How old were you (when you started freediving)?

[iceselkie]

As I posted in Mr.Black's original thread Re: How old are you? ... I'm curious to know:

How old were you? When you started to freedive that is..

Seeing such a perfect population distribution in the previous age thread was quite interesting. Now let's see if there is a median. (I'm taking some stats this semester LOL)

 

[Bill]

Hard question to answer. We were 'doing it' for 30-40 years before I heard the term free diving. I'd vote to change the name back to skin diving because the word free causes problems with E-bay and google. How about apnea?
Aloha
Bill

 

[iceselkie]

OK, apneist!
(is that spelled right?) Hey I've never had fun searching on EBay either. LOL
I enjoyed the challange of staying underwater as long as possible when I tried SCUBA in 1994 and then I got snorkle equipment in 1997. I had been in swimming lessons all my life it seems, but never starting pushing myself under the water until I got my NLS in 2000. So I was in my early 20's when I started taking the sport seriously.
As for those of you who got into the sport in the under 13 category- what was your main influence?

 

[Lambis]

depends !

Snorkeling, some freediving 10 years old
Spearfishing 14 years old
Serius freediving 35 Years old

Lambis

 

[unirdna]

I'm envious all who were fortunate to start so young. I am a first generation diver.

Started [surface] spearfishing when I was 25, but didn't learn to equalize until I was 28 (may 2002) .....stumbled into hands-free equalization two weeks later. Every time I went diving last year, I scored a new pb.

Truth-be-told. Without this forum, I would still be without a dive buddy, without my favorite speargun, without proper gear, and without even 10% of the skill I have now.

Travesty! All that time I wasted . Serendipitous that I discovered freediving at all .

Ted

 

[ash]

I have been snorkeling for as long as I can remember but I only discovered freediving last year at age 33 and it has completely replaced all the scuba diving I used to do.

Ted put it very well in his earlier post in this thread....I am very grateful that I found freediving (or maybe it found me).

Ash

 

[flyboy748]

My dad bought me my first Mask snorkel and fins when I was about 5. I didn't have alot of chances to use them outside of the pool, but when I did, it was almost impossible to get me out of th water! I remember him taking me to one of the really clear springs in Fla. on a family vacation. The water always facinated me, and I've been freediving ever since whenever I got the chance.

My next chance will be on tuesday... Can't wait!

Also last week I bought my son (4 yrs old) his first mask snorkel and fins. I'm not sure who's more excited, him or me! All winter in the pool and he should be ready to try some snorkeling with me next year. And so the cycle begins again....

Aaron

 

[Alimar7]

I was five a holiday in greece, and to be honest, its hard to remember a time when i wasnt in the water after that. See when i went in on my very first dive i found, a wood and silver cross, with the word "blue jerusalem" inscribed on the back.

I was just snorkeling along on top of the water, and i saw this weird silver thing just below me on the rocks, so i dove down, almost swalloed most of the med in the process, came up coughing and spluttering and opend my hand. And in it was the small wooden cross.
A minor triumph i admit, and probably a 20 pence piece of tourist trash, but to me it was the begining of a journey.

Ive still got it around my neck, and while im not religous its a comfort to think thats theirs a spiritual place wether it be above or below the surface.

Alistair Marr

 

[samdive]

I used to have holding your breath in the bath competitions with my brother when I was about 6 and he was 4 - does that count? one held their breath, the other counted... we both lived to tell the tale rather amazingly!

Sam

 

[Jersey Jim]

Am currently 41, and just finished a third season freediving. However, I used to snorkel as a teenager without the nice gear we have available today. Actually I didn't even know about any gear other than scuba.

I can remember lying in bed at age 4 or 5, holding my breath as long as I could, not really knowing why I wanted to. I would also have the same dream a few times a year for many, many years as a child (and even older but less frequently), of "flying", actually more like slow hovering or floating just a few feet above the ground in my yard. I've come to realize this was probably a premonition of future freediving. Who knows. A past life, or things to come.

Jim

 

[cdavis]

I'm 53, read the "Silent World" at 9 and was permanently hooked. Started dry apnea right after the book, aquired diving gear and shot my first fish at 15, been at it ever since.


Jim, I had the same dream, so vivid I was sure it was real. Freediving is just like that dream.

Connor

 

[AltSaint]

I was about 9 and could only just swim when my Father first took me out to snorkel in the warm waters of The Bahamas ( where we had just moved to ).

First time out we were approached by a pair of Manta Rays. I had no idea what these things were, and my swimming abilities improved several hundred percent as I bolted toward the shore. Over the years we spent all our spare time snorkelling / spearfishing. ( Nowadays I only shoot with a camera ).

When I was 14, I moved to the dark side, and learned Scuba. A local dive shop let me help out on their boat, kitting up the tourists and being a spare buddy. If I wasn't needed on a dive, then I'd put on mask and fins and swim down to the scoobies ( only about 15 metres, but it was a lot to me then ).

After my family returned to the UK, I wandered off into the wilderness of terra firma. Only managed to find my way back about 5 years ago, and then it took another 3 years to drop that heavy metal thing off my back. Now at 42, I'm back in the blue / green and picking up where I left off. In the words of Madonna 'It feels like home'....

 

[samdive]

no way - you are NEVER 42!!!!

 

[AltSaint]

Errr - no. I meant my depth of course. Whoops.

 

[OceanSwimmer]

Huh??

Originally posted by samdive
no way - you are NEVER 42!!!!

:hmm ....and the point is?

 

[OceanSwimmer]

Back to the Question....

---Interesting question iceselkie!

--Learned to swim at age 4-5 ....and enjoyed swimming underwater so much that my nickname was 'Porpoise'.
It seemed natural to extend the length of time underwater. It seemed a natural form of play.
Had my first 'serious' competition in dynamic apnea with our next-door neighbor who bet I couldn't swim as far as he could (laps) on one breath, (no fins). [I was 10; he was 35.]
I will never forget the awe and fear on his face when we both surfaced 4 laps later in that Olympic size pool***. He couldn't believe a 'mere girl' could (or possibly would) be able to match him. It was during this time I the noticed the 'urge/need' to breathe came in 'waves' that would come and go.
Never thought much about it; I presumed everyone has the same abilities and potential. Seemed like no big deal at the time.
Never had a blackout or samba.
Didn't know the phenomena or terms until last year.
Go figure!

Thanks to a buddy who gave me a reality-check: the pool had to be smaller.....guess I am 'remembering' with the eyes of a child!

 

[icarus pacific]

Originally posted by iceselkie
When you started to freedive that is..

1968.

 

[AltSaint]

OceanSwimmer - Samdive knows me outside DB, and knows my levels of wisdom and maturity. Both of these put me a little under eighteen.

My biggest influence for freediving when I was younger, I hate to say, was probably looking for the biggest pair of lobster antennae I could find.

Pleased to say, though, on the last Scuba dive I went on, I found a lobster and did my bit to save it. ( I silted up the water so that the nearby diver who was lobster catching, wouldn't see it. )

See what I mean about wisdom and maturity?

 

[Adrian]

To get me used to the water my father used to throw pennies - actually rials, we lived in Iran - in the pool for me to dive for them. This was when I was around 6 or 7. I always loved animals, and it was natural that I'ld go skindiving in Greece, (moved there at age 10) where I also started to spearfish with a hand-held trident. The picture is around then with my Dad in the background.

So you could say the whole story started then.

Adrian

 

[icarus pacific]

Beauty shot, Adrian.