David Blaines mention in 4 Hour Bod by Tim Ferriss

[jago25_98]

Now I know this might be a contentious subject but it's also been a real eye opener for me in that before learning this I never thought I'd be able to get into free diving before this.

I suppose you may have heard Tim Ferriss writing about part of David Blanes training. There's a lot stress in the book on not doing this in water and having someone watching. I don't know if that's because it's more dangerous than other training techniques.

Basically I've always been pretty bad at holding my breath. Probably less than a minute at tops at times.
I've had friends challange each other to swimming the length of the pool and I always either get beat or end up neck and neck. No natural talent.

I love the underwater environment and I'm stoked at the possibility of just being able to jump in and go for it.

When I saw the film Leon... or was it Taxi Driver? I was inspired by the idea of holding breath in the bath. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to make any progress at all - no wonder; it's all about the breathing before.

But then I read David Blains technique. It's just a Deep Breathing, purge, hold and repeat slightly longer cycle.

I was amazed at getting >4 minutes. A total game changer. I suddenly feel like I can begin to start living some dreams of freediving. Further, it's given a massive amount of confidence to my surfing.

However the book stresses that it must be done with someone watching and never underwater.

hmm...

What's the deal?

From experience I know that when I need someone else to do stuff... nothing happens.
If I had followed the BSA advice of never surfing alone I never would have gone surfing.

Thus I need a way of doing this safely, but alone.

How's about dropping hold breath increase from the cycle and instead using just the deep breath & purge? I'd expect that to prevent the dive reflex, because that's what I think is happening here, something a bit different to other aspects such as purging co2, loading up on o2, efficient o2 distribution due to flexibility etc

Isn't there some piece of technology that can monitor whether I'm concious?

I want to know more about what's going on physiologically too.

Learning this simple trick has been an inspiration. I'm not trying to go as deep as possible or any kind of competition. I'm not even expecting to be aiming to keep trying to increase my time down. Rather I just want to get started enjoying the new found ability exploring underwater and I don't want to get killed in doing so.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

jago25_98,

You're not going to like my response. If it involves holding your breath in or near water then you will need a buddy to spot you. This needs to be someone who knows what taps to give you and what responses to watch for and is able to pull you out and provide assistance in the event of a blackout.

DO NOT BREATH HOLD IN WATER ALONE

This is so important I will say it again - DO NOT BREATH HOLD IN WATER ALONE.

You are pushing yourself at the times you are talking about so you could easily blackout and drown without even knowing it.

If you must train by yourself then do it on the couch where if you pass out you will not inhale water.

There is no magic device to monitor you apart from good old fashioned eyeball mark 1.0.

Many thanks!

 

[Simos]

It really is NOT about the breathing before jago25_98 - I haven't read what David Blaine's book says but the words 'Deep breathing' already sound like trouble to me and this is because of Hyperventilation.

You can search on this term here or even on google and you can get a lot of information - but basically the bottomline is that it makes the breathold 'feel' easier by lowering your CO2 levels, therefore suppressing the urge to breathe. Unfortunately it does nothing in terms of increasing the amount of oxygen in your body and as this gets depleted, essentially you black out without even feeling the urge to breathe.

There are other effects at play with hyperventilation that work against you but I'll let you read about those.

On this note, even without hyperventilating you can have a black out - many people do. So hence why it's important to always have a buddy watching you.

Please take Stephan's advice and NEVER hold your breath in water alone, even if it's just the bath - once you black out in water alone, there is no saving you, be it in the bath or in the pool or in the sea. Many people have died holding their breath in the bath sadly...

It sounds to be from the times you mentioned that you are also probably much closer to blacking out that you think so PLEASE take this advice seriously. It really is not like surfing alone...

Why don't you take a freediving course since you love it so much - you will learn how to hold your breath for longer in a safe way, alongside a lot of other awesome info. Holding your breath is only one part of freediving, there is so much more to learn.

If you need further advice don't hesitate to post but in the meantime, please do take some time to look up safety information on freediving here and don't hold your breath alone in water.

 

[baiyoke]

I do honestly not know exactly what to write or comment on your thread jago25_98, but I will however respond and make things up along the way.... because it's important to you, your family, to me, and the freediving community, that you get an answer, when you write about such dangerous things: Holding your breath is not in itself dangerous. Staying underwater in itself is not. But there's something that is really, really, really dangerous. It's a cocktail. Some people have had it and survived, some didn't. It consists of the following:
- Discovering FREEDIVING, wich is GREAT (good for you, so congrats...
- Not knowing what's going on in the body and mind doing breathhold.
- not realising the potential danger because it seems so peaceful, good, beautiful... and so easy to do, on the couch, in bed, walking or... in a bathtub.
- a strong urge to freedive (great, but needs to be
- the lack of a school, buddy or training partners...
- The frustrating thoughts and feelings of finding something as GREAT as freediving...but not (presumably) being able to really get to do it....
- The dilemma that places you in... "should I do it alone?".

I am not an experienced freediver or anything, but my short time in freediving has allready learnt me, that there are some inherent forces at work here, and they are STRONG... Some relates to the feeling we get from playing with freediving/apnea... perhaps there's a big physical and mental reward for us, since we do something like that, despite the strong urge to breath. Perhaps people that discover freediving NEED freediving... Also it can be difficult to see what's up and down in this strange sport where people stop breathing... What is dangerous and what's not... And third sometimes people likes to stare death in the eyes, saying stuff like.. "to hell with it, I'm doing this, becuse I want to..."...

I don't know if the above is understandable, or if you can relate to it or not, but I wanted to write that before I write the following:

I strongle advice you to learn more about freediving, and change the way you are currently thinking and acting. You can channel your energy to other ways of learning and practising freediving.

There have been many people writing almost exactly what you are writing and thinking (yes believe or not, but very much the same). It is very often about training alone + hyperventilating, but not realising it.

There has been debate on what to write back to people, who is in your situation. I will try a more positive direction for now:

You have discoverd a great, great thing: Freediving. It will perhaps draw your attention like almost no other sport has done before. It can be lifechanging, and it's a really, really good thing. But just like other things in life, you/we need to learn and be respectfull, because we cannot master things immediately... Try to channel your energy into positive things about this sport. Don't get too preoccupied witj the frustration, if you cannot just freedive antime you want. This is not jogging or walking in the park Respect that, and respect yourself enough to make that choice Try to find others with whom you can share this. Take a course. Make you next holiday be a freedive holiday, next weekend visit someone somewhere etc. etc. Don't let the limitations drive you to do dangerous stuff, instead seek possibilities, and learn along the way....

I wish you good luck discovering this great world of freediving...

I will remember this thread and my post, and next time I see a similar thread, I will copy-paste it to the next person. And these thoughts and questions will come back again and again, that's completely understandable... The important thing is how we answer...

Thomas
http://forums.deeperblue.com/members/jago25_98.html

 

[Kars]

Instead of saying 'never freedive alone' I would say:

-Always share your dives with a skilled friend.

I'm happy you've found Deeperblue, for the great forum and place it is, with all the veterans, beginners, intermediates and even world champions who offer their insights with the Family like Freedive community. Use the search function to find information and perhaps even find local freedivers!

From your post I think you've got a great experience that showed you could do much more then you had imagined. Now you want to go to the next level, you'll need a skilled buddy, discipline and a inquisitive mind. Through that effort you'll find many more precious insights and moments, and you'll learn skills you had not even considered.

To find a buddy, locate you're local scuba club, swim club, use social media, hang an add at your local stores, ask your surfer friends etc. What you also can do is invite an freedive instructor over, and help him organise a freedive introduction weekend, perhaps in collaboration with a scuba club?

Now perhaps others don't agree with this, but for now when you're in the pool you can do a bit of diving IF you maintain the following discipline:

1 - Only breath normally,
2 - Exhale slowly, inhale slowly, go.
3 - come up slowly just after the first urge to breath.

Breathing normally happens when you don't think about it.
In preparation your aim is to calm down and relax.
When you are, exhale, inhale and start your dive.
When you freedive the goal is to keep the surface relaxation, enjoy the water and flow.
If you relax well you'll have great sensations, and a good time, learning the skill of relaxation, streamline, detecting your bodies responses, good propulsion technique etc. Also your skills will amaze people, and they'll come to you wanting to try it too. Presto another chance to meet nice people and possibly a nice dive buddy.

The danger now is you don't know if you're hyperventilating. Hyperventilations screws up your detection of when to come up, AND increases O2 consumption.
Another danger is your mental power. Determined people get often a tunnel vision, a total focus on (for instance) making a certain distance, or punching through a 'barrier'. This unconscious tunnel vision prevents them from detecting their personal limit. Sometimes they consciously choose to be too focused believing they'll be able to snap out of it later, but mostly because they have too much invested in the will to succeed in making a particular number. All of these mistakes I've made personally. And I hope you value my experience and choose to limit yourself until you have a skilled buddy and a safe setting to experiment into new territory.

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

 

[jago25_98]

Thanks for some very nice replies, especially graceful from Thomas - everything what you're describing there is exactly how it is. A cocktail which makes you feel invincible or rather... not caring so much about dying. Thank you for saying it this way. I am listening.

"The danger now is you don't know if you're hyperventilating. Hyperventilations screws up your detection of when to come up, AND increases O2 consumption."

^ ok, that's the key bit of info I was looking for. This is making sense now; I'm not taking on extra O2; I'm just suppressing the urge to breath.

I'll be in Buenos Aires next month. I'll see if I can find a club.


I found a site once running trips for tourists using a system of tubes connected to buoys as a much easier way to dive. It was too expensive though to hold much advantage over true Scuba. Isn't there something more assessible and cheap like a mini chamber as backup to a surface fed system, something like that? I've often wondered why there isn't something that could be built into a wetsuit for surfers should they need it.

Thanks all!

 

[JennyWren]

re: bringing air down with you

As soon as you do this, you are breathing compressed air at depth (e.g. people who bring a pony bottle).

This makes you a SCUBA diver - and means you have to decompress. You are no longer freediving if you take in air at depth. You then have to behave as you would on SCUBA, following careful ascent times, etc.

It's all been said above, but honestly, find a few buddies, you will make new friends, learn a wealth of techniques, locations, stories, etc. It makes the whole sport not only safer but way way more fun.

 

[Haydn]

Holding your breath in water alone, is so dangerous that even experienced freedivers don't do it. If you are going to try to pick it up along the way, the odds are that you will die. Going on a course is the only answer. You will then be really amazed when you understand the theory and practice.