Documentary of extreme sport

[attention11]

Dear free divers,

we are planning a documentary about extreme sport. It's a critical analysis about the extreme sports theme!

Therefore we will be in Kalamata filming Guillaume Nery - the world champion free diver! Have a look: Attention, a life in Extremes | Facebook

For our documentary we need your thoughts, feelings, ideas....

Our first question:
What's about your training schedule?

Please tell us more!

Looking forward to hear from you soon

The attention-team

 

[bobdonny]

Well there are training schedule's and there are Irish training schedules... I presume you want the former, nevermind

 

[attention11]

Give me some inspiration from your training!
What are the most important things you need for the competitions?
Endurance? Power? Mental skills?

Greetings :ko

 

[pingshui]

Most of it is definitely mental!

 

[Mullins]

Explain...?

 

[attention11]

How you get your mental power?

 

[pingshui]

Mental strength is important, because you need to learn to relax in an extreme situation. At least until at some point it is not extreme to yourself anymore, but still for most outsiders. You need to focus on the reactions of your body, interpret them and then have the discipline to act accordingly, otherwise you might end up with a bo. In other cases you need to stay calm even if the situation seems scary, like when you dive into the darkness in a lake with little to no visibility. And during o2 and co2 tables you need to be strong and not give up or freak out when contractions set in. So, you simply need mental strength for most of what you are doing.

How you train for it? Repeat the same routines until you build up confidence, I guess.

Oh, and there is another very important point I should have mentioned in my first post: PROPER SAFETY/ A GOOD BUDDY, without it I simply can't and shouldn't push myself.

 

[attention11]

I think it's not possible to have proper safety?

 

[ThomasB]

I think it's not possible to have proper safety?

If we say it is possible will you stillmake the documentary or freediving won't be extreme anymore to your eyes ?

 

[attention11]

You can be sure - freediving will be still extreme enough!

 

[pingshui]

Well, safety in freediving depends very much on the situation and discipline. In pool disciplines proper safety is pretty easy to achieve. In depth disciplines, especially in no limit or variable weight it very much depends on the depth, the proper safety routine, the equipment, the amount of money available and so on. In competitions safety is usually extremely high.

But, it also plays a role if you accept your limits and don't push too hard or if you desperately try to go deeper. In that case you are simply gambling.

 

[efattah]

Certainly repetition plays a role.

When I first started diving, doing a 'fun' dive to 30-35m in cold dark water seemed very scary. Such that while I was sitting on the bottom, my mind would be empty, thinking only about the dive.

Now, 13 years later, things are different. Today I will dive to 30-35m in cold dark water and sit on the bottom and it feels no different than sitting on my couch at home. I will sit on the bottom and worry about problems at work, problems in relationships or bills that need to be paid, and so on, even though I'm deep underwater without any air supply.

In order to get the 'empty mind' feeling where I forget about all my problems, I need to keep going deeper because the old depth doesn't work anymore.

 

[cdavis]

Attention11, I think you have a mostly wrong idea. For nearly all of us, 99.999 per cent of the time, freediving isn't extreme at all, its one of the most relaxing, comfortable things we can do. Further, there are almost no situations, outside of no limits(maybe), where proper safety is not possible, it just requires some relatively minor changes in behavior. Nobody EVER died in a properly safetyed freediving competition, despite the fact that 100+ meter dives are getting more and more common. Compare that with really extreme sports, big wave surfing, base jumping, free climbing, etc.

Connor

 

[attention11]

I think the problem is - like pingshui and efattah told us - if don't accept your limit. You always want to go deeper and deeper - you need it for your competition - and that is the dangerous thing!

 

[pingshui]

Not everyone wants to go deeper and deeper! I am happy to dive around in a depth where there is something to see. And that is seldom deeper than 20m.
In competition of course everyone tries to dive as deep as possible, but not all freedivers dive in competitions. I think any sport can become extreme when you seriously enter the competition circus.

I believe most people think freediving is extreme, because they have never tried it themselves and/or are scared of water and the unknown in general.

 

[bobdonny]

Give me some inspiration from your training!
What are the most important things you need for the competitions?
Endurance? Power? Mental skills?

Greetings :ko

Arrogance... critical!

 

[AJB8]

I'm hardly at the extreme end of the sport just yet, having only started in January this year. At that time I was tossing up between rock climbing and freediving. I saw a documentary on rock climbing with a dude called Sharma and he was pretty awesome, but I also liked the Zen-like state you have to achieve to push your body in such a way. Freediving seemed like a more wholesome form of this in many ways. I think it requires a similar amount of discipline and mental strength and can be just as spectacular, if more mysterious and less of a spectator sport.

I think both 'sports' tap into the awesome power of nature, like freefalling in reach of a rockface or that feeling when you become negatively bouyant and pulled into the depths. What I don't get from freediving though is a rush of adrenaline. I might be alone in experiencing only a simple blissful feeling edged with the stress of limitation. Then instead of the rush of freefall, you breech the surface again and can breathe.

Perhaps they're like the converse of one another in many ways, climbing and diving. Especially in terms of time spent weightless. I like to think of it that way. Extreme? I suppose I'd ask what people get from extreme experiences and go from there.

 

[cdavis]

The adrenaline rush:

I think you have zerod in on the difference between extreme sports and freedivng. All the extreme sports I'm aware of and the one I participate in (body surfing waves much bigger than me) all have an aspect of adrenaline rush. I love it, but you don't find it in freediving. That has a very different kind of attraction, not sure I can describe it.

Connor

 

[ReefTroll]

I think the problem is - like pingshui and efattah told us - if don't accept your limit. You always want to go deeper and deeper - you need it for your competition - and that is the dangerous thing!

That viewpoint can now be liberally applied to everything in your life.
Like driving to the shops, we now want to go faster and faster until we find ourselves wrapped around a light-pole. AWESOME!
My new sport, extreme commuting!
Or how about walking down stairs? 1 at a time, no no, 5, no bugger this! I'm throwing myself out of the 5th floor window, count THEM stairs!!!

 

[attention11]

In the last days you told me that freediving isn't really dangerous - but Guillaume Nery told in article about apnoe diving that there were many accidents in the last month. P.ex.
Patrick Musimu (owner in world record) died during his training, the Arabian Champion Adil Abu Halika never came back from a 70m dive ... Also Guillaume hadn't always proper safety - he passed out one time during he goes back!