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A ton of thoughts on Freediving philosophy
- Thread starterserafino
- Start date
Thread Status: Hello
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Well I didn't think to mention it before, but grappling with the giant squid that stole my tag in the Bahamas really slowed me down. She had a numerical advantage when it came to both limbs and beaks. We need to survey these blue holes better before sending freedivers down there.
In England it seems that we easily do our best dives in Chepstow, Dorothea etc after lazy preparation, half way through (or at the beginning of ) the season and after mucking around for 30 minutes and after driving a few hours to get there. Then when it comes to competing a few months later in warm blue water with exceptional organisation and safety set ups, we all play safe and dive a couple meters less than our previous best. Thats not being competitive. Neither do you give yourself the opportunity to take advantage of absolutely fantastic conditions where you should expect to be able to do better than your PB.
So off we go to the World Champs and do nothing more than an ordinary dive, because we have only played at freediving all summer, maybe 5 or 6 times and we have no faith in our ability. Some freedivers however do train, maybe 5 or 6 times a week. Some freedivers prepare themselves to do their best when they represent themselves and their Country.
By setting the tag 10 meters too deep, you remove the most dangerous part of any dive, which is setting the tag only a couple meters better than your PB and then going for it regardless of whether the dive is going well.
Being aware that the dive is either going well or not is one of the most important abilities in judging when to turn, and when the tag is set far too deep, you never need to consider getting it, but only when to turn. Yes you will lose points, but who cares about them. The purpose of the dive is to have a perfect dive, not a deep dive. If you are having that perfect dive in warm clear blue water, you will go deeper, because you have given yourself maybe 5 meters more room.
You honour your competitor by being trained, prepared and competitive. By doing all you can to perform to your very best. You dont just let your competitor win because you were easy to beat. Give honour to your competitor by being hard to beat. Then when he beats you, he has had to do his very best too.
Sorry I missed the point on Parkour. It does seem very precise and this precision is the safety factor. The safety factor in freediving is its very forgiving nature. You can make a mistake that would otherwise kill you, and the safety factors let you live. Thats why we have safety freedivers, without them, we would all be dead by now.
So if you are acting as a safety freediver, it is your job to save a life. And most freedivers have saved lives by assisting an apparent lmc or black out. It is our job as a safety diver to do it and the freediver must be able to rely upon us. When he can rely upon us, he is free to dive his best.
Sam is dead right, sometimes you may not want to be a persons safety diver if they are gung ho going for the tag. But that is not the same diver as the one planning to turn around when the time is right. Chepstow is certainly not the place to be gung ho and demands a conservative approach. Chepstow is no where near perfect conditions for a deep dive. Some places are though. The thing is Sam, when you organise a competition, are you really suggesting PBs are not allowed? By saying you would not advise anyone to subscribe a PB depth for your comps, you are suggesting its ok to do PBs anywhere else (where no safety protocols are in place, ie training dives) but not to try them on your watch despite the fantastic safety you provide. You might as well call your comps a fun day out and not a competition where UK team selection can be formulated. You should allow the new freediver to make mistakes in judgement with their LMCs as well as provide for a competitive freediver who challenges his ability.
As for waiting at 20m for an unknown diver going deep just because he thinks he can do it. Thats a real problem for both of you. Far better when you know each other well and have faith in each others abilities.
So off we go to the World Champs and do nothing more than an ordinary dive, because we have only played at freediving all summer, maybe 5 or 6 times and we have no faith in our ability. Some freedivers however do train, maybe 5 or 6 times a week. Some freedivers prepare themselves to do their best when they represent themselves and their Country.
By setting the tag 10 meters too deep, you remove the most dangerous part of any dive, which is setting the tag only a couple meters better than your PB and then going for it regardless of whether the dive is going well.
Being aware that the dive is either going well or not is one of the most important abilities in judging when to turn, and when the tag is set far too deep, you never need to consider getting it, but only when to turn. Yes you will lose points, but who cares about them. The purpose of the dive is to have a perfect dive, not a deep dive. If you are having that perfect dive in warm clear blue water, you will go deeper, because you have given yourself maybe 5 meters more room.
You honour your competitor by being trained, prepared and competitive. By doing all you can to perform to your very best. You dont just let your competitor win because you were easy to beat. Give honour to your competitor by being hard to beat. Then when he beats you, he has had to do his very best too.
Sorry I missed the point on Parkour. It does seem very precise and this precision is the safety factor. The safety factor in freediving is its very forgiving nature. You can make a mistake that would otherwise kill you, and the safety factors let you live. Thats why we have safety freedivers, without them, we would all be dead by now.
So if you are acting as a safety freediver, it is your job to save a life. And most freedivers have saved lives by assisting an apparent lmc or black out. It is our job as a safety diver to do it and the freediver must be able to rely upon us. When he can rely upon us, he is free to dive his best.
Sam is dead right, sometimes you may not want to be a persons safety diver if they are gung ho going for the tag. But that is not the same diver as the one planning to turn around when the time is right. Chepstow is certainly not the place to be gung ho and demands a conservative approach. Chepstow is no where near perfect conditions for a deep dive. Some places are though. The thing is Sam, when you organise a competition, are you really suggesting PBs are not allowed? By saying you would not advise anyone to subscribe a PB depth for your comps, you are suggesting its ok to do PBs anywhere else (where no safety protocols are in place, ie training dives) but not to try them on your watch despite the fantastic safety you provide. You might as well call your comps a fun day out and not a competition where UK team selection can be formulated. You should allow the new freediver to make mistakes in judgement with their LMCs as well as provide for a competitive freediver who challenges his ability.
As for waiting at 20m for an unknown diver going deep just because he thinks he can do it. Thats a real problem for both of you. Far better when you know each other well and have faith in each others abilities.
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Focusing on points means going for your tag regardless. Its dangerous. Focusing on the perfect dive means you are safe, with the added advantage of getting deeper and gaining more points for the depth minus a few points for not getting the tag. The points may be the same in the end. But no one cares. What matters is you had a perfect dive and probably a PB. You will have done your very best.
And if I ever beat you Dave in a dynamic, it will because you did a lousy effort. That gives me no honour in winning and beating you is meaningless. But if you do a serious effort, then I have honoured you by doing my best to compete with you (regardless of whether I do beat you or not), and you have honoured me by causing me to try my very best.
And if I ever beat you Dave in a dynamic, it will because you did a lousy effort. That gives me no honour in winning and beating you is meaningless. But if you do a serious effort, then I have honoured you by doing my best to compete with you (regardless of whether I do beat you or not), and you have honoured me by causing me to try my very best.
Back to an off-topic topic. WHAT, exactly, is the guy on the right (in the photo above) looking at?
I would rather like to know what was doing the brushed off left hand of the left freediver.
Sorry Sam, you misunderstood the training days remark. Its anywhere else where no safety protocols are in place. Anywhere else does not include Salt Free, its anywhere where there are no safety protocols. I specifically made it clear in my earlier post, that Salt Free has excellent safety protocols. For the record, Sam at Salt Free has the very best safety cover ever, for her training days as well as her competitions, with the scuba Angels and the whole set up is professional.
What I meant was that most freedivers train with a couple buddies, or one buddy or no buddies at a host of locations, after driving for hours at the end of the day etc etc. During these 'training' days (which are really 'fancy going freediving this weekend' days), there is little safety apart from what is agreed by the freedivers as they take it in turns to safety each others dives. Their safety gets tired as they concentrate on a whole bunch of things (recovering from their own dive, simultaneously covering the diver down, preparing for their next dive) . This is where we are supposed to do our PBs because we are not really supposed to do PBs in a competition.
The only thing wrong with Salt free is the location, its dark, its cold, its deep. It is actually a perfect example of a British freedivers experience. It demands respect and caution. Your diver is mostly out of sight while you wait at 15m for them to come back into view. Its not a good place to push or experiment with your limits.
A competition in warm clear waters where the plate is visble even at 50meters, with safety divers who are only acting as safety divers and all the protocols in place is the perfect location to be competitive.
I am just saying (it seems with little support from the freediving community) that we do not allow ourselves to have our best dive ever, when we decide a 'safe' depth well inside our PBs as we subscribe our depths the day or two before we dive and then get nervous about reaching it. If we forget about depth, and just try to do a text book dive, and in perfect conditions and environment designed to calm the nerves, we can expect to do PBs, but only if the plate is far enough away to let you get deeper, before you reach the plate. And far enough away, when you do turn, for you not to think its now only a couple more metres to go and you deceive yourself in going for it anyway.
A safe dive is one where you decide the depth as your dive commences and you turn when you should, not when you reach the plate. A competitive dive is one where you allow yourself to do your deepest. But if you want to win a competition, you generally have to do a PB or rely on another diver to fail to do one. Most of us never need worry about winning a competition. So why do we enter? To do a dive lesser than our best and pay a £50 entrance fee for the privelige? To meet up and dive with a few mates we dont get to dive with generally and not care about our performance? Or do we want to benchmark our performance and test ourselves with our friends and dive deeper than ever before because we have trained for that day, and not be told that we are not allowed to to PBs, but are encouraged to do them, and break National and World records.
A competition allows all of these purposes and accepts that some divers will be too inexperienced to get it right, others too damn sure of themselves and get it wrong. Some risk all to do that extra meter, others play safe. I choose to not care about whether I come first or last, I do care about doing my best and not let the plate tell me when to stop or for it to encourage me to keep going. I will turn when I choose and if I get it wrong, I will allow my safety diver to do what he is there to do, to look after me during that one dive a year, when I might just find I have done a new PB, because I am not ever going to try to do one in any circumstances where safety is of a lower standard than during a competition.
What I meant was that most freedivers train with a couple buddies, or one buddy or no buddies at a host of locations, after driving for hours at the end of the day etc etc. During these 'training' days (which are really 'fancy going freediving this weekend' days), there is little safety apart from what is agreed by the freedivers as they take it in turns to safety each others dives. Their safety gets tired as they concentrate on a whole bunch of things (recovering from their own dive, simultaneously covering the diver down, preparing for their next dive) . This is where we are supposed to do our PBs because we are not really supposed to do PBs in a competition.
The only thing wrong with Salt free is the location, its dark, its cold, its deep. It is actually a perfect example of a British freedivers experience. It demands respect and caution. Your diver is mostly out of sight while you wait at 15m for them to come back into view. Its not a good place to push or experiment with your limits.
A competition in warm clear waters where the plate is visble even at 50meters, with safety divers who are only acting as safety divers and all the protocols in place is the perfect location to be competitive.
I am just saying (it seems with little support from the freediving community) that we do not allow ourselves to have our best dive ever, when we decide a 'safe' depth well inside our PBs as we subscribe our depths the day or two before we dive and then get nervous about reaching it. If we forget about depth, and just try to do a text book dive, and in perfect conditions and environment designed to calm the nerves, we can expect to do PBs, but only if the plate is far enough away to let you get deeper, before you reach the plate. And far enough away, when you do turn, for you not to think its now only a couple more metres to go and you deceive yourself in going for it anyway.
A safe dive is one where you decide the depth as your dive commences and you turn when you should, not when you reach the plate. A competitive dive is one where you allow yourself to do your deepest. But if you want to win a competition, you generally have to do a PB or rely on another diver to fail to do one. Most of us never need worry about winning a competition. So why do we enter? To do a dive lesser than our best and pay a £50 entrance fee for the privelige? To meet up and dive with a few mates we dont get to dive with generally and not care about our performance? Or do we want to benchmark our performance and test ourselves with our friends and dive deeper than ever before because we have trained for that day, and not be told that we are not allowed to to PBs, but are encouraged to do them, and break National and World records.
A competition allows all of these purposes and accepts that some divers will be too inexperienced to get it right, others too damn sure of themselves and get it wrong. Some risk all to do that extra meter, others play safe. I choose to not care about whether I come first or last, I do care about doing my best and not let the plate tell me when to stop or for it to encourage me to keep going. I will turn when I choose and if I get it wrong, I will allow my safety diver to do what he is there to do, to look after me during that one dive a year, when I might just find I have done a new PB, because I am not ever going to try to do one in any circumstances where safety is of a lower standard than during a competition.
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Haydn, I hear what you are saying and everybody has their own reasons for competing. However, under the AIDA rules a perfect competition dive includes taking the tag. If you don't agree, then change the rules. A perfect dive is something comlpetely different and to me it doesn't have to have anything to do with depth.
I have been thinking a lot about this because I may have upset Sam (sorry Sam) its been on my mind. And you are right. A perfect dive in a competition must fulfill all the criteria. By manipulating the criteria (excluding the tag grab) is almost intentionally cheating. My theory and practice, tries to exclude the tag grab in order to be able to go deeper, sacrificing points just to get deeper and therefore gain more than you lose, rather than run out of line.
Another rule states you must subscribe your depth. My theory tries to by pass that rule too, by being able to change your mind half way through the dive and so get deeper. A competition dive should not allow this change of mind because the whole idea of subscribing your depth is designed as a safety factor to stop you going deeper than you otherwise might. If for instance you had to get extra metres because your competitor subscribed and achieved deeper, forcing you to be gung ho.
I think I have had my mind changed.
Another rule states you must subscribe your depth. My theory tries to by pass that rule too, by being able to change your mind half way through the dive and so get deeper. A competition dive should not allow this change of mind because the whole idea of subscribing your depth is designed as a safety factor to stop you going deeper than you otherwise might. If for instance you had to get extra metres because your competitor subscribed and achieved deeper, forcing you to be gung ho.
I think I have had my mind changed.
Haydn you risk BO's, damaged ears and lots more by just chucking 5 metres on an established depth at a competition hoping the safety will sort you out if you mess up. If you build up your depth slowly and surround yourself with good safety and don't dive to your limis unless everything is in place you can minimise many problems
FYI you can actually hurt yourself freediving aswell, Most don't in this sport i think because they are prudent.
BTW I still love you, i just wouldn't leave you in charge of my postings for a comp, or your own for that matter rofl
FYI you can actually hurt yourself freediving aswell, Most don't in this sport i think because they are prudent.
BTW I still love you, i just wouldn't leave you in charge of my postings for a comp, or your own for that matter rofl
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I wouldn't worry about Stig, he's 'armless rofl
On a serious note though, do you think you guys are taking this to the n'th degree a bit? Those that have worked with me know that I hate hate HATE over analysing things - I think sometimes freedivers try to put an explanation on something that doesn't really need explaining.
For me personally, I have 2 philosophies on freediving - competitive and recreational. For competitive, I do what I have to (in training and comp) in order to get the most points. That's it. This includes both physical training as well as knowing the rules, penalties etc. There's nothing of letting my soul align with the mother below or any of that kind of stuff. My recreational philosophy is to go out, have fun and don't kill myself.
Cheers,
Ben
On a serious note though, do you think you guys are taking this to the n'th degree a bit? Those that have worked with me know that I hate hate HATE over analysing things - I think sometimes freedivers try to put an explanation on something that doesn't really need explaining.
For me personally, I have 2 philosophies on freediving - competitive and recreational. For competitive, I do what I have to (in training and comp) in order to get the most points. That's it. This includes both physical training as well as knowing the rules, penalties etc. There's nothing of letting my soul align with the mother below or any of that kind of stuff. My recreational philosophy is to go out, have fun and don't kill myself.
Cheers,
Ben
You dont reach your limits and thats why you can go deeper. Limits are things that cause you to stop a dive. For me its failure to equalise. So I can only get to 57m and then go back, smiling and happy on the surface. One day, I will get that equalising done and I will then be able to go deeper before the next equalisation fails (maybe a window of 10 more metres) BUT having gone a bit deeper, I may come up short of breath, my limit will then be bounded by concerns of LMC. So my competition dives pre suppose that on that one dive, everything will be perfect and if so, and I get the equalise, I can choose to turn when I like. Its only happened once, when I got to the tag at my PB depth of 57m and then suceeded to equalise, I couldnt go deeper because I had reached my tag. I had therefore set my limit for that dive because of being prudent (after all it was a competition, so play safe) . 5 metres more was the UK record at the time and I guess that had the tag been set for a record dive, I might have got the tag. The way back up would have been long and I would have to be certain I had faith in my own calmness to make a clean dive, totally reassured that if I had made a mistake of judgement, then the safety divers would look after me.
When I said freediving doesnt hurt, that was comparing normal freediving mistakes LMC etc to normal parkour mistakes broken ankle, leg, neck. Even serious freediving mistakes are more forgiving than Parkour.
Does anyone out there agree that a competition is the best place to do PBs? Surely we have to do them somewhere!
When I said freediving doesnt hurt, that was comparing normal freediving mistakes LMC etc to normal parkour mistakes broken ankle, leg, neck. Even serious freediving mistakes are more forgiving than Parkour.
Does anyone out there agree that a competition is the best place to do PBs? Surely we have to do them somewhere!