Great to bring you Episode #82 with the support of XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for their support that makes all of this possible.
I am still coming down from my nearly 3 weeks in Mexico last November. I went primarily to train with Patrick Widmann, co-owner of ProTec Dive Centers and the Training Director for KISS Rebreathers along with the many… many other things this amazing guy does.
I went to do the KISS Sidewinder 60m course often called the MOD 2 and also to do the CCR Full Cave Diver course. I had good reasons for wanting to do both courses to continue my own development as a diver. You'll know from the many conversations that I've had on the Sidewinder on Speaking Sidemount that I chose this tool both as my Cave rebreather and also as a rebreather I could use to dive shipwrecks and deeper open water dives. It is in my opinion the best tool for both Cave and wreck penetration diving primarily due to its tight profile and robustness. Open water is a bit of a push but as I dive more from boats, I'm developing my techniques for entries and exits and figuring out how to manage the width of the Sidewinder on boat decks.
I chose Patrick as my instructor for obvious reasons, but I'll share them anyway. I did my Air Diluent Sidewinder course with Edd Sorenson. As you've heard me say, it was absolutely brilliant. I learned so much and Edd is a phenomenal diver, instructor and really good to hang with… his stories are epic, to say the least!!
But I've always wanted to have the broadest possible experience base, including learning from a range of really good instructors. It was a no-brainer in that sense to go to Patrick and see what he had been working on for KISS Training and gain from his experience and skillset… which to be honest, is immense. From being near motionless in 2m of water doing no fins skills to his tight and on-point skill processes for cave drills, to his CCR weighting which makes it way easier to hold shallow stops on a rebreather, to the ratio deco strategies we used to recalculate our deco on the fly… it was all amazing!!
In trying to explain the experience to people I say… it was like taking tennis lessons with Roger Federer!!
Now at Protec, Kim and Patrick have been for many years developing the next generation of world-class instructors. I've had Skanda Coffield on the show twice and in this episode, I am really pleased to introduce to you, Jake Bulman.
Jake has been a Protec for five years and has literally become Patrick's understudy, teaching Cave Diving, KISS Sidewinder courses, Cave CCR and soon the Sidewinder 60m course.
He is renowned as a consummate instructor and an absolute master of no-fins training. Given we met, albeit briefly in November, I took the opportunity to get Jake on the show to talk about his diving, how he teaches and in particular some of the details around my Cave CCR and Sidewinder Mod 2 that was let's say surprising to me and fundamental to the way Protec teaches these courses.
Enjoy, cheers!!
Steve