You can go out and buy everything you need for sidemount on the Internet. There might even be a few books and a video you can purchase. Armed with all that knowledge, you can start diving sidemount with no training or instruction. Over a number of dives you will (hopefully) make adjustments and experience events which cause you to adjust your rig from the default, etc. Absolutely it can and has be done.
I chose to find instructors that already invested that time and would accelerate me to a starting point that would have taken me a large number of dives to reach. They looked at my trim underwater and made adjustments to tank position and weight distribution. The shared years of knowledge and experience. I paid for that mentorship and training so that my starting point in building experience was much further along than starting from scratch. By establishing a mentor/student relationship, I now have somebody that I can ask questions that may come up in the future. I just recently spent a day reviewing skills I already learned. Practicing skills on your own is great, to have an instructor task load you shows you any deficiencies and it also builds your confidence that you have learned what you have practiced.
Finding an EXPERIENCED Sidemount instructor is key. I have seen a PADI Instructor course that includes an "Add-on" that allows a new Open Water Instructor to teach the PADI Sidemount course. From what I can tell, that new Sidemount Instructor will have about 10 sidemount dives and be certified to teach it.
I chose to find instructors that already invested that time and would accelerate me to a starting point that would have taken me a large number of dives to reach. They looked at my trim underwater and made adjustments to tank position and weight distribution. The shared years of knowledge and experience. I paid for that mentorship and training so that my starting point in building experience was much further along than starting from scratch. By establishing a mentor/student relationship, I now have somebody that I can ask questions that may come up in the future. I just recently spent a day reviewing skills I already learned. Practicing skills on your own is great, to have an instructor task load you shows you any deficiencies and it also builds your confidence that you have learned what you have practiced.
Finding an EXPERIENCED Sidemount instructor is key. I have seen a PADI Instructor course that includes an "Add-on" that allows a new Open Water Instructor to teach the PADI Sidemount course. From what I can tell, that new Sidemount Instructor will have about 10 sidemount dives and be certified to teach it.
