Breath Ban in NYC - Journalist Inquiry

[juliaeva]

Hi All,

I originally learned about free diving after watching The Deepest Breath on Netflix and I couldn’t stop thinking about it after. I have a huge admiration and respect for those involved in the sport. Further, I am utterly amazed and in awe of what the human body is capable of.

I am a freelance journalist in NYC and I am writing a piece about the breath ban here that inhibits divers from participating in any activities associated with the sport. My aim is to explore the benefits of free diving, what people might get wrong about it and how divers here are negatively impacted by the ban.

If anyone on here is interested in speaking with me, or knows someone who might be I would love that! I am looking to speak to divers, safety divers and anyone else involved. You do not need to be NYC based, you can be from anywhere! Thank you so much, excited to be here and learn more!

Kindly,

Julia

 

[J Campbell]

Well, I have an opinion on breath holding bans in general. Bans on breath holding are a gross bludgeon used stop a legitimate sport activity. People implementing the bans do it without any real knowledge of the sport. They hear of a diver death and then over-react by banning the sport. And their is no reasoning with them.

 

[7BDiver]

Apnea sports in general is still in its infancy here in the states. Most of these pools do not have the staff on hand with training or focus to manage this type of sport in their facilities. Largely they do not want to accept the liability. The lack of certified trainers to oversee the practice of the sport in their facilities does not help win them over. If the sport was more mainstream and the opportunity for revenue was there I'm sure the story would be different. The overarching issue is the perception that someone might just drown if they aren't paying attention, this has done great damage to the sports reputation. Often you will see articles quote blackouts as some unpredictable phenomenon. As with getting struck by lightning, drowning deaths of children are relatively low, some 300 per year. When this happens in a public pool it gets a significant amount of negative attention compared to the ubiquitous injury rate of the most practiced sports. Not to get too political but you will find the demographic of where these bans take place are very focused in the metropolitan areas where all rules are meant to meet the lowest common denominator in public common sense and self preservation. In the end we can only blame ourselves, too many people have gone to pools training at maximum limit and ultimately passing it. This is not how training is done. For now I can still train in the pools local to me, but I stick to a pattern in a lane, keep it under 2 min and don't linger at the bottom blowing bubbles.

 

[vrokhlenko]

Hi All,

I originally learned about free diving after watching The Deepest Breath on Netflix and I couldn’t stop thinking about it after. I have a huge admiration and respect for those involved in the sport. Further, I am utterly amazed and in awe of what the human body is capable of.

I am a freelance journalist in NYC and I am writing a piece about the breath ban here that inhibits divers from participating in any activities associated with the sport. My aim is to explore the benefits of free diving, what people might get wrong about it and how divers here are negatively impacted by the ban.

If anyone on here is interested in speaking with me, or knows someone who might be I would love that! I am looking to speak to divers, safety divers and anyone else involved. You do not need to be NYC based, you can be from anywhere! Thank you so much, excited to be here and learn more!

Kindly,

Julia

I have been diving for more than 50 years and during that time many freedivers died including Molchanova viewed by some as the best ever. I personally think that a competitive freediving is stupid - whether it is for time, depth or distance. I know, it sounds harsh and some would be upset but I do not care. I know my limits and when I spearfish - I never stay underwater more than 50% of my record time which is 4 minutes. Usually much less. Competitive freediving is not a real sport since sometimes people in less than 2 years achieve records - it is mostly genetics. But I do not support this ban - very typical of a semi-socialist government. It is your life to lose.