a PM to Doppler or Ckickdiver (off the top of my head). Their both technical instructors with a bunch of experience who can probably scare you better....I mean give you more insight than I can.

 

[SubMariner]

perhaps this post would get a better response in Instructor panel mods?

SF

I agree with SF.

PM a Mod & tell them whether or not you are a member of the Instructor 2 Instructor forum. If you are, we can move it there where it will get much better exposure.

 

[JS1scuba]

Hey everyone,

Im 23 yrs old and am a PADI MSDT and am looking to get into some serious tech diving. My question is can you make more money in diving as a tech istructor or is the market not big enough yet? Any responses would be apprecitaed

Ps. Any suggestions on good tech agencies to train with?

Dear Narced. I've been teaching technical diving since the early 1990s. I make an excellent living at it. But it comes with a significant investment. Attached is an artical I wrote for one of the training agency magazines, its been updated to with some new info I have added. Please note that I have been teaching technical diving and training technical instructors for more than 10 years. I've written 3 books on nitrox diving, and co-authored the nitrox, trimix and decompression sections of the NOAA Diving Manual. My investment in the technical diver training portion of my business exceeds $50k (at least) and we spend another $3-5k a year in updating equipment and training tools. At present besides running my PDC and Tech Diving Limited I am the regional manager for SDI/TDI for the SW/California and Rocky Mountan States. Read the article attached below it might give you a better perspective on "teaching tech."

Regards,

 

[To_Narced]

Hello. Thanks for your response you definiteley gave me some valuable insight. however after posting this thread, I realized I wasnt quite clear. I definitley want to gain years of exp tech diving before I even think about becoming a instructor. I realize I am years and hundreds if not thousands of dives away from the exp level I would need to become a instructor. As I have never gone on a technical dive, I dont even know if I would like it or not. I think its absoluteley foolish that anyone could become a instructor at the speed you mentioned and am in full agreement with everything you said. thanks allot for replying.

 

[JS1scuba]

Hello. Thanks for your response you definiteley gave me some valuable insight. however after posting this thread, I realized I wasnt quite clear. I definitley want to gain years of exp tech diving before I even think about becoming a instructor. I realize I am years and hundreds if not thousands of dives away from the exp level I would need to become a instructor. As I have never gone on a technical dive, I dont even know if I would like it or not. I think its absoluteley foolish that anyone could become a instructor at the speed you mentioned and am in full agreement with everything you said. thanks allot for replying.

OK -- now where are you located? From that we can see where we can get you set up for a "taste tech" experience

JDS