Success: Sidemount- Principles For

As you breathe down your gas, your cylinders become lighter and more buoyant. Steel tanks become less negative, while aluminum tanks can become positively buoyant, causing the bottoms to float upward. You must understand how to compensate for this shift using your buoyancy compensator device (BCD) and proper clip positioning. 2. Cylinder Rigging and Alignment

"Alternating regulators at structured intervals prevents uneven buoyancy shifts and maintains trim integrity. This is not optional discipline – it is core procedure." Sidemount- Principles For Success

Learn to manage aluminum tank buoyancy by moving them forward on your harness as they empty. As you breathe down your gas, your cylinders

Tuck your elbow against your hip to lock the tank in place. Now rotate the valve. If your elbow is floating free, the tank will spin and you will fail. Tuck your elbow against your hip to lock the tank in place

When you breathe your left tank down to 500 psi (empty), and your right tank is still full (3,000 psi), you have a massive buoyancy imbalance. The empty tank (positive) wants to float up. The full tank (negative) wants to sink. If you do nothing, you will roll violently onto your side.

Sidemount diving, once a niche configuration used by elite cave explorers in the 1960s and 70s to traverse tight, narrow passages, has transformed into a mainstream diving methodology. By moving cylinders from the back to the sides—under the shoulders and along the hips—divers gain improved streamlining, mobility, and redundancy.

Sidemount was born in caves, but the principle applies to any overhead environment (wrecks, ice, or even just a low swim-through).