A ton of thoughts on Freediving philosophy

[jay cluskey]

a mistake in competitive freediving will not hurt .....
i think that is what haydn means bud
competitive diving is safe ..you train to your limits you then push your limits...you are well supervised doing both .....

 

[laminar]

One thing...

...well actually several things:

It is possible to become an excellent freediver simply with recreational diving. Your definition of excellent is up to you. But I know lots of recreational divers who can out dive "competitors" in a wide variety of real-world conditions.

Competition diving is also an amazing catalyst for self-discovery, technique improvement, and developing the activity and sport. Early pioneers have used gear, techniques, approaches that have trickled down to recreational diving.

Both are great, but on the whole I find (and I think that this is changing with new divers in the competitive arena) it is so tempting to define oneself by the depths you do. I know, I used to do it and still find it tempting.

How many times have I heard the following exchange:

Cute Girl/Guy: So, freediving! Wow! How deep do you go?

Up-and-Coming Freediver: Well... I compete so I go pretty deep. I'm a 60m diver (or insert your max depth here).

Cute Girl/Guy: Wow! 60m! :inlove That's crazy.

**But actually Mr/Ms Freediver made 58.5m once with a small samba and has only been past 45m five times. I'm sorry but this person is not a 60m diver and has a lot of false self-confidence.

I've met lots of 40m, 50m, 60m divers who can't recreationally dive worth beans. It's surprising, but without a line, they are in lost.

It doesn't have to be that way. If you can dive to 30m in complete comfort 99% of the time, then you can say, I dive to 30m.

When someone asks me these days, I resist this old way of interaction and try to avoid the reflex of proving oneself.

I say, "I dive to see stuff at depths where I feel comfortable." or "I'm training for a competiiton - we'll see."

The irony in setting your mind on your deepest, furthest, or longest breath holds is that most forget that the secret to getting better lies in other less glamorous areas that take time to develop and hone.

If any of you on the forum have read or heard me boasting in person - well, you see how tempting it is. :duh I think we all struggle with it to some extent.

My 10 cents.

Pete

 

[azapa]

gosh Pete, you are different in real life! what about those 100+ M dives you swore you did just after a full breakfast every day?

I am a beginner (as you know) just entering a new plane of awaking (er, I guess that either means I read too much about freediving, or at least can equalize past 15M) and I like to set my goals high. When I could only dive 15m I "thought" of myself as a 20M diver, when i really hit 20M I thought 25M. It made (makes) me feel good, and progess harder. I do however have a great dive watch that never lies to me (mirror mirror).

Whatever it takes, but I feel good about my progression, am anxious to progress more, and set myself maybe tougher goals than I should.

See you at VB2009?

 

[Erik]

I think we should add the weight you wear too!!!.... I was diving for a week in 10C water last month hunting and realised on the last day that I'd been doing "deep" dives with a 20lb belt and harness on hahaha!
Sarcastic but true
And Pete you are the least of a braggart I have ever met- you are the opitimy of the balanced freediver. "Talk the talk, and swim the swim" so to speak

 

[laminar]

Oh yeah, Erik, you're on that list of wicked recreational divers....

Yep, VB 2009...and I'll be competing this time for the title of best FRC diver with a pink snorkel and actually enter the real competition this time.

 

[billieball]

Dang it! I should've been telling people that I'm a 40m diver, right? My PB is 37m, and I've done it twice. I could have seemed so much cooler if I'd only thought to embellish. Sheesh!

 

[Haydn]

A mistake in freediving does not hurt....... What I mean is that I have seen many deep rescues ranging from where the diver is unconcious at 20 metres and many surface rescues after LMC and blackouts. All divers recover in a few seconds and up to 30 seconds. These are serious rescues where, but for the rescue, the diver would certainly die EVERY time.

A freediver can therefore be as close to dying as possible, yet wake up in seconds and wonder what all the fuss is about. I doubt a freerunner can make fatal mistakes. Any freerunning mistakes will hurt desparately. Therefore a freerunner must never make even a simple mistake.

Whilst mistakes in freediving should also be avoided, these learning curves do not hurt the vast majority of freedivers who have tried to compete to a competitive degree with intent to give their very best. (not to be confused with freediving in a competition and being happy to subscribe a few meters shallower than a normal training dive, just to be on the safe side).

I am talking about serious attempts to do your very best competive dive and in so doing you honour your fellow athlete who also will have to give his very best. You dishonour your competitors if you do not give your best and so allow them also to give mediocre performance.

Remember Seb Coe winning gold in the Olympics. His time was rubbish and well below his world record. Yes he won the race and was adulated across the UK, but his performance did not deserve the result. If you are going to compete, you should give your absolute best. You owe that much to your fellow competitor.

An Aida competition is the safest place on Earth to do your very best because the safety protocols allow you not to worry about your ability, you simply just dive and turn early if you realise its going wrong, secure in the thought that you are going to be looked after if you try and fail.

I certainly dont want to be a freerunner and half way through the jump, realise its all going wrong. Its beautiful to watch, artistic, athletic and skilful. But it relies on turning on the fight or flight reflex, instant action and reaction. Freediving turns all that stuff off. We simply dive.


As for breaking a PB by a large margin. My reasoning is simple. My PB is 57m, so in a competition I would suggest the tag is set at 67m. This means I have no chance whatever of getting my tag. Therefore I have no anxiety. I know I wont get my tag, so I dont worry about it. The dive therefore has no stress. I wont have the 'must get my tag' syndrome, knowing I should have turned , but try the extra couple of meters beyond my ability because the tag is so close. When a tag is set within those couple meters, its a very dangerous place. My extra deep tag is therefore in a safe place. I can dive my best dive, on my best day and upon surfacing, I have had a perfect dive. The depth may also be a new personal best, if the dive really was perfect.

Its better to subscribe deep and turn early, than subscribe a depth a meter or two less than your best, because on such a dive you have not given yourself the chance to have your best dive. You will recognise that whilst you may be having what could otherwise have been your best dive, you hit the plate and no matter how you feel, you cannot go deeper. All that is left is to do a 'Dave King' and hang around the plate a while sifting through all the tags.

 

[Fondueset]

people ask me how deep I can go I tell them 'What's that supposed to mean!?'
Then they usually get really confused and go away. This is good because conversations interfere with dive time.

Seriously - I just got a depth gauge last year but I was checking some charts of areas I dive during the winter. It appears that I was diving, creeping up on burbot, lining up compositions and taking pictures a little deeper than I'd previously thought maybe just 23-25M but in 37F water after a mile or so of swimming. I never talk about it because one of my dive buddies has a tendency to remember strange advice I never gave - things like 'just push through the pain' etc. and also tends to go for depth. In the cold its way more fun to rocket around in my monofin anyway.

I'd like to extend my depths when I get the chance to dive with some good safety types but around here you have to go way out - so its either boat traffic or really cold.

 

[serafino]

The thing is, a freediving competition is the one safe place where you can push your limits, even exceed them and succeed because you are more fully prepared to dive, both physically after many weeks training specific to the competition and mentally. Increasing your PB by one metre in a competition is not being competitive, those increments are best left for training. A competition is where you allow yourself the luxury of going 5 metres beyond your best, because you endeavour to make the dive when you are having the best day of your life. Surrounded by the best safety divers, doctors and protocols. You simply have faith in the safety teams and let them (if needed) to do their job. This gives you the freedom to succesfully make your attempt, even if it ends in black out or disqualification.

So if you can do , say 55m in Dorothea in winter after rubbish prep, you certainly can do 60m in the warm blue, and who cares if its deeper than you have ever been? Nobody, not even you. And when you dont care whether you succeed or not, all you have to care about is making a perfect dive and turn around somewhere near the bottom, when you feel like it. Chances are it will be deeper than 55m, but even if its less, it will be a perfect dive.

Now, I would like to be able to jump off a building and somewhere on the way down, realise its a lousy jump and simply go back. But no, I will continue to fly through the air and break a leg or neck, regardless.

The two sports cannot be compared when freerunning requires instant action and reaction whilst freediving requires an almost zen like peacefulness.

A mistake in freediving does not hurt.

I strongly disagree with your statements here. To start off with freerunning is not Parkour. They are completely separate. The some of the movements may be the same but the philosophies are not. I also disagree with your "lousy jump," idea. Obviously you missed the point of my original post. What I said was you train hard enough so you elliminate most of the risk involved and if something does go wrong you train how to take a fall correctly or for lack of better terms bail out the right way. So it is the equivalent of training with a safety diver and buddy to make sure that if something does go wrong it won't blow way out of proportion.

I also disagree with you zen idea. Parkour requires absolute concentration on the moment. You are fully concentrated on the now. You completely devote all your thoughts to your movements. Just like in free diving you concentrate on relaxing and letting things be. You do the exact same in Parkour. You concentrate before the jump and your previous training just becomes instinct and you do not even have to think about what you are doing. Not only that I have never felt more peaceful than when free diving or moving fluidly and easily/efficiently through my environment using parkour movements. It almost feels like you are floating over your obstacles effortlessly.
Also keep in mind while drops are part of part of Parkour it is a very small insignificant part. Unfortunately its the most eye catching part and most publicized.

Also out of curiosity anyone else here a traceur?

 

[samdive]

Got to say, as a competition organiser, that I totally disagree with Haydn's thoughts on putting the plate well below his PB and basically leaving his life in the hands of the safety crew. I wouldn't advise anyone to ever subscribe deeper than their PB, ideally subscribe something you know for sure you can do and enjoy it.

Now I don't know if I should accept an entry from you next year Mr Welch!

I like the comparisons between freediving and freerunning and find lots of it really valid.

We were discussing the "anomaly" of freediving the other day, ie you have to be really psyched up to perform in a comp but equally really chilled out to achieve the dive and looking for other sports where that was the case. Someone suggested horse riding, which is kind of true. If you are trying to get your horse to go over a massive jump, you need to give the feeling to the horse that you are really relaxed and confident, if it feels nerves it will stop. I kind of see my relationship with the horse when asking it to do something that scares me a bit as the relationship between my mind and my body with freediving. Trying to trick the body that the brain is relaxed and confident, when secretly it's pretty worried.

Hunli - read your blog, loved it and totally understood the feeling. It's one of the reasons I've stopped competing in all but the friendliest of comps. I didn't want the stress/nerves/anger when I mess up to ruin freediving for me - and giving up scary comps and focussing on teaching and coaching has helped no end. (that and the fact that I was never really good enough to be competing at the level I was : ) )

 

[DeepThought]

Adding to what Pete said, I think a diver who doesn't know how to dive without a line has yet to discover FREEdiving.

A mistake in freediving does not hurt....... What I mean is that I have seen many deep rescues ranging from where the diver is unconcious at 20 metres and many surface rescues after LMC and blackouts. All divers recover in a few seconds and up to 30 seconds. These are serious rescues where, but for the rescue, the diver would certainly die EVERY time.

A freediver can therefore be as close to dying as possible, yet wake up in seconds and wonder what all the fuss is about.

I presumed that by the word "hurt" you didn't mean the physical experience of pain/discomfort but some sort of physical damage.
Atleast some types of LMC are probably caused by hypoxic depolarization of neurons, which can go along excitotoxicity = dead neurons. We just don't know yet what happens when a person LMC. A 30 seconds hypoxic BO sounds to me like something that has the potential to create brain damage as well. Lung squeeze sounds to me like physical damage also. All of these can have no long term effect, but we don't know that and i think the default should be to avoid that.

I am talking about serious attempts to do your very best competive dive and in so doing you honour your fellow athlete who also will have to give his very best. You dishonour your competitors if you do not give your best and so allow them also to give mediocre performance.

So by this "honour" everyone should make a PB or come short or BO on every competition? Honour is bound by risk?

I don't even know how to respond to claims of such a thing as honour... if it's a mystical thing or an implicit perception of reality that everyone is supposed to inherit and act upon.... what If I was born with a different "honour"?
I can just say that I disagree that this should weigh anything in someone's depth announcement. Even in a competition you first dive for yourself, not for others. Even if you represent a country and think that it is more important than you, you choose so (or bound to this thought) by yourself, no one can make you dive.

As for breaking a PB by a large margin. My reasoning is simple. My PB is 57m, so in a competition I would suggest the tag is set at 67m. This means I have no chance whatever of getting my tag. Therefore I have no anxiety. I know I wont get my tag, so I dont worry about it. The dive therefore has no stress. I wont have the 'must get my tag' syndrome, knowing I should have turned , but try the extra couple of meters beyond my ability because the tag is so close. When a tag is set within those couple meters, its a very dangerous place. My extra deep tag is therefore in a safe place. I can dive my best dive, on my best day and upon surfacing, I have had a perfect dive. The depth may also be a new personal best, if the dive really was perfect.

Its better to subscribe deep and turn early, than subscribe a depth a meter or two less than your best, because on such a dive you have not given yourself the chance to have your best dive. You will recognise that whilst you may be having what could otherwise have been your best dive, you hit the plate and no matter how you feel, you cannot go deeper. All that is left is to do a 'Dave King' and hang around the plate a while sifting through all the tags.

While I agree that putting the tag in an unreachable depth could be very positive in non-competitive diving, this is not how competitions work. You will get penalized and then a person who might have dove 1m shorter than you have won in overall points... wouldn't that dishonour him/her? (or you? This honour buisness is really confusing)

 

[fcallagy]

We were discussing the "anomaly" of freediving the other day, ie you have to be really psyched up to perform in a comp but equally really chilled out to achieve the dive and looking for other sports where that was the case. Someone suggested horse riding, which is kind of true. If you are trying to get your horse to go over a massive jump, you need to give the feeling to the horse that you are really relaxed and confident, if it feels nerves it will stop. I kind of see my relationship with the horse when asking it to do something that scares me a bit as the relationship between my mind and my body with freediving. Trying to trick the body that the brain is relaxed and confident, when secretly it's pretty worried.
: ) )

I,m confused sam does the horse grab the tag with its teeth or hooves?

Interesting thread

 

[laminar]

Athletic honour is really tricky in freediving... or whatever you want to call it.

Personally I think it's about giving your best during the preparation, not when you're at the line.

The symptom of many new freedivers is this:
-train "sort of" for a month or two
-line dive for a month with an unrealistic progression
-be overly ambitious at a competition

It is hard to know why this is risky and ill-advised because for every newbie or intermediate diver (the most dangerous, actually) who magically progresses faster than expected and every amazing story of people like Martin and Sara Campbell who didn't know their own abilities until they tried, I've seen so many who think that going deep is something they can do in a month or two.

With a few key techniques and the ability to relax, sure you can double your pb from 25m to 50m, doesn't mean you should do it. :duh

So Hadyn I would say that if someone is gunning for the plate at a comp, they've waited too long and are dishonoring their fellow competitors with a lack of control and preparation.

As a safety diver who has waited for unknown divers at 20m, I really, really, really don't want to do a rescue from there. I will, but I will lose respect for any diver who had a problem because they "thought they could do it" but had never done so before. Safety divers, in my opinion, are there for when something unexpected happens. You've made the depth before at least a few times and suddenly, you just don't feel right and need bailing out.

And any blackout below 20m better be a serious error on the part of the organizer (line too deep) or a giant jellyfish getting in the way.

 

[Fondueset]

Holy crap! This philosophical stuff sure is complicated!

Maybe that explains whats going on here?

 

[laminar]

I think this needs to be a painting. A Vermeer. The woman with the scarf and bikiki - so incongruous!

Thanks, Fondue, for reminding us what's important - which swimming pool should we be in?

 

[Fondueset]

That IS the question...isn't it?

...perhaps not

 

[laminar]

BASSIN 1 -->

<-- BASSIN

Wither the shop window dummy on yonder aquatic hallway? rofl

 

[samdive]

it looks like a pic from a photo story in the magazines I used to read as a teenager.... maybe we need a caption competition! who are those three and why do they look like they hate each other???

 

[Fondueset]

Do they? Or is it perhaps ... something else?

..and what is going on with the guy on the left's arm?!

 

[Adrian]

The one clutching the monofin is thinking "It's mine it's mine it's mine!", and is mentally disintegrating the other's body because he asked if he could borrow the monofin for a while. You can tell because he started with his hair before moving on to his arm.