Why i love free-diving

[Dark&Cold.Diver]

People in my surroundings often wonder why i love freediving, and asking questions like :
-Why do you practise free-diving when it is so extreme and dangerous?
I have never given them my real cause, because they often dont have the time or will to understand. So i often give them answers like:
-Free-diving isnt more dangerous or extreme than anything else.
It can be dangerous if you push your limits under uncontrolled forms, but the same goes if you drives a car like a madman, it depends of how you behave.
But that isnt an answer of why my passion for free-diving is so strong, and i dont intend to share it with people who doesnt understand anyway, but i will share it with you.
I have been at the ocean since i was a little kid, my parents had some boats when i grew up. so i was spending my summer time at the ocean during my childhood.
As i grow older i often went to the ocean by myself just sitting on cliff to clear my thoughts, it made listen to my hearts inner voice.
It felt good to leave all wordly-thoughts and to think about what it is that is really important in my life?
Life is to short to be thrown away at alot of unsgnificant things,
we are all wasting alot of our precious time that we have on this planet.
we are often forgetting all the wonderful and beutiful things that we have at an advantage to a soceity-norm that often makes us more harm than good.
Im no better than anyone else im contrubuting to the life-style that makes us forgetting about our true seleves.
But my times in /at the ocean makes me to remember, it my "alarm-clock".
Its the same of "alarm-clock" that rings when you or someone of your nearest or dearest is experiencing something really tragic.
Then we usually think of whats really important and we reevalutes our thoughts.

ex:-Maybe i should be pefectly happy as long as my nearest and dearest are healthy and happy instead of moaning about that old shitty car that stands in my garage.

When i write something like this it seems so obvious, but we´re all forgetting at time to time.
Thats when we are all need to stop for a minute and listen to our hearts inner voice....i found mine at/in the ocean...some finds it some religion...some find it in something else....and some (God have mercy on them) never finding it.
So when people in my surrounding asks me why i love free-diving, i should answer them:

-The ocean is my god.
-The ocean has opend my eyes and made my mind clear
-The ocean makes me a better person and has made me to whom i am today.

Then its obvious why i free-dives!
To become apart of something that always has and always will be a part of me, and to practise something that opens up my heart and and gives me the inner strength that i need to not forget the true values in my life.


Thats why i love free-diving.


Jeppe.

[Cliff Etzel]

I fell in love with the ocean back in 1987. I learned to scuba dive as a way to overcome my fear of almost drowning as a child. Anxiety was my first feeling felt - and then I began to see the wonders of the sea - the fluidity - the immensity and the diversity.

I learned to freedive to try and escape the overwhelming technology that permeates the scuba side and found that freediving made me focus on internalizing my thoughts - it gave me a glimpse of something that was basic - simple, yet very appealing.

Now that I have experienced both sides, I now enjoy them both - maybe not equally, but I have found balance. Freediving has made me a better scuba diver, and as such, I now enjoy either activity because I choose to live in the moment of the experience.

No matter what - The ocean is humbling - and find that being land locked for months on end, I develop the feeling of loss when I am not immersed in the deep blue with only the air in my lungs to sustain me for a short period of time underwater.

[neshamah]

Relating this to freediving,one night praying to God I asked myself,what do I do with this freediving? because is what I always done and like one who gets inwpired-this poem came out:

I grew up near the Caribbean Ocean, a couple of blocks away from the coast I would spend hours and hours in the ocean venturing and enjoying its beauty .
but still I felt an emptiness inside of me. I was so close to the creation reality but didn't know my creator. In 1990 I came to USA leaving behind memories . I was away from the ocean about 10 years. I felt like a bird when is imprisioned in a cage,. When i came to this country my aunt talked me about the faith that three years after I got to know... Now when I sumerged I now that He is inside of me , I know He teaches me and guide me . I could see reality come to pass and I know that I submerge with the One that for many years I didn't know "My Creator." Each moment now feels so excellent and divine, and He himself with His peace invite me to continue.

In reality there is not a difference for me between freediving and having God when you are sure of who you have believed and for the signs that He has produced in your life like the interior peace and the hope of eternal life. How much more I can understand and enjoy more what I do in my case my Freediving hobby and the passion for the Sea.

Y saber que me sumerjo con aquel que no conoci" My Creador " cada momento ahora se me hace exelente -se me hace divino y el mismo Dios con su paz me invita a seguir.
<>(

Daniel.

[Tommy Engfors]

Hey,

This is a good thread that died too soon. There have been 130 views on it, but only two replies so far. Come on people. I for one would love to hear what made the rest of you fall for this sport. Freedivers are not plenty compared to other sports.

I myself discovered the fun with this as I was swimming in a nearby lake last summer 2002, at the age of 27. Enjoying swimming I had always felt a bit of fear for getting my head below the surface. Understanding that dipping my head for a few secs wouldn't kill me I started to do just that a couple of times. The sensations were scary at first, but that soon passed. A boat also passed, nearby, and I realized I could hear the propeller! Wow. Next day I went to a sporting goods store and bought a mask. The rest is history. Still a beginner of course, but learning at a geometric rate I hope to become self aware at 2:14 pm.

Now I want to see some replies about why you guys love freediving. Come on... you have been targeted...

[stevevidar]

Well said Jeppe.

[edgrappler]

I share my view with neshamah. The real meaning of freediving for me comes from what the ocean teaches me and make me discover who I am when I invite GOD to be part of it. Freediving invites me to look into myself as a human being, and makes me realize how perfect GOD created us, regardless of our limitations. It's not only our body that emerges from the depths gasping for air everytime we freedive there is also a soul emerging from deep in our hearts calling out to GOD every moment of our life. Freediving brings me that peace and silence, at least for a short period of time. One day we will make our final one-way freedive to be reunited with GOD and only then we will enjoy all the beauty and happiness there is not only for a couple of minutes but for eternity. JESUS bless all freedivers, and let them freedive to you!!!

[neshamah]

Wow
(regardless of our limitations. It's not only our body that emerges from the depths gasping for air everytime we freedive there is also a soul emerging from deep in our hearts calling out to GOD )

eso esta lindo edgrappler


saludos

Daniel....
_________________________________________---

" The air is the vitamin of the soul"

[Paul Kotik]

Freediving is one of the few things in this world that can ( most of the time !) recall my mind and attention from the distant, abstract worlds it normally wanders through and anchor it in the Here and Now.

Odd, isn't it ? The adrenalin-rush activities are much less compelling in this regard. I'm perfectly capable of daydreaming about my high school girlfriend's knickers while windsurfing mast-high waves in 30-knot gusts, or recalling an Elmer Fudd cartoon while mortar rounds are landing a few meters away, but somehow freediving sucks me schloooooooooook right back into my body in the present.

It is a portal to reality. It is real life.


Paul

[Alun]

some reasons why i like freediving - quickly - off the top of my head....

- the sensation of being alone, really alone
- being in the total darkness (when going deep)*
- having to trusting myself, my judgement and my abilities
- the feeling of sinking, especially head first with arms by my side**
- the feeling of pressure
- being able to completely forget about the world and life on land
- surfacing after a deep dive and wondering how the hell i did it
- the feeling of being immersed... just being in water

*night freediving is on my long list of 'freediving-things-to-do'
**...can't quite explain why. those who dive this way may understand.

for balance....things i don't like about freediving.

- having to clean my manky wetsuits every weekend

[Kars]

Why do I like freediving so much?

Enjoying the silence, flying, hovering and sinking.
Being completely focussed, being deep down there daydreaming, talking to the fishes. Feeling my body. Moving in three dimensions with no boundries, doing as you please.
Leaving earthly thing on land when I enter the water.
All these open minded, peacefull, happy people I meet, the warmth I recieve of them.

Freediving opened the emotional part in me, and nowadays I listening to that instead of what the enviroment wants you to do.

I'm very greatfull That I've discovered freediving.

Kars.

www.freeapnea.nl

[Alison]

Originally posted by Alun

- having to clean my manky wetsuits every weekend

Peidiwch ac yfed gormod cin mynd i'r dwr

[Alun]

[BlueIcarus]

My first experience.. I mean REAL experience was last year, in Santorini, Greece. Haven't dived with long fins, just snorkeled ... I arrived that same day to the Island with my new equipment (lots of laughs with the belt weigths I carried on a hand bag at the airport ), hiked (down ) to the island 'Armeni' (port) with my girlfried, and as she lied down and enjoyed a beer in a beautiful 'taberna', I put my fins, my mask and jumped in the blue as the sun was setting. I kicked two times and I was already at the bottom!!
(around 8 meters). As I saw the red sun light filtering through the water as it is seen on photographs, I sat at the rocky bottom, just ecstatic about the scenery.. realising not few things:

- I was at peace with myself and the world.
Everything was fine as it was. No need to fight, just enjoy the flow of things and its beauty
- We came out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust (as Adrian says in his signature ). I mean... the Ocean is laaarge, and we think our cities is all that we have here, with its ego-driven (and amazingly ridiculous as you are in the water) rules
- I didn't really loved my girlfriend, so I had to break up with her. No pain here. Maybe lots of sadness about her, but that was the true, which always heal in the end

I don't know any other place/substance/experience that gives me such profound insigths. Near freediving in my 'spiritual' pole-position there were psilocibine mushrooms. They gave me lots of ways to reach my deep inner self, but nothing comparable with freediving, mushrooms just helped me cross the river... and when you are on the other shore.. just don't need the bridge, right? (I think this is from Allan Watts)

I can't wait to my first dive this year. Maybe in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I will fall in love with the Blue again and that my personal inner noise will disappear as I dive into it. I need her to wash away my wastes and peel me like an onion, letting my fresher inner layer shine again


Love and Happiness!

Oscar

[portinfer]

I'm a beginner but have had a good freediving week last week. I went in every day except Monday and each day was different and had moments of beauty.

I was out spearfishing and dove down for an aspetto, looked up and was surrounded by about 30 or 40 bass. They weren't there when I went down but as soon as I looked up I saw this wall of fish circling me. Amazing sight.

Other days I watched spider crabs running along the bottom. Watched pollack watching me and the light bouncing off sandeel shoals.

Out on Sunday with my cousin I found an area of kelp with wrasse and the occasional large bass. Just diving down and holding onto the kelp, watching the light come down and the colours on the kelp, and then large ballan wrasse coming to check me out and seeing all their colours and patterns...

Spending time in the water whether it's freediving or snorkelling or scuba is very very peaceful. Kind of centres you. That's why I like it, you forget the stress of life, you can move around in 3D and it is really simple, just you and the sea (and a buddy spotting you!).

[misterlizard]

Just the most peaceful thing you can do. No matter how difficult life may be at the time, once you are underwater everything is good.
It's one way to feel like you are flying like a bird. I've done a lot of skydiving (well, a couple of hundred jumps anyway) and have loved it, but there is something spiritually deeply peaceful about floating around 10m down without even needing to breath.
Plus it makes me feel closer to God than anything else.
Hey, Portinfer, good to hear from a Guernsey freediver. I used to go to Guernsey pretty often, as my father grew up there. He and I used to do a lot of diving around Castle Rock, Perelle, and Cobo, oh yes, and Grande Roque too. An amazing place to dive, I really miss it. Maybe next time I'm in Guernsey I could give you a shout and go for a dive?
Tom.