Precision / XR is not a harder version of recreational diving. It is a different discipline — one that demands repeatable skill, deliberate gas planning, and genuine team awareness before the first technical dive ever happens.
Precision starts with your fundamentals. Not your depth.
Every diver who has ever had a buoyancy problem, a navigation issue, or a moment of task-load overwhelm has experienced the exact skills this pathway addresses. XR Foundations is not about going deeper. It is about making your core diving skills stable, repeatable, and reliable enough to hold up when the environment gets demanding and the task load gets real.
From there, the pathway builds progressively: decompression diving, extended range configurations, overhead environments, and rebreather systems for those who choose to go further. Each step requires demonstrated readiness at the previous level. Readiness is assessed before enrollment begins — not to gatekeep, but because arriving prepared is what makes the training work.
What Readiness Looks Like for Precision / XR
The assessment before XR Foundations is a conversation and an in-water evaluation, not an exam. Tom's instructors are looking for specific things. Divers who arrive with these in place get more from the training. Divers who arrive without them are better served building them first.
The foundation we look for
- Solid buoyancy and trim in recreational diving — not perfect, but stable enough to hold position under light task load
- Reliable gas management habits — you know your SAC rate, you plan your turns, you don't surface on reserve
- Enriched Air Nitrox certification — gas planning is foundational to everything in the XR track
- Diver Stress & Rescue completed — technical diving demands that you are already your buddy's backup plan
- Genuine interest in the discipline, not just curiosity about the gear
If any of these are missing, Tom's instructors will map out the shortest path to get you there. The assessment conversation is the starting point, not a rejection.
XR Foundations
Build the precision your recreational training never demanded. In any configuration.
XR Foundations · Single Backmount
Your everyday setup. Held to a higher standard.
The same equipment you already dive — trained to the precision that technical diving demands. Buoyancy, trim, propulsion, and team habits refined in the configuration you know best.
View course →XR Foundations · Sidemount
Better streamlining. Built-in redundancy. Different habits.
Sidemount changes how you move, how you manage gas, and how you position with a team. XR Foundations in sidemount builds the configuration-specific skills that make it useful rather than just different.
View course →XR Foundations · SCR / CCR
Rebreather precision starts here.
Semi-closed and closed-circuit rebreather systems require configuration-specific foundations before any further training. XR Foundations in CCR or SCR builds the loop management, bailout discipline, and team habits that all rebreather training depends on.
Coming soonExtended Range
Plan the dive. Manage the gas. Run the stops. Bring the team home with margin.
Extended Range
Decompression diving done with discipline, not hope.
Build a complete dive plan, configure staged gear, manage gas for the team, and run decompression stops with the stability and control that makes them safe. The course where time underwater becomes earned, not assumed.
Coming soonTry SCR / SCR Diving
Semi-closed rebreather. Longer dives, lower gas consumption.
SCR systems extend bottom time through gas recycling with a simpler loop than CCR. The right intermediate step for divers interested in rebreather diving before committing to a full closed circuit system.
Coming soonTry CCR / CCR Diving
Closed circuit rebreather. The longest dives at any depth.
CCR eliminates most of the gas consumption that limits open-circuit diving. The loop, the electronics, the bailout planning, and the discipline — built from XR Foundations CCR into real rebreather capability.
Coming soonXR Overhead Environments & Advanced Configurations
New environments. No shortcuts. Prerequisite experience required for each step.
XR Wreck / Technical Wreck
From light-zone exploration to full penetration — earned, not assumed.
Clean buoyancy and propulsion, continuous guideline discipline, tight team procedures, and conservative gas planning for overhead environments. Complexity scaled progressively: simple routes first, range earned from there.
Coming soonXR Overhead Environments
Caves, caverns, and overhead environments beyond the wreck.
The planning, navigation, gas management, and emergency procedures for true overhead environments. Requires demonstrated proficiency in all prerequisite XR skills before enrollment.
Coming soonGas Blender
Understand the gas you dive. Then blend it yourself.
Oxygen-compatible equipment, blend calculation, fill procedures, and cylinder analysis. For technical divers who want full control of their gas supply from planning through filling.
Coming soonTechnical Training Requires a Shop That Takes It Seriously
Most recreational dive shops list technical courses. Fewer have the instructor team, the on-site fill capability, and the culture that makes technical training genuinely effective. At Tom's, XR training is not a sideline — it is part of the same commitment to capability over certification that applies to every course we teach.
On-site nitrox fills to EAN40
We fill nitrox on-site. Technical divers who need blended gas for training or for travel don't have to source fills elsewhere. Nitrox competency is a prerequisite for the XR track — and we teach it and supply it in-house.
All configurations taught
Single backmount, twinset, sidemount, SCR, and CCR. Tom's instructors teach across configurations so you're not limited by what the shop happens to have. Train in the configuration you dive, or explore a new one.
91°F pool for skills work
The XR Foundations skill circuit is pool-based. Thermal comfort is not a distraction from technique development. The pool is on-site, year-round, and warmer than any other training facility in Austin.
Open since 1982
Tom's has been teaching in Austin longer than any other dive shop still in business here. The technical program is part of a shop with 40-plus years of investment in diver development, not a new offering added to a course catalog.
The assessment is a conversation, not a test.
Call or stop by. Tom's instructors will talk through where you are, where you want to go, and what the path looks like from here. If you're ready, we'll tell you. If there's work to do first, we'll map it out.
Call (512) 451-3425 →