How to 'Flow' in Freediving?

[cdavis]

Kars, at what point (how does it feel) do you start moving? In practice, I normally start swimming at the point where contractions make me want to move more than sit still, normally that is about 45 seconds to a minute after the first urge to breathe. To put it another way, the point where contractions go from "present, but not uncomfortable" to "noticeably uncomfortable" and moving brings down the discomfort level. Do you use the same point or some other marker?

4:30 eh, nice. You got past me too easy. I think I'll try some frog.

Connor

 

[Kars]

Hi Connor,

In the video's dive (3'42") I start jumping at about 2', where actually the first two -very mild and comfortable- contractions just started.

Last Sunday, again with a full breath.. , I choose to extend the static part riding some more contractions, in retro respect I guess about 40 seconds until 2'40". That day they were much stronger than the week before, because I was much more tired and not rested. Still I did have an empty head and did not get caught up trying to handle the contractions. I refocussed on gliding feeling the soft water stroking my skin, though I must admit it was not as relaxed as the week before. When I came up I expected a time similar to last weeks, but it was actually much longer. Next Sunday I'll try to get there rested and see what happens. - I'll have a recording made.

The plan is, when I reach the 5' is to gradually start jumping earlier until I'm jumping around for 5' Than change that into swimming

Well in regard to progress, I guess I'm changing two basic qualities: Relaxation, and turning my body into a strong 'sprinters' physique. - Gosh I wished I knew this earlier in my freediving career.

Doing 4' in FRC Is GREAT Conner, maybe I'll give that a shot tomorrow.

Take care!

Kars

 

[FreeRestriction]

demasoni I know what you mean exactly. although i dont use a dive watch. when i do statics wether in the pool or on the couch. if i am either looking at the time or have some one giving me minutes marker signals underwater it immediatly messes up my relaxation because either i see that im doing good and then lower my standards to "oh i dont need to push on much longer because im already doin good" or i see that im falling behind and think "oh crap ill never make it to my goal now" and then come contractions that might not have come for some time longer had i not known the time.
But its still a constant mental battle to let go of a sense of time.

 

[titan]

any formulas to share?

 

[Kars]

Hi everybody,

I want you all to know that today I enjoyed a very nice dive, one that kicked open a new era in my diving.

Doing the same frog flow thing I did in video on the previous page, 3'42", the dive time was this time a great deal longer, I guess over 5 minutes
Though I slept light and not long, I came to the pool with some warm herbal tea and a banana in my belly. I put on the regular equipment. Stood in the corner for a few minutes, putting my brain in a relaxed state of meditation using the pranayama nose-switch breathing. Than took an easy full breath in, a lazy duck dive and glide down to the -3,8m bottom. Where I rested. I listened a bit to the muffled sounds, but did not examine them. After the first sensation of 'discomfort', some soft contraction, I decided not to extend the wait, but start right away with the jumping and flying. During the flying I lightly concentrated to relax everything. I noticed I 'lost time' and arriving after 4 jumps on the other side of the pool I paused and turned slowly for for another pool diagonal. During this stretch the mild contractions continued, but at the end I noticed how clear my mind was and how easy it really felt, and told my body it's all right and these contractions were not necessary. Upon this they went softer, and I figured I just could go swimming some relaxed widths, since the vasocontricion made sure my muscles where not taking away any oxygen from the pool of blood in my head and core. So I swam relaxedly, 1 width (12,5m), another, and a 3rd... Upon I thought it was enough as I knew I did more than 3 lengths extra into the unknown. The dive felt like it was nice and long.
Right upon surfacing, which was very easy - not much urge to breath, a nice man came within seconds and asked amazed how long that dive was. I looked at the clock behind him and figured it was over 5'.

Next time I'll ask my dive buddy to make another recording, and maybe add some more lengths to the dive. I'm really amazed that I can do these 5' dives now, I mean my pb static is a one-timer 7', and in the last competition I was pretty satisfied with a 5'23" static dive.

So a day of celebration here, I did the magical 5' dive , part one of my dream parabolic 50m CWT dive

Oh yeah as training this week, and the weeks before I did only daily push ups, and pool training on Tuesdays, and Sundays.

About "any formulas", please explain what you mean.


Aside from this joyful day, I want to ask you guys for a D3 strap, mine broke just a few weeks ago. So if you can help me out, that would be very nice! Thanks!

Love, Flow and Courage!

Kars

 

[cdavis]

Breakthrough!! Congratulations. That is REALLY impressive.

I'm going to go through all this stuff very carefully and see what I can apply next week, thanks.

I have Suunto part #S5001, "MOSQ STRAP". It looks like it consists of two D3 straps, one's a two piece and the other is a one piece, has the pins as well. How the heck do I get it to you??

Connor

 

[Kars]

Thanks Connor!

Your offer is really like the icing on my cake today

The breakthrough is the relaxation of the contractions in the little break in between the jumping and subsequently the extra 3 lanes (12,5 m) of swimming, surfacing with room to spare.
I think this exercise is ideal for gently flowing through these CO2 and mental barriers we all encounter. To me it feels like a big improvement over traditional techniques such as tables.
Doing the same in FRC makes it much harder, because you condens the time and thus you have less time to explore and flow through these barrier moments.

I figure that the lack of aerobic training really helps for my (skinny endurance) body to quickly go into vasoconstriction and anaerobic mode. - I whish I knew earlier!

Yep today's experience makes me even contemplate doing 6' dives in this way ! LOL ok let's not get carried away! LOL

Thank you all for your ideas and experiences!

Kars

 

[cdavis]

Never got to the shipper today, will try tomorrow.

I did try the frog freediving. Discovered there is a bit more to it than appears. Bad day for me, too many people in the pool, trying to dive full lung, Blah Blah, etc. I was totally uncomfortable with the format. We won't talk about dive time. Only figured out later that I was way off balance without a neck weight, something I've never used. . . . . Next time.

Connor

 

[Maximus1980]

Sure, that gives me pleasure and relaxation. Sometimes for example we walk on the bottom of the pool. But as for me I mostly prefer to do it with half of my lungs.

 

[blueface]

Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly have written a book called 'Flow in sport' about that subject.

Natalia Molchanova describes what she does here:

Ôðèäàéâèíã | Attention deconcentration in freediving

But it's a hard thing to find, this flow. It's undoubtedly good to train for it, but i think you should also train to go without it when it doesn't come.

I wonder if the feeling is the same as when a musician or artist is in "Right Brain Mode" which is described in Betty edwards' book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I've read it and I can tell you there are many parallels. The way Natalia explains this feeling of deconcentration would stop the negative input from the left brain and allow for the right brain to do it's job. ART or in this case Apnea.

Betty describes the self talk that a person may think of which produces poor results. "This line is crooked" "I can't draw" "This is horrible" "It's too dificult" These all come from the judgemental left brain. For the apneist the self talk may be "I must relax but I can't" "It's too loud" "I feel discomfort" also the left brain. For the right brain- everything is possible. There is no self talk. complex tasks-child's play.

Betty's books are very good if you have the chance. If you are one of those who think you can't draw, she will prove you wrong.

Just my thoughts.

Skip

 

[Kattie]

I wonder if the feeling is the same as when a musician or artist is in "Right Brain Mode" which is described in Betty edwards' book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Yes it is!
I am only an average freediver but I studied the mind quite a lot and i try to relate my experiences as a freediver with my profesional area of research. My understanding of the relationship between body and mind is constantly evolving so what i am writing here may well be different from what I would write next month but here is my take if you feel like reading it.

There is a part of the brain which is called the prefrontal cortex and that regulates the whole nervous system. The middle part of it links everything else in the brain (left and right sides). The nervous system is important for us because it does not only relay information about what is hapening inside of our body (the tensions in our muscles, our hearth rates, contractions, etc.) but it also makes the connections with the external environment, what we touch, how cold or warm it is, the feeling of the water, etc. The informaton sent by the nervous system is deposited in the right side of the brain. This is the area of feelings, emotions, peacefulness and creativity. It is also the part of the brain that, unfortunately, most people develop less. We live in a rational society that values logical reasoning so we grow up developing our left side more.

Now, one of the definitions of the mind is that it is a process that regulates the flow of energy and information. What sports psychologist are calling "the flow" is therefore, in my view, a "state of mind" where you change your relationship with yourself and the environment around you allowing your body and senses to represent reality differently.
(I beleive that you do that by using the functions of your right hemisphere and prefrontal cortex but that doesn't matter at all it's just because you asked about the right brain)

I used to coach a shooting team and the best athletes could swear that when they were in "the zone" they could see the target become bigger. I never managed it with a rifle but what I felt when I experienced "the flow" (which I truely experienced only recently) was quite similar. A perfect symbiosis (that term relates better to my experience) between my body, my mind and what ever is around because when I am in that state I no longer feel in the water, i am out of space and time, I am "here and now" and each moment becomes meaningful whether I am freefalling or making a static at 10m.

I beleive that there are different levels of that feeling and that you dont know there is a higher one until you reached it. I thought I had reached "the flow" on one of my dive in Kalamata it was similar to Reiki in many ways and it might have been one level of "flow" but after spending a week with Marco in Sharm I experienced something much much more blissful and that's what i called symbiosis.

I think that the flow is experienced by different people differently and that there are different states of flow to which one person can aspire but most importantly, the researcher in me is convinced that you can train yourself for it. In my club we do some visualisations to reconnect the left and right sides emispheres of the brain and I learned recently that regular breathing exercises can also help. However, to reach this state you need to forget about depth and you need to forget about time until you know the feeling well enough to reproduce it. This is the real challenge. Knowing why we really dive... Mindsets are extremely hard to change and I know that many of my freediving friends will never experience the flow...

 

[ThomasB]

Parabolic dive. You mentioned that a few times and I'm getting curios about it. Mind to share any details? Does it involve no vertical rope?
By the way, your frog flow video Is one of the coolest freediving video around, not flashy but really to the point. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Kars]

@ Kattie,

Thanks for sharing your believes, knowledge, experiences and wisdom.
I agree with you on the different levels of the flow experience. I remember one that was during a competition static, doing 6'45", without contractions, totally alien to me. I don't recall reaching that level again. Since then I do enjoy the flow dives with increased frequency, knowing better what to do and what NOT to do. Like you state it's important to abandon any expectations. Expectations will turn on the estimator and calculator, rational functions whom consume much O2, but also draw you out of the emotional happy world I think when we think back to our best dive experiences, even many of our numeric personal bests, we can see we for some reason abandoned our expectations and went diving relying on routine, without thought or at most witnessing ourselves.
I think a state of hynotism is a person is mentally in the emotional, feeling mind.
Notice a hynotist uses words connected to feelings and sensations, having the person feeling good and confident, omitting the rational part. Many people, 60%, are very suggestible, and will follow an expert readily. Others are slower, require more work, and about 15% have such a strong rational part that they maintain complete autonomous control over their brain unless the consciously choose to follow the suggestions.
I would love to see an experiment where an suggestible person is hypnotised before performing a task he knows well. I contribute my ability to experience flow in freediving partially to my ability to hypnotise myself. Though I at the same time manage to retain some control over how deep my trance is.

@ThomasB

It's a dream dive I want to experience in real life. In my dreams I do this in a lukewarm endless blue without any suit or line.
In real life I think I'll choose to dive and glide like Guilliaume did in "Base Jump" to a sand bed at 40 - 50m deep, with a GO Pro Equipped safety diver following. The way up will be more or less vertical. I would wear no suit, no goggles, no mask, and hopefully no noseclip either. Anything artificial would take away something from this odyssey.


Love, Courage and water,

Kars

 

[Kattie]

@ Kattie,
I would love to see an experiment where an suggestible person is hypnotised before performing a task he knows well.

I've been thinking about this for a while as well. One of my favourite freediver is using a kind of conditioning/recorded suggestion messages with amazing results. I wish I could get funding to do proper research on this. Would be an amazing postdoc... If I manage to get my act together I'll send you the proposal for feedback ;-)

 

[ThomasB]

@ThomasB

It's a dream dive I want to experience in real life. In my dreams I do this in a lukewarm endless blue without any suit or line.
In real life I think I'll choose to dive and glide like Guilliaume did in "Base Jump" to a sand bed at 40 - 50m deep, with a GO Pro Equipped safety diver following. The way up will be more or less vertical. I would wear no suit, no goggles, no mask, and hopefully no noseclip either. Anything artificial would take away something from this odyssey.


Love, Courage and water,

Kars

Thanks, it seems quite a nice idea. Best of luck with it and remember to show the video once done

 

[Kars]

Hi everyone,

Kattie got me inspired to do a little test yesterday.
In the pool I took it upon me to stay with my mind in the 'feelings hemisphere', banning any rational thought accept for "get back to feeling".

And it worked, even better than anticipated.

As I was ill I still need to confirm it with a long dive or new pb, but for 75m it did was a very positive experience. Also in the preparation it's very good to centre oneself.

I'm not sure I've put it in the Frog Flow video, but I think it should be pretty HIGH on the list on how to get in flow.

Great! Thanks Kattie! - Karma is coming your way!

 

[Adrian]

I just saw this thread - I've been away too long from DB.. There are some things I would like to add about brain wave coherence and the experience of the flow - also called transcending during activity, but for now I'll paste a link to an incredible video of a researcher who experienced a stroke, leaving her only "experiencing" life through her right hemisphere. Look at it - it's awesome and gives a hint of our potential.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU]YouTube - How it feels to have a stroke[/ame]

Luckily we don't have to experience a stoke to have experiences of higher states of consciousness!

 

[Kattie]

Adrian, thanks for posting this video. It had been a long time since I last watched it and needed remembering.

Hi everyone,

Kattie got me inspired to do a little test yesterday.
In the pool I took it upon me to stay with my mind in the 'feelings hemisphere', banning any rational thought accept for "get back to feeling".

And it worked, even better than anticipated.

Kars, glad it worked! It's great when it happened and the only thing that matters is the 'here and now'. Once (again experimenting at OnlyOne apenea) I got into that state and was freefalling flat on my back it was awsome!! It felt like the Ocean and my body were just a kind of blanket for my mind to rest.
I would not recommend it during a comp though... well the freefalling on your back part because the flow, you really want to get it...

The challenge for the competitors amongst us and the video highlights that too, is that it means we have to train our body to do a certain number of things automatically without having to think about it. At the level I am now I have to get into that state before I leave the surface but I cannot do this if I have to think about the steps of a good duck dive... fortunately that part of the dive is automatic now but there are other moments that I need to work on until my body no longer needs me to actively think about them. One of which is turning during a dynamic.

Complete training, in my view, requires both "right" and "left" types of dives but for more experienced freedivers who no longer need to develop these automatisms all I can say is "Enjoy the flow"

 

[Buzz Numinous]

release your self from the thoughts of society. The we can do, The we cants and just be no thoughts of what you want no thoughts of what you expect just feel your breathing the one thing we all do and the one thing we all can do well and just be by just being you will find your inner self and then you will be able to let you mind go you will find true relaxation and freedom just my 2 pence :martial

 

[monkeyhatfork]

I recently bought a finis swimp3 player and discovered it is an amazing cheat to instant flow state--just load it up with some ambient electronic music hit play and you feel like your slowly dancing through the water, it transmits through your cheek bone not your ears and is amplified by the water, the sound drops out when you surface so you can talk to and hear your dive buddy crystal clear, it eliminates any monotony from long dyn sessions, a new favorite piece of gear for sure