E095 Steve Martin and Vas Proud - "Educating Sidemount Part 1"
Speaking Sidemount
Awesome to bring you Episode #95 Steve Martin and Vas Proud - "Educating Sidemount Part 1" with the support of our brilliant sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their ongoing support of this podcast. I've spoken many times on this show about how I got started in sidemount. Steve Bogaerts' Ponderosa skills video was the trigger but quickly after that, I found Steve Martin's website. He was the first to promote the benefits of sidemount diving to a global audience. His content, images and video were incredibly compelling and form the basis of much that...
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E094 Florian Symoens - "Transitioning to a Full Time Instructor"
Speaking Sidemount
Hey, great to bring you Episode 94 Florian Symoens - "Transitioning to a Full Time Instructor" with the support of our show sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support which helps to make this show possible. Well, there must be something in the water in Belgium. For such a small country, located in northern Europe… there seem to be so many divers from there doing great things. To date I've interviewed David DeBruyne 48, Laurent Miroult 63, Sanne Volja 74, and Ellen Cuylaerts 91… and for some time now I've been following the exploits of Florian...
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E093 Tamara Adame - "The Path to Cave Instructor"
Speaking Sidemount
Hey, I hope you are having a great start to the year :)!! It's great to bring you Episode #93 Tamara Adame - "The Path to Cave Instructor". Thanks again for your support. Huge thanks also to XDEEP for sponsoring the show. Their support has been instrumental in the success of this podcast and it is sincerely appreciated. One of the pinnacles in the application of sidemount diving is of course cave diving and cave exploration. It's an addictive pastime to research and then ultimately physically search for and then investigate flooded holes in the ground in an attempt to find that euphoric "never...
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E092 Pepe Tiburon: "Tren Maya - A Disaster in the Making"
Speaking Sidemount
Great to bring you Episode #92 Pepe Tiburon: "Tren Maya - A Disaster in the Making". Big thanks to all of you and also to our brilliant sponsor XDEEP. Your support makes this podcast possible. Many of you will be aware of the environmental issues and development pressures experienced on the Yucatan peninsula in the area spanning from Cancun to Tulum. This area encompasses the largest cave systems in the world, many of which are also of huge archaeological and environmental significance, playing home to rare species of flora and fauna, Mayan artefacts, and geological features dating back...
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E091 Ellen Cuylaerts - "The Power of Positive"
Speaking Sidemount
Hey, great to bring you Episode 91 Ellen Cuylaerts - "The Power of Positive" with the support of our sponsor XDEEP, and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for their support :)! Of all the disciplines associated with diving, photography and videography have always been special to me. The ability to capture that perfect moment, underwater, in often challenging conditions, dealing with lighting and composition along with the technical requirements related to the camera in an underwater environment. Add to that the dive skills to be stable in the water while seeking "the...
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E090 Thorsten Waelde - "Exploring the Bel Torrente Cave"
Speaking Sidemount
This episode is brought to you by our brilliant sponsor, XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support that makes this podcast possible. In this episode, I catch up for the third time with Thorsten Waelde or Toddy as he is known. I first met Toddy in Episode 24 when we did a deep dive into Toddy Style Sidemount. We caught up again in episode 44 to talk about his Utopia Exploration project in Sardinia only a few months after I had returned from my trip there. I've since been following Toddy's exploits with interest and when I saw the stunning work he...
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E089 Turk Vangel - "Sidemount Fundamentals"
Speaking Sidemount
Here's Episode 89 brought to you by our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Thanks so much for your support. Over the past 88 episodes, cave diving has featured heavily and that's no accident. As you'll be aware, sidemount diving grew from the requirements of early flooded cave explorers, firstly the CDG in the UK, with others around the world following and eventually building on sidemount diving, equipment, and techniques to give us what we have today. In many ways, sidemount diving has evolved to the requirements of cave divers however sidemount diving today is enjoyed...
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E088 Scott RG - "The Mines of Scotland"
Speaking Sidemount
This episode is brought to you by XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support, that makes all of this possible. It's my great pleasure today to bring you episode #88 on the fifth anniversary of the founding of this podcast. If you told me on those nervous days starting on this venture that we'd still be pumping out episodes five years later and that I would have produced this many episodes, talked sidemount with so many great divers, and then have the good fortune to meet and dive with some of them in person, we'll to be honest… I probably hoped for...
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E087 Arielle Ginsberg - "Belize Cave Exploration"
Speaking Sidemount
Great to share Episode #87 Arielle Ginsberg - Belize Cave Exploration, brought to you by our sponsor XDEEP and the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Huge thanks to both for their support. I recently picked up a Facebook post by XDEEP describing the exploits of Arielle Ginsberg. Arielle is a founding member of the Belize Cave Diving Society and is its first female member. The project sounded amazing but a shared post by Arielle's exploration partner Ben Popik really got my attention… This is my badass cave diving partner and bestie Arielle getting the attention and praise she deserves! In the...
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E086 Michael Menduno - InDepth on Sidemount
Speaking Sidemount
Awesome to bring you this episode sponsored by XDEEP and with the support of the patrons of Speaking Sidemount. Massive thanks to both for making this podcast possible. A couple of episodes back, I let you all know that I was working as guest editor along with Stratis Kas, with none other than Michael Menduno to assist in producing what I think is going to be a groundbreaking issue of InDepth Magazine entirely devoted to Sidemount diving. To say this is a coup for the sidemount diving community is a massive understatement and I think it's a real coming of age for sidemount in general. The...
info_outlineHey, I hope you are having a great start to the year :)!! It's great to bring you Episode #93 Tamara Adame - "The Path to Cave Instructor". Thanks again for your support.
Huge thanks also to XDEEP for sponsoring the show. Their support has been instrumental in the success of this podcast and it is sincerely appreciated.
One of the pinnacles in the application of sidemount diving is of course cave diving and cave exploration. It's an addictive pastime to research and then ultimately physically search for and then investigate flooded holes in the ground in an attempt to find that euphoric "never seen before… virgin cave passage.
Many cave explorers either started their journeys as sidemount and cave instructors or found their way to this profession as a way to pay for their passion. For the vast majority, it's a match made in heaven where they get to earn a living sharing and teaching about how to dive caves and then applying their skills to their exploration. Teaching is also the perfect way to keep their cave diving skills current and built into muscle memory.
The path to becoming a cave instructor is long. There's joining courses with other instructors, observing their teaching styles and content, having your skills reviewed and critiqued, then when you are ready… assisting on courses, being evaluated and then eventually qualifying as a Cavern instructor, teaching, building experience and then repeating this process twice more to reach the coveted level of Full Cave instructor. I'm using the TDI agency levels here but they map easily to the levels of other agencies… long story short… it's a journey full of pressure, failures, learning, and ultimately I am sure one of satisfaction when achieving a pinnacle level in the dive profession.
In this episode, Tamara Adame joins me to share her journey along this path to cave instructor under the mentorship of Patrick Widmann of ProTec Playa. I had the good fortune to meet and hang with Tamara a bit while I was at ProTec training with Patrick. She's an amazing person, a great diver, and has a real passion for caves and diving.
Tamara talks about growing up around the ocean in Mexico and how this shaped her love of everything aquatic. She shares on her time in Belgium building her career before she found herself back in Mexico and ultimately falling in love with caves and cave diving. She shares on how she met Patrick and how he guided her on her path to becoming a cave instructor. Tamara goes into how she came to work at Protec and the standards-driven focus of the team there.
We discuss the challenges, failures and ultimately achieving the standards required in cave instructor training and where Tamara is taking her diving including her scientific diving work and the search for "Tamara's Cave".
Enjoy :)!!
Steve