First day of PFI class; First wet static!

[jimqpublic]

Hi all;

I'm just so jazzed I had to post. Today was my first day of taking the intermediate freedive class from PFI. It was AWESOME! The training team is primarily Kirk Krack and Martin Stepanek with Paul Kotik doing one of the lecture segments and Grant Graves as the fourth team member to keep the instructor to student ratio at 1:4.

The day was mostly classroom stuff. Although I have read something on most of the subjects touched on, the personal illustrations provided by Kirk and Martin made it much easier to understand.

We did a pool session of rescue drills and then did a wet static. The static times ramped up, with 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and finally 4:00. My best dry static (after practicing tables for about a week) had been 3:45, although I didn't try for longer after that. Today 4:00 was hard, but I did it! I guess that's my baseline PB.

My training buddy didn't expect to get past 2:00, but he almost made it to 4:00 as well.

Jim

 

[Morg]

Wow . I cannot wait to take this course.

I plan on training as much as I can (4 more months) until I take the course to take full advantage of this course.

I bet your going to have so much more fun for the rest of the time there . Have a blast and let us know what happends.

 

[jimqpublic]

As Martin said when I announced I've been in the water just twice:
"Good, no bad habits to unlearn."

 

[Cliff Etzel]

Dude - Congrats on your PB!!!

You are fortunate as Martin stated....

 

[matrixed82]

Congrats on your PB!
I've been wanting to take the clinic for two years now and I'm finally taking it next week. I can't wait to unlearn all those bad habits. Let us know how the open water session went. Are the next three days all open water or are you in the pool also?

 

[jimqpublic]

Today is pool again, then we take the ferry over to Catalina this evening. Tomorrow is open water all day with two long shore diving sessions at the Casino Point Underwater Park. I believe the fixed descent lines there will be about 20m although part of the park does get to 30m. Tuesday is deep open water from the King Neptune dive boat where we'll work up (down) to our max depths.

Jim

 

[Delfino]

Congrats on your PB! It sounds like you are having a lot of fun. I took the intermediate class this past Janaury and it was truly a life changing experience. It was one of the best things I have ever done! I am looking forward to hearing more about your ocean sessions. Your enthusiam is infectious.....Aloha!

 

[Rf2]

As Martin said when I announced I've been in the water just twice:
"Good, no bad habits to unlearn."

I just had to say that that is remarkably clever.

 

[jimqpublic]

Class is over and I'm 100% exhausted.

I did a 5:10 static in the pool session Sunday but had a bit of a samba coming up. I didn't feel good about my relaxation throughout the static. At about 4:30 I grabbed the pool wall and pulled my feet in so I'd be ready to come up. In fact I had most of my head out of the water with just the face in at that time. Definitely using too much O2 holding position. Then I came up, took a couple breaths and wobbled a bit. I remember wanting my mask off but it took about fifteen minutes before I could clearly recall that it was someone else (Kirk), not me taking it off. At the 4:45 mark I knew it was time to come up but held off for the 5:00 call. Now I know.

The open water sessions were a different story. At Catalina Island the water was much colder with much less visibility than the week prior. Plus it seemed that hanging off a float and watching the murky water made me rather queasy.

Even though I knew in my head that with a 5:00 static I should be able to easily do a long free immersion, my body kept telling me to rush. I mananged to get to 20 meters each day pulling down. Finning down my technique was horrid. I took at least 12 kicks to get to 10 meters which was as far as I went. Many attempts had me just doing crazy zig-zags in the water.

Equalizing had been my biggest concern but up to my max 20 meters wasn't too hard for me. The first day I started out with some trouble until I realized that air in my ear & hood made it hard to sense equalization. I had to re-flood the hood several times and then I was good for hands free Freznel equalization to 5 or 10 meters, after which I needed to pinch my nose & use Freznel while clicking my ears open. Day two I poked some holes in the wetsuit hood adjacent to my ears and equalization was fine. The only times I had trouble was when I craned my neck or tried to descend too quickly. Chin tucked descending at a moderate pace I was fine.

I made the foolish mistake of staying up 'till 11:30 and having two beers the night before the first ocean day. Then I still woke at my normal 5:00 AM, so I wasn't up to par that day. Also I just got a bit intimidated by the whole thing.

Overall the class was an incredible start to freediving for me. Even though I've been reading everything I can online, the lectures were all very educational.

Kirk came down with laryngitis Sunday night so Martin pretty much took over from there. Amazing guy. I never would have expected the star athlete to be such a great presenter as well. I would compare this team with Chris Carmichael and Lance Armstrong, but honestly I think Martin is a far better speaker than Lance.

In all just incredible.

Did I mention Paul Kotik? He was the unbilled hero of the open water sessions. Showing me lots of little nuances that really helped. He even showed me how to completely clear my snorkel by rolling over. How cool is that?

Grant did a good talk on the psychology of freediving. Unfortunately it didn't psych me up to relax on the way down. I think only practice will help that.

To bed now.

Jim

PS- I have a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawl. Thanks Martin.

 

[sheepeck]

Great.
I believe it was really superb course. Thanks for sharing your experience.
You are lucky to live in country with sea - I'm too far from any salty water (kitchen not considered).

I'm going to take course lectured by Martin's Czech Republic representative team member - Dan Exner. I'm going to Croatia for last week of June. I'm looking forward so much.

Petr

 

[lungfish]

I just finished an advanced course with PFD in Kona the week prior to Jims, and I have to say that it only gets better every time I am around these guys. More info, upgraded training techniques, etc.... Not to mention that they are simply very nice folks. There were only two of us in the advanced portion, and to have the direct attention of someone like Mandy-Rae or Martin is worth every penny.
We had one blackout, see my post on the "My Shallow Water Blackout Nightmare" thread. A nonevent.
The safety training is particularly useful....

Everybody, 14 folks across all age groups and experiences, did at least a 4min breath hold, many did 5 and a couple did 6min. Probably 80% of the intermediate class reached 100ft and it was clear that all felt that they got their monies worth.

The facilities here in Kona are just exactly what is needed for the class/pool sessions and Honaunau is a joy to dive in....

My invite still stands, if anyone(JimQ) wants to come and stay with me for cheap and dive the Kona coast, just drop me a PM. I am here for safety backup, practice partner, etc....a few have taken me up on it and clearly had a good time. I have a huge an comfortable house about ten minutes from Honaunau... I am especially set up for training for the September competition here in Kona.

Lungfish

 

[lungfish]

Hey Petr, you still heading our way in August?

 

[sheepeck]

Hi Lungfish.

Yes. Nothing (I hope) would stop me.
So - I have two more months to train a bit. Wonder how the course will be. I'll let you know when I'm back. I'll try to take some pictures and videos (bought 2G memory card for camera) so I will share if they are not too bad.

 

[Parapsycho]

Im thinking of taking the Intermediate class in August here in California. I can do about 10 meters and 1:00 underwater.

Just need to find $600...

Edit: Looking at the calss description, it says that there is a $55-75 fee for each open water session. Im guessing that this isnt covered in the course fee?

 

[Parapsycho]

Looking at the class description, it says that there is a $55-75 fee for each open water session. Im guessing that this isnt covered in the course fee?

 

[jimqpublic]

Correct. It depends on where you take the class. I believe that in Kona they are able to do shore dives so no extra fee. For the Malibu class we took a ferry to Catalina Island, stayed two nights in a hotel, and had one day shore dive and one boat dive. The total cost for ferry, hotel, and dive boat was $225.

Jim

 

[DiverTodd]

I'm taking the Intermediate course with PF in Sept, in Miami. I am very, very, very, VERY excited! My static (dry) is up to 2:30, I can swim over 25m underwater (horizontal) no fins, and I've done a few freedives to 34'....I am SO ready to learn all the RIGHT ways to do these things!

Todd