How to start Freediving

[jfelkins]

Thanks for all the great info.

Your tables (if I'm reading them right..I'm jst starting out) start at 1:30 breath hold time. What to do if I can't even hold my breath 1:30 yet?

[Akoni]

You can adjust them to your maximum times, take about 50% of your max and use that for the breathhold time in the CO² tables.

[fcallagy]

Hi Jfelkins
Just start where you can and adjust the tables to suit. I couldn,t get past 45 secs at the start nut am up to 3mins45 secs now which is still pretty poor compared to a lot. But you will be amazed at the speed you will progress

[jfelkins]

Ok thanks. I'll try that.

another question I had is; All of the techniques I read about involve "total" relaxation. It seems like a huge shift to be in the water. I know alot of people are into competition diving but I just want to be able to dive deep and stay down longer while i'm out in the ocean. Maybe even hunt some day. The adventure of exploring on a single breath is the draw for me. This article really lights up my imagination.

http://www.deeperblue.net/article.php/419/46

How do these techniques translate to be " out on the water"?

[Morg]

Originally Posted by [LEFT

jfelkins[/left]]Ok thanks. I'll try that.

another question I had is; All of the techniques I read about involve "total" relaxation. It seems like a huge shift to be in the water. I know alot of people are into competition diving but I just want to be able to dive deep and stay down longer while i'm out in the ocean. Maybe even hunt some day. The adventure of exploring on a single breath is the draw for me. This article really lights up my imagination.

http://www.deeperblue.net/article.php/419/46

How do these techniques translate to be " out on the water"?

The CO2 tolerance will help you in both land and dry. I find that relaxation is MUCH easier on land.

Competitive diving isn't necessary but the skills you learn from that will certainly aid you in your exploration. I myself share the same interest of exploring and possibly hunting one day. Think about your C02 tolerance tables. For your and my interest this would allow us to come go down for a few minutes then come back and go down with less time in between. (Normally for safety reasons you should stay 'top side' for double your time you were down... For example if you did a 2:00 dive you should stay top side for 4 minutes before going down again. I believe this would help you if you did c02 tolerance tables because your body would be able to tolerate the c02 better.)

I myself will have to concentrate really hard on relaxation because I have a very active mind when under the water. There are many tips to help relax yourself before you take the final breath. One of them is to take a 3 second deep breath, hold for another 3 seconds and then slowly exhale for 10-12 seconds. This will help slow down your heart rate. (I got this technique from someone on here as well... very sorry I forget who I got it from ).

[lungfish]

From Akoni "@Lungfish:
The nitrogen build-up in beginning freedivers is too little to cause problems.

Purging is not for beginners and in my opinion it's the same as hyperventilating which should be avoided anyways!

Deepwater black-outs are really rare and not stuff for beginners.

The vacuum effect as you call it (never heard of that term) is described in the shallow water black-out section."


FYI, I learned from Martin Stepanek and Performance Freediving. They currently teach the breath-up method including purging and packing. Clearly their opinion on the topic is different than yours. If you are familiar with hypocapnia and understand purging, it isn't dangerous at all. It is an effective way of managing gases, if done after saturating....

Secondly, many of the attendees in our class, myself included did their FIRST freedive below 25meters. Heck, a girl in our class who had never freedived before did 88ft on her first try. So the deepwater blackout isn't necessarily something to be avoided in the blackout discussion....

Finally, the Vacuum Effect is not my term, it is from the PFi manual. Shallow water blackouts happen for a variety of reasons and can be caused by several different types of gas imbalances as well as the Vacuum Effect. There is more than one cause of shallow water black out.

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by lungfish

Finally, the Vacuum Effect is not my term,

I guess it is a lay term for reverse gradient, as there is no vacuum involved.

Lunfish, I think you should treat the education you got in performance freediving according to the name of the clinique - PERFORMANCE. Their objective is to give you quick gain and tools to keep developing by yourself. The fact that beginners attended it successfully does not mean that the instruction level there will work with beginners here. The learning curve without a course is MUCH less steep (and I'm sure you understand that), some of these stuff gained by reading of the net might take years to implement correctly. I think beginners should have a lot more to mess with than starting with performance. 15 year old beginners who probably never dobe below 15m that suffer from packing blackouts are a good example for performance oriented ideals.

[SanderP]

DeepThought, did you acctually know that some countrys may not have any freediving courses at all? Here for example, we have several scuba courses to take (PADI, IANTD ,NAUI etc...), but no freediving that I'm aware of (and there probably ain't any, since this is such a small country).
So what's your suggestion then?

[Akoni]

My suggestion is, if you want to Freedive, reading my post is a good start to learn Freedive theory but taking a course is a must in my opinion. Spend some money on a course in another country if there aren't any in your country, courses can really teach you the theoretical and practical side of Freediving, this post only the theoretical side.

As for purging & packing, this does, again in my opinion, not belong in a beginners forum, PFi might successfully teach the techniques involved in their clinics, but if purging is different from hyperventilating, there is a very thin line between the two and thus should not be explained in this thread. Packing should also not be taught to beginners, packing too much can cause injuries.
This is all my opinion of course.

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by Mr_Miyagi

DeepThought, did you acctually know that some countrys may not have any freediving courses at all?

Yes, I am fully aware of that. It took about me a year to get to do a course (luckily) in my country and about another year to find a dive partner. I know not everyone can take (or will take) a course.
What I was saying is that starting to freedive should be done with the basics, therefore I think some stuff do not belong in the "how to start freediving" thread and in the Beginner freediving forum. What a specific clinique has managed to implement INSIDE a course where it also thought beginners does not necessarily mean it would work over the internet with beginners. From the years I've been reading on this forum (also as a beginner and almost a year before becoming a memeber) those kind of techniques were distractions at best if not a stick in the wheels of progress and even actual danger for some beginners.

[lost]

Hi everybody

Well I'll just jump in and ask for advice.

I'm 32 of age and have been doing breathold as a party trick to always entertain my friends, and they always try and come close to my times but to no avail.
I never knew that this is a sport. My best time is 4min 30 sec.without an headacke , if I realy push it I reach 5min.12sec. but then 2out of 5 time I end up with an head acke.

Now my Q. to you is as follows.

How does one start to do this as a sport and how good are the pro's in this game?

As I consider my self to be an amateur.

[island_sands]

Originally Posted by lost

Hi everybody

Well I'll just jump in and ask for advice.

I'm 32 of age and have been doing breathold as a party trick to always entertain my friends, and they always try and come close to my times but to no avail.

It would be very entertaining if no-one knew what to do if you fainted in the pool! My advice would be not to do statics without someone else who can react accordingly if you black out. There are no tell-tale signs...

Static is no party trick if you drown...

[lost]

Thanx for the reply.
But in this backward country of south africa i dont think there is someone here with the proper knowledge so that is why I turn to you for advice.
I'm a Dive Master in scuba diving and never found any one that likes diving without scuba gear.

So my Q stands: how do I get into this game?

[island_sands]

Originally Posted by lost

Thanx for the reply.
But in this backward country of south africa i dont think there is someone here with the proper knowledge so that is why I turn to you for advice.
I'm a Dive Master in scuba diving and never found any one that likes diving without scuba gear.

So my Q stands: how do I get into this game?

Contact this guy
http://forums.deeperblue.net/members/herman.html
He has a club! Miles may know if it is still running...

http://forums.deeperblue.net/members/bevan-dewar.html
Bevan Dewar is very experienced... check this out
http://www.apneamania.com/code/diver...asp?diverID=46

There are plenty of knowledgeable freedivers in South Africa. BTW the unofficial record for breath holding is over 10minutes

[jfelkins]

Should Freedivers wear ear plugs? What effect do they have on equalizing ear pressure? thanks