"essence of freediving" forgoten or unwanted?

Hi Franck

Your English is not crap, I totally understand. Sometimes I am guilty of all that, but most of the time I am not... and to be honest whilst a PB and a tequila is the good end to a day, for me it happens about every 2 years so that would be a long time to wait to talk about the next fun day freediving!

As you said when we talked at the weekend, there is so much more to it. When you get it right, your buddies feel like a family, you support each other, sometimes you just play together in the water, sometimes you work hard together in the water - sometimes one works hard and the others support him but are just in the mood for playing themselves. Whatever, we all look after each other and trust each other.

The problem with deep rope training is that, well, put people on a deep rope and they want to see who can go the furthest, or if they can go further than they did last time - what we need is almost more of what we get in the winter - more time with the plate set at 25m max, trying different stuff, looking at the pike driving the tank in the shallow end of the lake..... and to get into the sea sometimes.

Hopefully now the busy summer is over I'll have more time to get out to the sea a bit - maybe we should take a trip to the coast, you, me, Remi anyone else and take some spear guns and a camera or maybe not even that.... would be cool to get away from the depth thing for a while too!

and of course, you bring the cakes! yum yum!

Sam

I'm not a competitive freediver - so my opinion is not too heavy. But I started out as a kid just being in the water all the time. Here it is not too easy to to get deep water - so most of my diving is fairly shallow. When I've gotten out to the Coast or to Florida it seems about the same though - that is going deeper was no huge deal - up to a point. For me it's more a function of visibility. That is - 80 feet in really warm water where I could see 200 seemed about the same as 30 in really cold water where I could see maybe 8 feet.

But for me it absolutely remains about fun - I feel best when I've got at least 10 meters or so of water over me. The other day I was out in Lake michigan and found this spot on the bottom that was just so comfortable I had to lay down on my back and look up for awhile.

Of course we all benefit from this becoming a sport - cool gear! Great research etc. It's the thing about humans though - to keep your heart in it with not too many 'reasons'.

I 100% agree with you, shrimp
When you say you like hiking, does they tell you how fast you go? how many meters
you climb/hour? your highest climb?
If you like cycling.. same. swimming.. same
But the first things people ask you when freediving comes into conversation is..
'How deep you go?', 'How long you STRUGLE without air?'
To me freediving is like hiking. Nature, share things with buddies
and dropping your jaw a couple of times due to astonishing beauty or deeply insightfull moments.
Problem is, I have no sea near me, so I had to try every posible method to stay in apnea shape for the summer. I got bored of every method finding the best results
with less time investment. For rec hiking you don't need training, you walk every day,
but freediving...
In fact, IMHO, thing is that you must be in a pretty good shape for just get to the point of enjoying fully the activity.. so here is the competitive side

Hey Shrimp, I'm with you, I think some are more interested in a line with numbers than nature / sureal landsacpes.
I think it depends on many things, among them are the type of person, geographical location and education.
My impression is that mostly people in cold countries tend to start practicing at pools and go to competitions and train for numbers. Being landlocked or out of nature that yells "look at me!" makes one dive differently.

I think education sometimes tend to push mostly into freediving for numbers.
I think courses that are being held in rich environments should not be limited to line diving, the students should be taken to do some "fun diving" as well, near a wall, coral reef, wreck, whatever. They should be given a chance to see both kinds of freediving.
That is a problem though in some places in the world, I don't know how this can be fixed.

I often wondered how the wall of that quarry of you brits look like. Does it have a few fresh water fish/crabs/oysters living there?
If I had dove there I might have been found on the wall having a staring contest eye to eye with a snail at 25 meters rather than deeper on a line in the center. That's how I like to dive.

I was thinking along the same lines just recently on a five day escape that found me in a remote part of the Bahama Islands. I too grew up in a 'pod' of kids - along the Indian Ocean side of South Africa. The memories that I have of those days is dominated by the amount of time we all spent on or under the water. We called it Skindiving. I recall a sense of sheer joy and a lot of laughing when at the end of the day, exhausted, we sat around a fire sharing our catch-of-the-day and talking story. Those were days that in the recent past, I have come to yearn for. It has taken a while to recapture that sense of satisfaction, but I think that this last trip has done just that - altho' accidently and perhaps with a little more of a serious side to it ( I am somewhat older!)

Short story ... I set off early one morning for a destination approximately 10 miles away. I was geared for hiking and freediving and switched out several times before I reached what was supposed to be a trailhead leaving a beach and leading thru the bush to a small settlement. I never found the trail. I was out of water and if there ever was a protocol for this type of dilemna, it certainly would call for a shift to 'Survival' mode. (I think the word 'dumbass' also came to mind).

Obviously I made it, but not without some real challenges - places where I had jumped off the cliffs were not scalable and currents that I had taken advantage of on the way in were not swimable. It was a new ball game with distinct dis-advantages. It was a 10 hour day that I will not soon forget.

My point here tho is not so much the ordeal as it was the feeling I had at the end of the day. As I sat out on the beach later that night in the company of friends eating Grouper and Lobster and enjoying a few extra "KALIK"'s, we inevitably started to talk story. Amongst the group were a 14 year old boy and a 13 year old girl who had been out on the reef for most of the day. I wish I could describe the look in their eyes - it was that familiar look that I had last seen on another beach a long time ago. I am sure that I had something similar across my face, but perhaps a little more seasoned!

So... the "essence of freediving forgotten or unwanted" ? No my friends...all you have to do is reach for it.

Good Morning. I have a couple of words to share here, I totally agree with u the shrimp, I wrote something about it a year ago, maybe more, and I didn't get any anwers.

I grow up and I still live in a place by the sea, I was born here, and since my early days. going underwater to check something was a must in my sundays with my folks at the beach.

Later came the spearfishing, It was something amazing for me, but in time, my spearfishing partners were always on a fight, for me it didn't matter, if I caught one or seven kg. of fish, i was happy, even if my hands were empty.

I began to search for other people to freedive and fish with, I found more buddies, it was perfect, but, the growing up made us change directions, I was alone once more.

Then, I began to train seriously to get inside the national team here in my country, I meet so many friends, so many people, but I feel the same thing, nobody see this like I do.. :duh

The people are pushing this "sport" too far... Like I said in another post....

FOR ME FREEDIVING IT'S A LIFESTILE, NOT A QUEST FOR GLORY.

I agree with samdive. I think there is a time and a place for both pushing the envelope and also for playing. I think feeling of freediving encourages playing amoung even the most dedicated number pusher. I mean, if it was really all about going deeper we would all get tanks. Pushing depth/bottom time for me is a way to increase the fun I have in the water. The deeper I can go, the more I feel like I have some mastery over myself and the more I feel like I belong in the water. We must have fun though. Who enjoyed their last samba/blackout? I guess everybody is in it for different reasons and it is up to them to decide why they do it and how they are going to define their experiences.
Enjoy the blue
Nick

Ok.. I'll do it

Some of even come to the water to heal.

jim

My thoughts on freediving...

When I started pool training two years ago, it was for a number of reasons. First and foremost was a love of the water, and a hope that I would be able to share a few moments with the wonderful creatures that live in it. I was also happy to find a sport that I am not too bad at, as I had grown up with the feeling that I am 'no good at sports'. Then there was also the competitive side - mostly competing with myself, trying to push myself that little bit more.

Now the reasons are much the same, although I haven't had the opportunity to freedive in open water. I'm still holding my breath waiting for the day...

I do like to push myself in training and I am willing to take calculated risks in pursuit of new goals, but I am always very careful not to do anything unreasonably dangerous.

I am also concerned about the number of people getting into freediving who are only geared to the competitive side of the sport, and were not driven to it by a genuine love of the water.

Numbers of people are also something that concern me - two years ago I used to go swimming in the local pool, and I knew that in the late afternoon on a weekday I would have almost the whole pool to myself. Now there are almost always too many people, and I have mostly given up swimming because of this.

I like the fact that only relatively small numbers are drawn to freediving, and if anywhere becomes too crowded, I'll go somewhere else. I like other people, but just not vast crowds of strangers all only thinking of themselves.

I hope that our sport develops in a way which benefits us all, and that the spirit behind it is not forgotten.

Lucia