Guest viewing is limited
  • Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Freediving Schools Equivalent Levels

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

speedcraft18

New Member
Nov 8, 2009
129
5
0
Hi every body. I wish some information about the equivalents in levels of freediving between Apnea Academy , SSI Freediving, Apnea Total and AIDA.
Maybe someone has a table or something similar.

Thanks and best regards
Albert
 
I don't (and probably are not directly comparable) but I am intrigued as to why you'd need this Albert :)
 
as aida diver you can enroll in an SSI course ,not sure about the opposite.
aida recognizes apnea academy and vice versa.
Apnea total is a bit different: it s not a "real" sport federation ,it s a koh tao based shop and also a franchise elsewhere. apnea total instructors used to be part of FREE federation a long time ago before that federation disapeared.
Nowadays ,as far as i know, apnea total certifications are not recognized by any other organization. (i suppose because of their standards ,and the fact that you can "pass" a course without mastering constant weight and do feet first free immersion instead of cw,that and the fact there are no minimum performance involved in their beginner or intermediate courses).
That said, whether you choose a good instructor is more important than the card ,and you may have a good time with any of these organizations ,but if you plan to be perhaps an instructor one day ,aida and ssi are probably the best choices.As well Apnea academy offer excellent training with very high standards,but their course are different from other organizations,their courses are longer and more suitable for club training (more suitable if you live in a city and look for regular "week end " training ,a bit like cmas)
 
Last edited:
What's a real sport federation? Who certifies?
I also teach courses and I've found that 90% don't care if the courses are "recognised"
I don't think I would automatically accept someone who did another course.
Should we take AIDA courses as the benchmark?
 
Some of the best courses I've done and learnt the most from have all been uncertified.
Seb Murats, Will Trubridges and Wal stynes back in 04.
 
I am a newly certified SSI Level 2 Freediving Instructor and alott of people ask me to compare different schools just to know what they expect from the course. As I am in Malta , the most known school is Apnea Academy and then Aida. SSI is something new here and I just need to convince them that it is a very good school as the others. They already realised this as they saw my progress from 25m to 45m in just 1 month.

Thank you all guys for your info.
 
watts I know Will is an AA instructor now, was he back then? As part of the AA plan an instructor can do a stage course which is basicly an intensive course focusing on a specific discipline ie cw or static etc or just a very practical course over a weekend etc but no certification comes from AA.

Some of the best courses I've done and learnt the most from have all been uncertified.
Seb Murats, Will Trubridges and Wal stynes back in 04.
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2025 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT