The
Essentials of Recreational Diving course is designed to improve recreational divers' comfort, skills, safety and confidence, irrespective of skill or experience level, in a safe and fun learning environment.
It's a non-evaluation class, allowing the student to learn new knowledge and skills without the pressure of passing or failing. Additionally, equipment requirements are minimal, to prevent a large upfront cost of gear purchases for the student.
Essentials is a common entry point for certified divers from conventional training into UTD’s more demanding curriculum as it provides the diver with the skills and understanding required for more advanced UTD courses, focusing on precise buoyancy control, dive planning, propulsion techniques, ascent procedures, safety and environmental awareness.
Essentials is a personal skills class. All skills being performed will be discussed and practiced on land before entering the water. All dives will be briefed prior to entering the water and all skills will be rehearsed.
This
is not a critical skills class. No
failures will be introduced by the instructor in this class.
Misconceptions of Essentials and Intro to Tech
To clear up some common confusion and misconceptions that exists regarding the Essentials class, here's a bit of insight regarding Essentials, Intro to Tech, Rec 2, Tech 1 and the general UTD teaching philosophy overall.
While the “T” in UTD does stand for
“Team”, it’s important to remember that we believe a diver must have solid
foundational and personal skills before moving on to team skills. In
other words, if a student can’t perform a modified s-drill (personal skill)
without losing their trim or buoyancy (foundational skills), how will they be
able to perform a full s-drill with a teammate? While the “team” aspect
is a critical aspect to the UTD approach, that is just one block in the overall
structure, and the top block is only as solid as the blocks below supporting
it.
This is where some misinformation
and inaccurate comparisons exist with the Essentials class. Essentials is
exactly as its name implies. It teaches the essential skills of safe
diving. It is, by design, a personal skills class, not a team skills
class. We focus on the foundational skills of buoyancy, trim, kicks and
balance. We then move to the personal skills of the Basic 6, smb deployment
and eventually S-drills. Team skills are introduced and performed, but
again, the focus of this class is to develop the skills needed to become a
safer diver and, in turn, a better teammate.
For the reasons stated above,
Essentials is a very common entry point into the UTD curriculum. While
divers at any level, including instructors, photographers and experienced
divers will benefit from the class, it’s designed to provide a diver who has
taken their open water class from outside the UTD curriculum a means of learning
the skills required for future UTD classes.
In other words, most open water
students wanting to take Rec 2, which is the “equivalent” of Advanced and
Nitrox combined, and also where team skills and light critical skills
(failures) are introduced would very quickly be overwhelmed, simply because
they haven’t built the foundation needed for that class. They wouldn’t
learn anything from the class because they’d be in over their head from the
very beginning.
This isn’t to say that every diver
wanting to enter the UTD Recreational curriculum must first take Essentials, as
we do accept equivalents. However, Essentials was designed to teach the
foundational and personal skills, and introduce team skills, in a
non-evaluation environment where the student can focus simply on learning, and
not the pressure of passing or failing.
Additionally, there are also only 2
gear requirements for the Essentials class…a 7' long hose and blade style,
non-split fins. It was important to us to make this class accessible to
anyone wanting to take it, without a large investment in gear and equipment.
The UTD Intro to Tech class, while
similar to the Essentials class in several ways, does differ in that it is an
evaluation class. Intro to Tech is a more robust course, where the student is
learning the skills needed to enter the UTD Technical Diving curriculum, in a
non-critical skills (failure) environment. To enter the Tech 1 class,
where the student will be entering mandatory decompression obligations, the
student must first meet the standards of the Intro to Tech class. To that
end, the Intro to Tech class is an evaluation class, but the student is still
learning the required foundational, personal and team skills required to build
that foundation needed for more advanced technical diving.
The Intro to Tech class is taken in
double cylinders and a decompression bottle. We feel that teaching the
mechanics of gas switches, stowing and bottle passing in a non-critical skills
environment allows the student to learn properly the first time and also allows
them time to go practice their new skills before entering the Tech 1
curriculum, where failures are introduced.
Upon entering the Rec 2 (after
Essentials) or Tech 1 (after Intro to Tech), the focus shifts to team,
awareness, problem solving and thinking. This is because they now have
the foundation built, and they can refocus their new extra bandwidth towards
those areas, as it is no longer needed for their own skills.
It should be noted that this method
is not the only dive instruction philosophy. It’s simply UTD’s training
approach.
The Essentials of Recreational Diving is where students receive the foundation of the UTD philosophy, gear configuration and in-water skills. The class is designed for any diver that wants to learn about the benefits of UTD and apply it to their diving. The class is geared toward the newly certified open water diver, but even seasoned veteran divers have found that by incorporation UTD principles into their diving practices, they increase both safety and fun. Photographers and videographers will especially appreciate the detailed training in propulsion and precision buoyancy control that assists you in getting that perfect shot. Instructors will appreciate the "fresh look" at diver training and skill development. This is a great step towards learning and understanding the Unified Team Diving approach.
Regardless of your experience level, the UTD philosophy allows you to grow as a diver. Some divers are eager to begin incorporating the increased skill and academic demands of UTD, but do not have the desire to become technical or overhead (wreck or cave) divers. This class is tailor made for a new open water diver who wants to know what skills they need to work on, or for the diver new to UTD who wants to learn more without the burden of passing a class. This class serves as an excellent introduction to UTD, and is perfect for someone who wants to start recreational training in more advanced UTD classes.
The Essentials of Recreational Diving class is taught over
two evenings and two full days with 4 dives.
Evening 1 - Typically the class begins with a 3 - 4 hour initial
session consisting of introductions and a power point presentation including
video tape of the skills to be introduced in the class along with a discussion
of the mechanics behind balance, buoyancy, trim and kicks.
Evening 2 – The second evening is spent discussing basic
decompression, gas planning and management and communication
Day 1 - Begins with hands-on equipment fitting, review of gear
configuration and a discussion of the pros and cons of various equipment
choices. Once the gear is properly fitted and configured the class then focuses
on the “dry runs” of the skills and some practice before entering the water.
Dry runs allow the student to practice the skills on land under the watchful
eye of the instructor(s). Skills include improving diver trim, proficiency in
precision buoyancy control, perfecting propulsion techniques (including
learning how to kick backwards), fine-tuning equipment configurations, refining
underwater communication, utilizing a team diving approach, and effective dive
planning. Students will then conduct two (2) dives putting the skills and
concepts learned in the morning session into actual practice while the videographer
captures the in-water session for review after lunch. We conclude the day with
a 1-2 hour video review.
Day 2 - The third day will commence with practicing additional skills
and improving on the prior day's performance, during two (2) more dives which
will again be video'd for subsequent review. After lunch the class will
conclude with the video review, final lecture session and student performance
review.
All UTD classes are video'd for educational and
review purposes only. We believe it is invaluable for students to
visually focus on their individual in-water skills, situational awareness,
communication and team diving. Learning to self evaluate is an important
aspect of the class. You will be evaluated during the class to obtain the
UTD "Essentials of Recreational Diving" certification. This
certification will allow you to continue within the UTD Recreational Training
curriculum. Our focus is the complete dedication to your diving skills,
knowledge & in water practice.
- Minimum 16 years of age
- Must be a certified open water diver from a recognized training agency
- Maximum depth is 60’/18m
- All dives are to maintain a working PO2 of no greater than 1.4
- Standard gas is air or 32%
- No stage decompression
- No overhead environments
- Complete the Essentials Online Knowledge Base Class
- All UTD classes are non-smoking
- The use of prescription drugs must be authorized prior to the onset of diver training by a physician
- Must be able to swim a distance of at least 50 feet/15 meters on a breath hold
- Must be able to swim at least 300 yards/275 meters in less than 14 minutes without stopping
- Average depth during class of 20ft (6m) - 30ft (9m).
- Maximum depth is 60'/18m
- Standard gases are Air or Nitrox
- Single tank configuration (doubles optional)
- No overhead environments
- No stage decompression
- Long hose primary, and necklace style backup regulator hose configuration
- Instructor to student ratio maximum 6:1 in open water, adjusting downward for environmental conditions.
Equipment Specifications
Equipment rentals are available for this course. If you have any questions on equipment requirements or rentals, please contact us
Required Equipment:
- 5 or 7 ft primary regulator hose. Without this you will not be able to learn and conduct air sharing correctly
- Fins: non-split variety. Without these you will be unable to learn proficient fin kick.
- Exposure suit appropriate for the environment - Drysuit is strongly recommended as class dives are typically 1 hour in duration.
- Backplate BC System, SS or aluminum backplate w/ web harness and hardware
- Back inflate style wing
- At least one depth-measuring device
- At least one time-keeping device
- At least one cutting device
- X-notes or Wetnotes
- One spool with 100 feet of line
- One surface marker or lift bag
- BC mounted canister dive light w/ Goodman handle or long hose catch such as a knife pouch.
Cylinders:
- Single tank configuration with K, H, or Y valve (need 2 per day of diving)
- Double tank configuration (1 per day of diving)
To register for this class, visit our Registration Page
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