Why do you freedive?

[jimqpublic]

Another thread got me to thinking about the possible reasons that I have gone from knowing nothing about freediving to being obsessed with it in the span of a couple months.

First I have to admit that I've spent far more time obsessing over it than actually doing it. I'm blessed with a big ocean just a few miles from home so access is easy, although time away from the office and my two small children is tough to negotiate. I have been diving six times. Once a few months ago on holiday in Baja California, Mexico. Two days in the PFI class and three other times. Going again tonight.

The first thing that attracted me to diving free was the hidden world under the sea. Sure I've seen lots of films but until this year I had never seen a fish underwater in person. I have lived within 5 miles of the ocean for 30 of my 41 years but spent very little time on it. Suddenly there is a whole amazing world open to me. I love the outdoors and before the kids came along spent lots of time skiing, hiking, cycling. I'm in the middle of the city though and it takes 4 or more hours of driving to really get away into nature on land. The ocean is right there with marvels unseen by the masses just a few miles from home.

The next attraction is where we get into psychology. I've never liked popular sports. I was the only guy at Mammoth Mountain skiing downhill on nordic gear. Why? I was better on alpine gear but didn't want to be one of the masses. I took up cycling 100 mile days when nobody else I knew had ever ridden more than 5 miles.

SCUBA is not unheard of, but it's definitly less common than hiking or playing softball. Freediving gets a blank stare even from SCUBA divers- definitely an uncommon activity.

Goals? My main goal is to have a good time sightseeing underwater and hopefully collecting some seafood in a better manner than abdicating the job to someone with a gill net.

I'd like to push the depth limits though. Not everyday but I see myself doing depth for depth's sake on occassion. (With proper buddy protocol here). I would like to eventually hit 40 meters. Why such an arbitrary number? Just one reason- that it's deeper than the maximum depth of "recreational" SCUBA. If I don't hit that point it's not a big deal. Like I said I go for the unconventional and even hitting 20 meters in class gave me a big feeling of accomplishment.

I've been married for 16 years, had the same job for 14, have a 5 year old daughter and a 3 year old son. In many ways I don't feel very free. Freediving seems an antidote.

Why do you freedive? (Do you really want to know?)

Jim

[Sergiu]

Excellent thread idea, Jim - a simple question, yet with many answer i would bet.

I started "proper" freediving just a few months ago but in a similar fashion with your story it's been a fast switch from knowing little about it to becoming THE main hobby that now dictates my holiday plans and takes up a big share of my disposable income!

Why freediving? I have been snorkelling around for as long as i remember but never lived near the sea/ocean -still a dream that i hope once to fullfil. I ended up scuba diving to a level that permitted me to explore the underwater, yet it's not truly a challenge big enough to bubble around - that's when i made the link to freediving - to see my own limits in an environment i feel passionate about.

Goal? I started with the wish to exceed the deepest i recorded on my computer dive 57m on a plane wreck off the Turkish coast - but now i know it's not that important how deep, how long you can do it - rather how much you can enjoy it down there. If i ever get past that original goal, it's a bonus, if not, it will be enough to swim around or drift gently for a couple of minutes, past some curious or puzzled creatures - including scuba divers!

serge

[sickbugs]

my original goals were to hold my breath for 4 minutes, and be able to spearfish in 100 feet... still havnt got to water deep enough for me yet, but i got the breathhold thing done after that, havnt set any goals, apart from to have fun doing whatever it is im doing.


i have allways been around the sea, allways been going under, but only really started freediving/spearfishing about 2 years ago or so. its something im passionate about, even if i havnt ever done it on a line/with a depth computer, anything like that. i started freediving because i didnt think i should have to learn how to scuba dive to enjoy myself in water more than 30 feet deep (average local opinion down here is that if u dont scuba, u cant go deep) i guess being different is also a reason for it... its fun tho gotta love it for that, in this world nowadays, how many people can really say that they do something thats fun?

[rslomkow]

I wrote a little blog post about this a month or so ago. I see a variety of things that seem to motivate people.

1) Love of the Ocean
2) Spear fishing
3) Obsession with deeper
4) Obsession with apnea
5) Searching for calm

#1 and #5 are the biggest reasons for me. I have a little bit of #3, and I cannot hold my breath at all these day. (Too much time chained to my keyboard, not enought time being healthy, and stuck in planes and jet-lag)

I only stared spear fishing because lots of freedivers did it. At the time I lived in California, where SCUBA spear fishing in legal, but there is a contingent of Freedive Speros.

Another thing that I love about freediving. Is the amount of Freedom and Speed. Every once and a while you have a bad SCUBA dive and you think: This equipment isn't worth anything! it is just dangerous. Also for Freedom I will spend 1-3 hours in water, something I cannot do with SCUBA, and I actually have a chance of chasing fish and getting photos or seeing where they go, (SCUBA is too slow).

Also I love the sensation of coming up fast and breaking the surface into air. When I was a small kid I would go down to the deep end of the pool, swim down to the bottom and hold on to the drain, then swim up as fast as I could and break out of the water. Now I don't hold onto the drain, but I still love the breaking through the water (dolphin fantasy? but I did this before I ever saw a dolphin)

I do think that freediving is the best way to feel like you are part of the ocean. I make sailors nevous because I always want to jump in the water, but I enjoy sailing too, but I always wonder what is in the world below

One of the things that suprises me is how this sport is growing. For something that has existed since the dawn of time, it is fun to see it seem to get a new wave of popularity. The Le Grand bleu movie did wonders for placing it in the public conciousness or at least the idea that you could be underwater on your own breath.

One other personal thing, I suffer from migraines and diving to depth below 3m helps quit a bit. Honestly just putting my head in water (the bathtub and not breathing) helps. The only drugs that ever helped were nasty addictive prescription ones. So finding out that water was an escape helped me quite a bit.

[DiverTodd]

It's funny that the word "obsession" is bandied around quite a bit in this discussion, for that's what I would say has happened to me, as well. I've been a scuba diver since '89 (currently working through Divemaster), but freediving has always been an interest, even if it had been shoved way back into the back of my mind. My epiphany came with David Blaine's stunt. It wasn't the stunt itself...it was the revelation of Performance Freediving DURING the stunt. That a group of great people existed that actually TEACH regular folks how to freedive properly was MORE than enough to start my obsession. I started training and reading anything I could find on the subject voraciously (and this site has been a HUGE help). I now eat properly, have lost over 20 lbs (I have NEVER looked this good...I weigh less than I did in high school!), I'm in the water 5x a week, and I do static and dynamic apnea exercises (I'm up to 2:30 with static, and 34 yrds no fins and 51 yrds with fins with dynamic). I've also taught myself two new equalization methods, Frenzel and VTO. My Sphera mask has arrived, which I love, and my Gara 3000 LD fins are on their way. Tomorrow, I'm going to a local quarry with a scuba instructor friend and attempting a few 10m dives. With those securely under my belt, I'm signing up for the PF Intermediate course in Sept. I really can NOT wait to explore this new area of my life further. I guess, above all, I'm enjoying the challenge and discipline of pushing myself, and the discoveries I'm making about what my body actually CAN do.

Todd

[jome]

Although most of us don't maybe like to admit it, there is definately a narsistic side to it as well.

"look at me! I can hold my breath for x-minutes!". Especially exhibited around scuba divers

We expect people to go "wow, how do you do that, that's impossible", and if they don't, we feel a little dissapointed. I passionately hate the "dolphin man" myth, but still fall victim to this behaviour my self

[deep thinker]

Interesting question, I think for a lot of people here it just comes naturally and that very few of us actually think about why we do it and how we ended up in the fortunate position to be able to go to another world all on our own abilities, something very few people can actually say they can do.
For me personally the underwater realm has always been a passion and the progression from snorkelling for lead weights to spearfishing came when I found a old speargun in a gully while searching for weights , so I started spearing my fish instead of catching them on rod and reel.
So it was a natural progression for me always was and always will be and I guess u can say I freedive solely for the ability to spearfish, but now that I think about it I freedive and spearfish because the ocean and its underwater wonders is the one place where I can truly be one with myself and my abilities, pushing my own boundaries to stay longer and experience more. Of late it actually became a necessity for me to get into the water and just calm down to a state where everything just flows by, something to do with the fast pace everything happens I think.
I dont have any specific goals that Ill kick myself over if I dont reach them, just to get the most out of every time I go down to that landscape, most people see as unaccessibe

[tbgsub]

great question.

I am a relative New entry to the world of freediving, or apnea diving, and underwater hunting.

I practiced breathing with a breath trainer, trained on a triathlon bike for two years, read religiously in Terry Maas, and Sipperly's book Freediving, and started dynamic immersion in the Potomac (I know, not a wise Idea, but I wasnt pushing for PB's at all there, mostly getting used to snorkel breathing). I quickly discovered that 2min static is nothing compared to dynamic, in fact I now feel foolish when I think back at measuring static as a basis for anything.

since moving to a dream place, Saipan in the CNMI chain, for an extended time, 2 years, I have discovered that time is relative. we all want more of it, yet we all are limited in how much we will actually have. so My main addage is that "you have to take time, to make time". It turns out not too far from "Carpe Diem".

I got into this sport to learn about another world, and discovered that each day teaches me something about myself, my expectations, my perceptions, and the feeling of returning to a different way of living above the surface.

the more I get involved with freediving and spearfishing, the more my above water life passes like a dream, moments start to blend into thoughts of returning below the waves. My wife catches me staring off, thinking about this mornings dive, and what was felt, and seen. I no longer spearfish to catch fish, but as an excuse to swim with them, and perhaps gather sustenance ocassionally.

I tend to think of it not as an obsession, but a subtle transition into a way of living. we are transitioning from land mammal, to that of turtles, whales, Porpises ect.

sea mammals live without time, they breath up without thinking of SWB, or SAMBA's and they suffer the bends according to the latest bone study of Whales. Juvenile whales tend to push their limits foolishly much like humans, maby they have personal bests, or subsurface forums and chat sessions, I am almost sure of it.

and it would appear that our initial perceptions as land mammals fades as we pierce the void of imagnination searching for new realities. we are on many levels becoming sea mammals for a short period, and inheriting a life history of breathing, swimming, and living from our sea cousins.

after looking back, I see how ignorant I was on many levels. Fearing larger predators, assuming that fish are unintelligent, and wondering blindly in a world that is clear and randomly brilliant.

I started freediving to meet a new challenge,
I now freedive for self discovery.
each time is a new birth, of interactions, sights, and sounds, and I know that for the rest of my life I am a changed person.

I hope to meet unknowns before me with a more lucid, and clear mind, wary of the past assumptions, and accept the unimagnible before I try to imagine what the unknown world could be like.

I am humbled by those fish that so obviously know I am there to take one of them, long before I even see them (this is intelligence by any understanding, as knowledge afore thought, and responding to that knowledge advantageously), and only experience may reveal that more experience may gradually solidify, what is observed before our eyes.

best of luck in this transition.

TBGWAX

[Jee]

I like to be underwater.

[apnea-tex]

I had reached a point in my life where cow tipping just wasn't doing it for me anymore.
No but all seriousness aside , when I took my entry level scuba course, my instructor challenged us to better ourselves in every aspect. Now here was a guy who could do some phenomenal things underwater given his physical characteristics and the fact that he was a smoker. Well, 17 years later and I am still taking on the challenge of self-improvement. Ironically, I overcame tuberculosis as an infant, had a morbid fear of the water as a child, overcoming Acromegaly as an adult and am told everytime I have a chest x-ray that It shows I have COPD! Moral of the story: Don't tell me something can't be done because I will find a way to show that it can! Freediving has allowed me to show others that with a bit of physical training, a bit of mental training and a whole bunch of will and determination, barriers can be moved aside.

[Alexx]

Originally Posted by jimqpublic

Why do you freedive? (Do you really want to know?)

I don't know and don't want to know
The only thing I know is that I want to leave this stinky town (Zagreb), and go to Pula Google Earth says I'm 112000 meters away from sea right now. Aaaaaaaa!

[Boomstick]

So I can chase lobsters across the sea bed for fun.



And I hate swimming on the surface......

Surface swimming is only done when I absolutey have to and normally because I'm either,
A. Knackered
or,
B. Looking for something to dive down to.

[MKDVR]

Because scuba is an expensive pain in the ass. The hardest part of freediving is getting the suit on and off. Love being in the water of course. Have yet to freedive in the ocean despite living by it for almost 30 years. Now that I freedive I don't have the access to the ocean anymore. Lastly, a temporary release from the family.

[Aquagenic]

I think I was initially drawn to it because SCUBA is freakin' expensive, and I'm a poor college student, but I found so much more in it than just that. I sympathize with all of the aformentioned reasons. For whatever reason, I'm over joyed to have found this amazing art/discipline/religion, or whatever else it could be called. Till later...

~JMP

[MKDVR]

Originally Posted by Aquagenic

I think I was initially drawn to it because SCUBA is freakin' expensive, and I'm a poor college student, but I found so much more in it than just that. I sympathize with all of the aformentioned reasons. For whatever reason, I'm over joyed to have found this amazing art/discipline/religion, or whatever else it could be called. Till later...

~JMP

IMO scuba isn't that expensive unless you get really serious about it. If you budget yourself I think you can get all the rec. level gear you'll need for $1,000. After that....$$$$

I sold my doubles and wing which paid for all of my freediving equipment.