Free Diving and Martial Arts

[Walrus]

Internal arts also involve following the strict Taoist lifestyle (Qigong-Chi Gung, diet and regulated sex).

Gee that doesn't sound like much fun


If you are including "IMA" then someone has left out the most important one for freediving. Although not really a martial art - Yoga has had more influence on freediving then anything that has been listed. Go to a competition and you will see almost everybody doing stretches and breathing exercises which have all come from Yoga, although some have now been modified. Talk to Martin or Herbert, they would not be diving a 100m+ without some of the Yoga excercises they do. Most freedivers have passed these things on so not everyone realises it actually comes from Yoga.





Cheers,
Wal

[neshamah]

That black and white gives it the final touch !

thank you - that is what we have by that time -black and white pictures- long a long a go-

bruce lee? jajaj No tanto

well although I was -Cinta blanca- I knew much of the black cinta kata- My father was black cinta in judo too -

_________

[shaneshac]

HOw long ago was this Daniel?

What martial art was that?

[neshamah]

1978 or 1979

I had like 10 or 12 years old not remember!

[gerard]

Originally posted by Walrus
Gee that doesn't sound like much fun


If you are including "IMA" then someone has left out the most important one for freediving. Although not really a martial art - Yoga has had more influence on freediving then anything that has been listed. Go to a competition and you will see almost everybody doing stretches and breathing exercises which have all come from Yoga, although some have now been modified. Talk to Martin or Herbert, they would not be diving a 100m+ without some of the Yoga excercises they do. Most freedivers have passed these things on so not everyone realises it actually comes from Yoga.





Cheers,
Wal

No, it's not fun. I guess you live like a monk. Freedivers are monks of the ocean anyway, aren't they



Walrus, I guess you're referring to Pranayama. Qigong and Pranayama Yoga is in essence the same stuff. It's a blend of meditation and breathing techniques while sitting (Yoga) and standing (Qigong).

IMA (especially Tai Chi) were considered by Taoists as moving meditation which I recommend to freedivers because of the reasons I already explained. I summarise them here again:

When you practise Taichi you will:

1. Increase your longevity

2. Develop internal energy (chi)

2. Increase immunity to disease

3. Increase flexibility and suppleness

4. Improve your breathing capacity(same as Pranayama)

4. Help you to develop spiritual awareness with the Ultimate Supreme (Tao/God in Christian religion, etc.)

Qigong will give you the same benefits but no fighting skill.

However, you can choose either of them and you'll end up in Rome as well.


Sorry for all this rambling.

[Walrus]

Actually I was referring to the stretches more then the breathing. The Pranayama is just the breathing right ?
There are various stretches for ribcage, shoulder, spine and even for the lung diaphragm that freedivers are using. The lung stretches are one of the more important ones to reduce your Residual volume allowing for equalizing at greater depth.

I don't know anything about Qigong but I don't think that Tai-chi has those sort of stretches.


Cheers,
Wal

[roy_nexus_6]

Neshamah,
awesome pictures, looks like great memories too.

Gerard,
"Internal" Martial arts are amazing.
I only wish I started with Tai-Chi (Chien Style) first, instead of a hard "full contact" style I have practiced most of my life. Good thing it is never to late to learn something new.

Tai-Chi to a "hard" martial art style, is almost like, freediving to scuba diving.... LOL (I knew I can relate this whole thing back to freediving somehow).

[gerard]

Originally posted by Walrus
Actually I was referring to the stretches more then the breathing. The Pranayama is just the breathing right ?
There are various stretches for ribcage, shoulder, spine and even for the lung diaphragm that freedivers are using. The lung stretches are one of the more important ones to reduce your Residual volume allowing for equalizing at greater depth.

I don't know anything about Qigong but I don't think that Tai-chi has those sort of stretches.


Cheers,
Wal

Walrus,


Stretches in Taoist Chi Gung are part of the warm up and are kind of similar to Hatha Yoga stretches.

Chi Gung also stretches your spirit to the infinite (like Yoga)


Our replicant friend, Nexus didn't know that physical life is something we shouldn't really worry about.

[sublimished]

Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu
Submission Wrestling
Grappling

I can't vote

[roy_nexus_6]

Originally posted by gerard
Walrus,


Stretches in Taoist Chi Gung are part of the warm up and are kind of similar to Hatha Yoga stretches.

Chi Gung also stretches your spirit to the infinite (like Yoga)


Our replicant friend, Nexus didn't know that physical life is something we shouldn't really worry about.

In general one gets out of life what one REALLY asks for.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to postulate, that the one gets out of after-life what one REALLY asks for. (hope this makes sense)

[groats]

>I did capoeira with freediving for a while and it felt good... A well trained body can't hurt when freediving i guess.

Anybody into martian arts then?

J

[Fondueset]

taijiquan here - 'old yang style'. Also about 30 years of hatha Yoga - mostly emphasizing Taiji lately however. I would say asana work in yoga is more comparable to 'external' styles of martial art in that it works from the outside in. (of course there are different approaches - but in general) While pranayam and taijiquan work from the inside out. Taiji - in my opinion, starts from a more difficult yet essential principal in that one is immediately working with the 'energy body' and awareness at least as much as with mechanics and physical manipulation. From the onset it is less mechanical - but, of course, yoga is movement toward this as well.

[gerard]

Originally posted by Fondueset
Taiji - in my opinion, starts from a more difficult yet essential principal in that one is immediately working with the 'energy body' and awareness at least as much as with mechanics and physical manipulation

Let me also add here that it balances the always present forces of Yin & Yang.

[Fondueset]

In many cases external styles of martial art work to bring the adrenals online as a source of speed, power etc. This can be helpful in that it enables a degree of control over an instinctive response to danger that can burn tremendous resources very quickly. However - as a conditioned resonse to stressful situations as in 'type A' behavior - its not what we want for freediving. (not that external MA practice necessarily does this).
In Taiji the response to stress is an allways deepening letting go. The movements of Taiji are more a form of 'deconditioning' - eliminating dysfunctional patterns - than of imposing new patterns over against what allready is. One form this takes is releasing the felt sense of the body and it's peripheries into the space in which it arises - such that there is an expansion of awareness and integration of the senses which are then experieced as a sort of symphonic whole - with emphasis on qualities like 'flow' and simultinaity - awareness moves in the space between things and in which they arise - as distinct from our usual tendancy to operate digitally - clipping from apparent object to object. Functionally this enables movement with minimal expendeture and a tremendous ease and acuity of awareness.

I don't say external arts, or the kind of conditioning they employ are necessarily counter-productive - only that the dimension of awareness which is the essential principal in an art like Taijiquan (also Yoga - if you can get past all the showing off) is most often neglected in our conditioned bias toward the digital/mechanical aspect. We tend to view such things as a kind of accumilation/expendature - whereas the perspective Taiji represents is closer to reduction or opening/communion. It avails itself of a greater range of human energetic potential.

[lungfish]

You know, swimming was also considered an essential skill of the Japanese samurai and was aproached with the same energy as the more martial aspects of their training. Ninja in particular were known for swimming skills including apnea swimming if it got them to their goals.

Personally, I think that it is natural to find comparisons between swimming skills and martial arts, or more accurately, Asian religious practices.

I also think that after spending a decade and a half as a youngster and a young adult going through swimming training as rigorous as any martial arts course - 3 hours in the am from 4 to 7:30 and 3 hours in the pm from 3:30 to 6:30 plus stretching and wieght training. 4500yds or more per hour.... hypoxic training, IM and stroke training, turns and starts, Olympic coaches and serious competition....it is natural that such immersion in an effort would lead to religious perspectives.

I also did martial arts of various kinds as a kid and a young adult and the parallels were always present. The physical training from a rigorous 11 month competitive swimming club made me a match for most other atheletes including a lot of sparring partners. I did learn about calming down, containing my emotions and focusing on the target but the fact is, swimming had already taught me all of that. I fought at tournements, often in open divisions, and did quite well for myself but most of the ethical and internal strength to compete came from swimming training and competition rather than martial arts which, instead, served to reinforce those understandings. Swimming was the core of my martial arts ability, not the other way 'round.

My point is that it isn't necessary to graft freediving onto some outside meditative practice. The art itself is teaching us how to do it, how to get better at it, how to avoid the dangers while expanding the experience, how to deal with our minds and our bodies.... the undertaking of Freediving itself is a path with its own rules and its own requirements. While it might work well to hybridize certain breathing patterns like Ibukai or TanTien techniques from various systems of fighting and meditation, it may work even better to let the art of Freediving itself teach us what it will about physiology, psychology and metaphysics. We will create specific breathing patterns, meditations, spiritual understandings, etc. If we develop as a community, and we are, that will already be in play as I write this

The experience of sliding off a small boat, miles from the big boat, into very deep blue water with no one around and being left to one's own devices is big enough and challenging enough to equal any staredown with some foul breathed, scruffy looking, pugilistic malcontent. You will learn as much or more about yourself trying to identify a large shadow in blue water as you will looking over cold steel...

There are as many paths to enlightenment as there are people to walk them, and I think Freediving can be a path to enlightenment all by itself. From it one can learn about chi and about breathing, about stilling the mind and listening, about integrating with one's environment, about compassion and humanity....there are no differences between this and any other bona fide Way.