Begginers guide

[bluewatermafia]

I am interested in learning to freedive..well..i can hold my breath but would like to be a little more efficient while doing so. is there a good book out there for a begginer. something that will explain all the jargon and give some good exercises. I like to know how exactly things work so maybe one that is kind of scientific? any help would be greatly appreciated.

[salibandy]

Manual of Freediving by Umberto Pelizzari.

[kjflyfish]

I would suggest Blue Water Hunting and Freediving by Terry Maas. It's more geared to the underwater hunter, so you'll find it an easier read and probably take it cover to cover. It's a good one. There's no substitute for experience, so get out there with some locals and take it step by step. If you keep the focus on safety, depth and time will come. Us FL boys have gills anyway, right?!

[harbour seal]

hello bluewater mafia,

welcome to the wonderful wold of deeperblue---a very interesting and friendly place to be.
i own the Manual of Freediving but would NOT recommend it highly. the translation from italian to english left much to be desired: there are numerous english words that aren't used appropriately but instead seem to serve as bizarre direct translations.

in fact, much of the book seems to be direct word-for-word translation from the original italian, thus often doesn't really make sense as written in english. addmitedly, there is some good info but i learned way more from close reading and studying db.

here are some online resources to get you started:

there is a good freediving glossary here
Term

a whole bunch of great articles:
Freediving - articles, courses, news, stories, equipment, inspiration

tons of great freediving articles here on the deeperblue main site:
FreeDiving on DeeperBlue.net - Fanatical About FreeDiving, Scuba Diving, Spearfishing & Technical Diving

some training advice and other stuff here:
Apnea mania

freediving and apnea resource - freediving media datatbase - tons of video files, academic research papers, ect:
APNEA.cz - Freediving and Apnea Resources


http://forums.deeperblue.net/beginne...reediving.html
classic - how to start freediving thread

also, let me reiterate that there really is a goldmine of excellent information contained here in the deeperblue forums themeselves. everything you can imagine related to freediving or spearfishing including safety, training regimes, equalization, diet, comptetitions, etc., is posted and discussed somewhere. if you can't find something with the search then simply create a post of your own; however, i guarantee that as a novice basically everything you can think to ask will have been discussed at length many times before.

what is so cool is that experienced divers from all over the world post in these forums, many of whom are world-class athletes. in fact, there are numerous national and world champion freedivers who actively post, not to mention scuba and freediving instructors.

my advice is to start with some searches regarding your initial topics of interest and start reading through threads. tend pay close attention to the experienced divers/posters (especially the forum moderators who are wise beyond belief ), particularly if most of them are in agreement on an issue; of course not everything you read here will be accurate but it is pretty easy to sort it out if you read closely and be sure to ask questions.

when i first found freediving and db i read obsessively through these forums for 3-4 months solid, and it was well worth it.

cheers and welcome to the forums,
sean

ps. the absolute best/fastest way to learn would be to take a course from the professionals who are expert/world champion freedivers:

FIT - freediving, monofin, breath hold, spearfishing, snorkeling
martin stepanik - dive fit

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