Huge news at CMAS Apnea Commissioin

[trux]

Huge news at CMAS Apnea Commissioin!

As it was already anticipated since a few months, it now became official - CMAS introduces several new freediving competition disciplines: statics, dynamics with fins, constant weight with and without fins, variable weight with and without fins, free immersion, speed endurance dynamic apnea with fins, and Skandalopetra. And of course the original dynamic apnea with fins and Jump Blue remain in the offer. It means CMAS will now have many more competition disciplines than AIDA (Skandalopetra, Jump Blue, VWT without fins, speed DYN)

Additionally and most importantly, the banning of competitors on non-CMAS events is now removed, better told - it is let on the decision of the national CMAS branch, but since most of them did not care anyway, for most athletes it is virtually abolishing of the stupid rule!

Read more details here:

Dear Friends,

Based on the decisions of the BoD at 27th Nov, the decisions related to apnea are below. Special thanks to the BoD and Mr Xavier DURAN SOLER for the all affords.

1) Static apnea rules are approved (need to be translated to French or Spanish)

2) The disciplines approved are below;
a. Speed endurance apnea with fins,
b. Free immersion apnea without fins,
c. Variable weight apnea with and without fins,
d. Skandalopetra apnea without fins.

So with the current situation the status of the apnea disciplines in CMAS is:
Discipline [Status]
Dynamic Apnea with and without fins [Finished/Approved]
Jump Blue Apnea with fins [Finished/Approved]
Static Apnea [Finished/Approved]
Constant Weight Apnea with and without fins [Finished/Approved]
Variable Weight Apnea with and without fins [Discipline is approved rules are Draft]
Free Immersion Apnea without fins [Discipline is approved rules are Draft]
Speed Endurance Apnea with fins [Discipline is approved rules are Draft]
Skandalopetra Apnea without fins [Discipline is approved rules are Waiting]


4) The contract and regulation for world record attempts has not been approved. The draft version will be updated and resent for the approval at the next BoD at February 2011.

5) The current available info about the world games schedule is:
Sunday August 14th Open Ceremony (Neiva)
August 15 to 21 (Neiva): Finsw (pool), UWH, UWR and Dynamic APN
August 22 to 28 (San Andrés): OT, Finsw (LD) and Jump Blue APN

6) For the questions about the banning of the athletes who attends to the non-CMAS events I have got a clear answer from my president Mr DURAN SOLER as:
The National Federation decides which athletes can participate in the CMAS Apnea Championships.

The athletes have to be affiliated in a club of this National Federation. CMAS only will check if the current license is valid

I hope that helps.

Kind regards.
Levent UCUZAL
President of CMAS Apnea Commission

 

[Goran Colak]

Jeap, finally the idiotic banning rule has been removed... Oh my good how many talks I had over this and how many mails I have send. Now we can compete freely in all competitions world wide Well at least those countries that have normal national federations, and I know we will have no problems. This is first good news I have ever heard from CMAS I think... And big thanks goes to mr. Levent, the new presenter of apnea commission. All this steps forward that CMAS had lately are mostly his work.

 

[trux]

Very true, I was a loud critic of the stupid rule too. There was nothing more idiotic preventing CMAS from becoming the leading freediving federation. With this rule removed, and with 10 disciplines, the huge membership*, with professional staff, state subventions on national levels, I wonder how long it takes before AIDA become superfluous. Well, the only chance for AIDA is to take its advantage of being smaller and possibly more flexible.

*(CMAS has more freedivers in each Mediterranean or Central or South American country than the whole AIDA International together)

 

[Goran Colak]

Very true, I was a loud critic of the stupid rule too. There was nothing more idiotic preventing CMAS from becoming the leading freediving federation. With this rule removed, and with 10 disciplines, the huge membership*, with professional staff, state subventions on national levels, I wonder how long it takes before AIDA become superfluous. Well, the only chance for AIDA is to take its advantage of being smaller and possibly more flexible.

*(CMAS has more freedivers in each Mediterranean or Central or South American country than the whole AIDA International together)

Well I do not agree CMAS will make AIDA obsolete, you sould probably go to CMAS Euro or World championship and count freedivers heeh AIDA will remain the strongest federation at least for few more years, we will se how will this play out.. but my bet is that CMAS will never be stronger then AIDA if you look strictly by number of competitors and meters and seconds of world records.

 

[trux]

Well I do not agree CMAS will make AIDA obsolete, you sould probably go to CMAS Euro or World championship and count freedivers heeh

Well, I have been in Denmark, so I saw it but that was exactly only the consequence of the stupid ban by the CMAS, and due to the lack of disciplines. That's now gone.

In contrary, I'd wish you seeing the number of CMAS competitions in lands like France, Italy, Spain, and the entire Latin America - there are ten fold more competitions than AIDA organizes, and often very big ones (I have only a tiny fraction of them in my ranking in fact, since it is not always easy to find the results). The number of members in each of those lands is far superior to the entire member base of AIDA International. Also the funding of competitions is usually easier under CMAS than with AIDA.

 

[trux]

And then, the CMAS has much more added value in their offers than AIDA currently has. I have the experience only with the French CMAS branch FFESSM, but it is likely similar in other lands too:

1) Freedivers with a licence are automatically insured, and the federal insurance agency offers very interesting and inexpensive extensions not only for freediving, but also for other UW activities, for instructors, and for club managers

2) Even many ordinary competitors get financial help for covering traveling costs. Top ranking competitors get much more help in diverse forms (subvenced training camps, travelling costs, etc)

3) Clubs get logistical help for the creation and management

4) The federation takes care about the education of instructors, judges, and competitors - it delivers studying materials, licences, sometimes helps with facilities, equipment, and staff for the courses. The courses are incomparably cheaper than with AIDA

5) Instructors get not only licenses, but also state approved diplomas allowing them easier launch of professional or semiprofessional activities

6) The federation helps with organizing events like competitions, conferences. It provides studying and training materials, diverse forms, and other paperwork often needed for running a club or a commercial facility

Well, there is probably more of it, but it is clear that AIDA does not offer any of that. The only extra it had were the additional disciplines, the competitions, and it has less restrictive rules (the FFESSM for example bans competitors for some time after a samba or BO). Other than that AIDA has currently unfortunately practically nothing to offer.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

I'm a naive bozo when it comes to the forthcoming nature of people, but what I'd like to see now is some kind of mutual approach between CMAS and AIDA. I don't know, that key people from either start communicating about potentially unifying standards, if that's possible.
It would be way too pre-mature to fully dismantle AIDA just now and transfer everything, judges, instructors, to a certain degree regulations, to a CMAS flag, but why not in the long run?

I would love to see CMAS eg. accept the current AIDA world records as equal to CMAS' (in the applicable CMAS disciplines). Also because we would not take brand new CMAS records serious if they are half that of AIDA's ditto.

If CMAS would do that (in five years or something, what ever...), and if CMAS from now on can and wish to service practically the same categories as AIDA, then why not close down AIDA? This looks like a re-newed respect from CMAS towards the kind of freediving that AIDA (fully or partially) has created. The 'D' in AIDA stands for 'Development' of freediving, I've always interpreted that as a temporary phase when CMAS couldn't grasp the health and safety concerns of freediving, and AIDA had to be formed to build up something good on the interim.

A big 'if' is the No-Limits category, which might be a lot to swallow for CMAS given their past policies. I want to be reasonable, but I cannot imagine freediving without No-Limits as we know it.

Now all we need to do is fight our urge to gloat, in which ever camp. Then the Olympics is on the horizon.

 

[trux]

I would not hurry too much with dismantling of AIDA. Instead of having two excellent alternatives, we may easily end with a single unusable and abusive federation.

In the same time, I already recommended to the Czech national AIDA Executive Board (that I am member of) to approach the local CMAS and start some negotiations about approaching each other. I think this needs to come carefully from bottom up - from the national level, not centrally. There are already countries where freediving is handled by national federations affiliated with both CMAS and AIDA, and there are other countries where there are both federations, but most clubs are affiliated with both of them (including my own club Cyrnéa). So, I already know the friendly coexistence is possible, since a long time. Just I do not think it would be wise abolishing AIDA, without seeing first the cooperation working on global scale.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Couldn't have said it better meself.
Thx Trux

 

[osusim]

I would love to see CMAS eg. accept the current AIDA world records as equal to CMAS' (in the applicable CMAS disciplines).

This is absolutely not possible until CMAS adopted AIDA's rules. Today's dive of William Trubridge can be CMAS record because of missing SP. As well as hundreds of other performances during AIDA competitions there athletes were just disqualified.
BTW, will CMAS count deep records in millimetres also?

 

[Goran Colak]

This is absolutely not possible until CMAS adopted AIDA's rules. Today's dive of William Trubridge can be CMAS record because of missing SP. As well as hundreds of other performances during AIDA competitions there athletes were just disqualified.
BTW, will CMAS count deep records in millimetres also?

In CMAS like in any other normal organization you have to complete surface protocol, it is a bit different then AIDA's (and that to not mean it is easier) but you have to complete it.

 

[trux]

Earlier this year, AIDA Czech Republic started discussions with the Czech branch of CMAS about possible cooperation. After CMAS International froze the ban of AIDA competitors at CMAS events, and after it approved 9 new freediving disciplines, the Czech branch is quite interested in the cooperation. I think both parties, and all Czech freedivers can profit from it.

It means at the next CMAS championship, Czech AIDA freedivers may be attending. Today, I published an article presenting the history of AIDA - CMAS relations, the disciplines of both federations, the differences in rules, the goals, safety records, and some other details.

The article is in Czech, but if you are interested, you can drop the URL to the Google Translator - I think the translation won't be much worse than if I translated it myself anyway

AIDA vs. CMAS, or AIDA and CMAS?

However, the most important information there is probably the list of documents with the rules for the new CMAS disciplines. I am posting them here too:

CMAS Static Apnea
CMAS Dynamic Apnea
CMAS Constant Weight
CMAS Free Immersion
CMAS Variable Weight
CMAS Jump Blue
CMAS Speed Endurance Apnea

And for the comparison, the rules of all disciplines of AIDA International:
Aida Competition Regulations

 

[efattah]

I thought CMAS constant weight had a 65m depth limit. But reading the rules I don't see that.

I think the CMAS surface protocol is more difficult -- 10 seconds to hit the judge on the top of the head.

 

[trux]

CMAS in fact did not have any other disciplines than dynamics with fins and Jump Blue (the Cube) until the last December. So the limit was actually 0m. Only some national CMAS branches (like for example the Turkish, Spanish, and some countries in Latin America) practised Constant Weight, but I did not hear about any limits there. All these disciplines and the rules are pretty new, and in fact to my knowledge there was no international competition in them yet, and no one is planned for this year.

 

[trux]

BTW, the athlete has actually only 5 seconds frame to hit the target (or the head in case of depth disciplines) - the first 5 seconds are for the recovery, and he can (must) touch the target only during the second 5s.

 

[Mullins]

I'm going to buy a punching bag to practice my SP. Is the judge allowed to dodge, or must he/she sit there and take it?

 

[efattah]

I wonder if you knock-out (KO) the judge, unconscious, is it a DQ ?

I mention the 65m limit -- I believe some Italian FIPSAS/CMAS national championship had a 65m limit recently.

 

[Arjen]

I've read parts of it and I still think the CMAS surface protocol is mental.

I also miss a proper description of a lanyard. I only found it should be some kind of rope of about 1 meter that clips on the line and on the wrist of the athlete.

And did anyone read the part of the depth judges in the CWT part. It looks like they want bubble blowers in the water to visualy make sure you do your depth.

 

[trux]

I guess if you hit the judge a bit too hard, he may strike back. Or consider it a loss of motor control and disqualify you

I am not aware of any depth competitions in Italy, but it is possible they limit the maximal depth at courses they run. It is similar in France - the French CMAS does not organize any depth competitions, but they do teach depth disciplines, where there may or may not be depth limits (according to the level of the instructor and the freediver).

 

[Arjen]

I wonder if you knock-out (KO) the judge, unconscious, is it a DQ ?

I think it does, because that judge has to observe you for at least 15 seconds after your OK-punch. So if you knock him out, he can not do that. So I suggest that all athletes only punch the judge in the left eye, so he can keep at least one eye open.