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The Who’s Who of Sidemount

Published

11 months ago

June 16, 2023

InDEPTH

Steve Martin

Steve Martin is a pioneering educator in cave and sidemount diving. He has been instrumental in the development of sidemount and has built his experience through traveling and conducting courses all over the world. Diving since 1999, Steve is best known for having developed his world renowned Sidemount Essentials Course at Sidemounting.com, his signature training program which arguably raises the industry benchmark. Established in 2009, his website represents one of the largest collections of online resources available on sidemount diving.

What is sidemount to you?

Sidemount is a configuration, which when used correctly, allows me to fast track and accelerate a student diver’s learning curve. By this I mean I can develop many of their skills much faster and more efficiently, like correct weighting, diver “head to toe” trim control, advanced buoyancy and breathing control skills. Secondly for me it is a configuration that allow me personally so much flexibility and freedom under the water, far more than I could ever get with a back mounted twinset.

What can be improved in sidemount?

Sidemount equipment seems to be getting better and better with many manufacturers now making dedicated equipment, however for me though the diver training is really lacking. The overall equipment setup and dive skills of sidemount divers I see online, and at dive sites around the world, are poor. This is one of the main reasons why I created online training courses at www.sidemounting.com now those divers could either study before an in-water course or even train themselves to sidemount correctly given the comprehensive level we go into with our unique video-based training approach.

Was there an epiphany moment for you with sidemount?

Back in 2008, I was lucky enough to have taken several training courses with Steve Bogaerts and I remember the last day of my back mounted multi-stage DPV cave training. Steve had been diving like me in a twinset with 2 stages, but then on the morning of the last day I asked him if he could show me what he dives in when he goes for his “sidemount exploration dives”, he agreed and then turned up in a basic Razor webbing harness and a six-liter camelbak hydration bladder for his BCD.

I could not believe how low profile and streamlined everything looked and the fact he did not have to walk a twinset to the water was cool. But the really amazing fact was that the DPV’s we were using where speed matched to us both using 4 cylinders each in back mount, but this time during the last dive, Steve kept pulling away from me and he had to tune down his DPV, this could only be due to the more streamlined “sidemount equipment” he was now using. So that was it. About three months after that day I was back in Mexico where I learnt basic and advanced sidemount cave diving from Steve and since then I never looked “back…mount” again.

Can sidemount be taught without too much attention to detail? And why?

I would have to say no to this, I personally conduct a 4-day course “10 hours daily” with someone who wants to learn sidemount, regardless of their diver level to be honest. The Sidemount Essentials course I created focuses on developing what you need to know to use sidemount equipment safely but then the doors get opened up so much that you see so many flaws in a diver’s “essentials” skills like buoyancy, trim, and propulsion techniques that it then needs plenty of time and focus from an instructor, so it takes time and worthwhile to do it correctly with lots of detailing.

Most important element of preparing a personalization of sidemount kit?

Everything you choose, needs to complement every other piece of equipment and work well together. Getting a dedicated sidemount only harness and wing is crucial, then making sure nothing moves around too easily when it is all in place is key. The cylinders should pull into your sides at all times and in all orientations and not just hang at the side of your body, this means loop bungee and correct cylinder setup are key.

The best tool for sidemount?

I would have to say getting my online video-based training www.sidemounting.com as this is very low cost when compared to live training and it covers almost everything better than I can do in person and will save you making poor equipment choices and sets you up for success in the water too.

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