UTD Essentials of Tech: What It Is, What It Isn't, and Who It's For

You've done a hundred dives. Maybe more. You're comfortable. Your buddies say you're a good diver.

Then someone films you hovering for sixty seconds.

Your feet sink. Your hands scull. You drift up two feet, then down three. You take the regulator out to donate gas and your trim falls apart.

That isn't a you problem. It's a training problem. And it's exactly where Essentials of Tech starts.

What is Essentials of Tech?

UTD calls it the first step from recreational diver to technical diver. It's a personal skills course. You stay shallow, between 20 and 30 feet, so all your attention goes to how you dive, not where.

Over the course, you work on:

• Buoyancy, trim and propulsion. Hovering without your hands, holding position while you work, and kicks that don't stir the bottom: frog kick, back kick and helicopter turn.
• Gas sharing and valve drills. The long-hose out-of-air drill and the valve drill, until they're calm and automatic.
• Deco bottle handling. Deploying and stowing a deco or stage regulator, your first step toward carrying more than one gas.
• SMB deployment. Sending up a lift bag or surface marker from depth. See How to Deploy an SMB.
• Gas planning and ascents. More advanced gas management and more complex ascent strategies.
• Rescue. Recovering a diver who is having an oxygen toxicity seizure, which UTD calls a toxing diver.
• Situational awareness and team protocols. Diving as a team, not as three people in the same water.

UTD's standard is at least 24 hours of instruction, normally over about three days, with eight hours of academics and four in-water sessions. I run it over four days, with video debriefs after the dives.

What Essentials of Tech isn't

Let's clear up the misconceptions. They keep good divers away from the most useful course they could take.

"It's a tech certification." It isn't. The course limits are 60 feet, air or nitrox 32 and no decompression. It's the bridge to technical training, not technical training itself.

"It's only for people going tech." UTD says the opposite. The course is for divers heading into technical training and for divers who simply want to be highly skilled recreational divers. The skills don't care what your next dive is.

"It's just drills in shallow water." The water is shallow so the work can be deep. Holding a stop with a bottle on your side, or donating gas without losing trim, is hard at 20 feet. It doesn't get easier at 150.

"I'm already good. I'll breeze through." Maybe. But the video debrief is honest in a way your buddies aren't. Most experienced divers find two or three habits they didn't know they had.

"If I pay for it, I pass." No. You pay for the training. You earn the card. UTD scores every section of the final evaluation from 1 to 5, and you need at least a 3 on every one. If you're not there yet, you get a path to completion, not a card. See Personal Skills, Critical Skills and Experience Dives.

Who is Essentials of Tech for?

UTD's prerequisites set the floor:

• Age 18 or older.
• UTD Rec 2 (Advanced Diver) or equivalent.
• At least 50 dives beyond open water, 25 of them non-training dives.
• Swim tests: 300 yards in 14 minutes, or 600 yards in 18 minutes with mask and fins.
• A 50-foot breath-hold swim, or an air-share swim where the out-of-air diver swims 50 feet to the donor.
• A 10-minute tow of a diver in full equipment.
• A rescue of a diver simulating oxygen toxicity.

You can take it in backmount or sidemount. If you're not sure your gear is ready, read DIR Gear Configuration first, and ask me before you buy anything.

What comes after Essentials of Tech?

For most divers, the next steps are Techreational and Tech 1, where decompression diving begins. Some add Doubles or the Stage and/or Deco Bottle Extension along the way. Others go back to recreational diving with skills they'll use on every dive for the rest of their lives.

Both are good outcomes. The full map is in How to Become a Technical Diver.

What would your sixty-second hover look like?

So, if someone filmed you right now, hovering with a bottle on your side and your regulator in your teammate's mouth, what would the video show?

If you'd rather not find out the hard way, find out on purpose. That's what Essentials of Tech is for.