Hello everybody. First of all let me quote an old post from Eric Fattah that really changed my freediving life, and may help those of you who found themselves in the process of learning.
" You're missing the point. Filling the mouth itself is very easy, you can stop if you want, and turn horizontal if you want.
The hard part is equalizing your ears with the air in your mouth, without allowing the air to escape back into your lungs.
Further, getting a nice, BIG mouthfill requires a complicated body position. A small mouthfill will still get you deep, but not nearly as deep as a big fill.
The secret in general is to decouple the epiglottis and soft palate. You must be able to keep the epiglottis closed, and relax the soft palate, whereas the reflex is to close the epiglottis and raise the soft palate, which makes equalizing impossible. Thus, the average person fills the mouth, finds the air STUCK in every sense of the word (won't go anywhere), then, in trying to DE-STICK the situation, the air escapes back into the lungs."
It's all so true, and those of you who have gone through the complicated process of learning deep equalisation with a mouthfill will agree.
Now the million dollar question. HOW do you learn to decouple the epiglottis and soft palate consistently ? Are there any exercises we can do on land (like while we work) to practice it ? I've notice that after a few days diving it all clicks into place as magic: I fill my mouth at the right depth, lock the epiglottis, relax, thrust my jaw forward and do nothing else, and I equalize effortlessly. But every time I'm away from the water for a period of time, I can't do it anymore, and the last paragraph of Eric's post fully applies. It's frustrating. Any advice ?
Cheers.
" You're missing the point. Filling the mouth itself is very easy, you can stop if you want, and turn horizontal if you want.
The hard part is equalizing your ears with the air in your mouth, without allowing the air to escape back into your lungs.
Further, getting a nice, BIG mouthfill requires a complicated body position. A small mouthfill will still get you deep, but not nearly as deep as a big fill.
The secret in general is to decouple the epiglottis and soft palate. You must be able to keep the epiglottis closed, and relax the soft palate, whereas the reflex is to close the epiglottis and raise the soft palate, which makes equalizing impossible. Thus, the average person fills the mouth, finds the air STUCK in every sense of the word (won't go anywhere), then, in trying to DE-STICK the situation, the air escapes back into the lungs."
It's all so true, and those of you who have gone through the complicated process of learning deep equalisation with a mouthfill will agree.
Now the million dollar question. HOW do you learn to decouple the epiglottis and soft palate consistently ? Are there any exercises we can do on land (like while we work) to practice it ? I've notice that after a few days diving it all clicks into place as magic: I fill my mouth at the right depth, lock the epiglottis, relax, thrust my jaw forward and do nothing else, and I equalize effortlessly. But every time I'm away from the water for a period of time, I can't do it anymore, and the last paragraph of Eric's post fully applies. It's frustrating. Any advice ?
Cheers.
