my shallow water blackout nightmare

[jimqpublic]

Tyler,

Viewed through the prism of PFI's training Lungfish's statement is completely consistent. They teach that if breathing does not spontaneously begin after appropriate stimuli (air, mask off, calling, tapping three times) to use mouth-to-mouth pressure to attempt to release the spasm. I may be reading too much into a possible typo when you say "Shortly after unconsciousness relaxation of the larynx should occur..." I think you mean when the body thinks it's in air, not water. With the mask still on and the face/airway possibly being slapped by waves it makes sense as a self-protective device that the larynx was still closed.

The 8 minute surface interval for depths greater than 80 feet, 2x dive time for shallower does seem a bit odd- isn't there a difference between 81' and 181'? It may also be tied with their suggestion to keep a maximum of 10 minutes surface interval to keep all facets of the mammillian dive reflex fully engaged.

Note that on super deep dives (in the 100 meter range) after completing surface protocol Martin of PFI will drop down to 15' and breathe 02 off a regulator similar to the safety stop scuba divers use.

Vacuum effect is described as the point where the partial pressure of O2 within the lungs becomes lower than that within the blood and O2 starts to migrate backward from blood to lungs.

 

[efattah]

Vacuum effect is described as the point where the partial pressure of O2 within the lungs becomes lower than that within the blood and O2 starts to migrate backward from blood to lungs.

To be even more accurate, in order for a vacuum effect to occur, the pressure of O2 in the lungs must drop below the O2 pressure in the VENOUS blood, not the arterial blood, since it is the venous blood which passes across the lungs.

Venous blood is far less saturated with oxygen than arterial blood. Yet, near a blackout, it has been shown repeatedly that even ARTERIAL O2 is extremely low. It can therefore be concluded that venous O2 is almost impossibly low as the blackout approaches. For a vacuum effect to occur, the lung O2 would have to drop below this almost impossibly low venous O2 pressure.

 

[laminar]

Hi Lungfish,

PFI has contributed a great deal to discussions and awareness of safety protocols. Having Kirk Krack spot you on a line dive is an awesome feeling.

However, please remember that much of what they teach is up for discussion, some of it controversial, and that as a student of any teacher, we all benefit from constant questioning of what we hear conveyed as fact or "the way you should do it." You seem excited by what you've learned in the clinic, and that's great. Remember that even PFI is constantly reviewing and revised their teaching material and some of their methods are different or even contrary to other instructors like Apnea Academy, Solomons, FREE, etc...

One small point: I remember Kirk speculating that slapping a blacked out diver was counter productive because it is a stress to be slapped and/or shouted at. Gently talking, blowing on the face, removing the mask is an invitation to regain conscious, and not remain in the oxygen conserving blacked out state (if that's really what it is).

Pete

 

[tylerz]

Viewed through the prism of PFI's training Lungfish's statement is completely consistent. They teach that if breathing does not spontaneously begin after appropriate stimuli (air, mask off, calling, tapping three times) to use mouth-to-mouth pressure to attempt to release the spasm.

Yes, I understood that. That made it even more important to point out what I did. My response was not meant to say the information was not an accurate and precise copy of what he had been taught, but instead, to present information for assessing the quality of the information presented, in and of its own. There are many variances in thoughts out there, and if all we do is take the most massively passed around ideas, without a check into the quality of those ideas, we will not progress or be very accurate in comprehending what we are dealing with. So, either there is information that stands to correct my response, that the PFI information is founded upon, or it is unnecessary to practice mouth-to-mouth on a laryngospasm. Either way, a bunch of us will learn something by uncovering which it is, as opposed to just taking a routine as a suggestion of accuracy.

I may be reading too much into a possible typo when you say "Shortly after unconsciousness relaxation of the larynx should occur..." I think you mean when the body thinks it's in air, not water. With the mask still on and the face/airway possibly being slapped by waves it makes sense as a self-protective device that the larynx was still closed.

It is not a typo. We tend to take it for granted that often we hypothesize on how the body operates in our community, and eventually many people begin referring to the details of the hypothesis as being fact. It is generally agreed that "when the body thinks it is in air, not water", consciousness returns. Therefore, what you say holds for the return of consciousness but it does not have any basis in reference to laryngospasm. The idea that laryngospasm releases as a result of reaching air or the discontinued sense of external water, is a conceptual idea but one not necessarily based in fact. See the section on "Water entering the upper airways" at: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning[/ame]

Vacuum effect is described as the point where the partial pressure of O2 within the lungs becomes lower than that within the blood and O2 starts to migrate backward from blood to lungs.

So, the real significance involved here is the idea that blood will have a smaller amount of oxygenated cells travelling onward from the lungs. Without any other variables, during an ascent this is occurring throughout the complete surfacing. As you surface pressures are changing, therefore there is a decrease in O2 exchange from the lungs to the blood. The vacuum effect is simply when it decreases beyond zero and becomes a negative value. Nothing changed. The blood going to the brain still contains O2, just less than the previous less.

 

[lungfish]

I know there are a different aproaches to diving but only a few have enough experience and academic support behind them to warrant investigation. Sure, you can argue about negative pressure diving, etc but Purging and Packing as part of the breathup is not controversial unless you haven't been taught how.

I have been exposed to other techniques besides PFD, gang. Theirs is one of the most newbie/spearo friendly I have found.

Reference for surface intervals:

The Attitude A Breath Hold Diver Should Take To Avoid Arterial Gas Embolism
Battle, John M. MD, PhD Chairman MEDISUB Hyperbaric Institute.

The safety rescue I described is effective and simple. No slapping, just work with keeping the airway closed to the surface, get the mask off, gently pat them while talking loud enough to be heard and breathing on their eyes. One or two cycles of rescue breathing can release a laryngospasm. Otherwise, it releases with the terminal breath at the onset of anoxia.

I stand by my entire post.

 

[efattah]

Purging and Packing as part of the breathup is not controversial unless you haven't been taught how.

Both purging and packing are controversial.

From personal experience I can say that packing
1. Increases CO2 narcosis dramatically
2. Increases the risk of deep water blackout (by means of #1)
3. Increases the risk of lung squeeze
4. Increases the need for longer intervals between dives due to higher metabolic waste products
5. Increases the risk of DCS for various reasons
6. Creates a risk of damaging the intercostal muscles from overpacking
7. Creates a risk of vagal blackout during packing

Purging right before the dive isn't necessary at all. Purging, if done, should be done very early in the breathe-up, long before the dive, so that the energy expended from purging can be regained. Purging burns stored energy in the abdominal muscles & diaphragm, an energy debt which is repaid during the dive by draining the critical oxygen supply.

When I stopped purging and instead switched to sub-neutral breathing, all my apneas of all types increased significantly.

For these reasons I would still say that purging/packing are both controversial.

 

[lungfish]

Sure Eric,
I suppose you could say its controversial in that there are differences of opinion about when to do it. Sure there are other techniques and advanced practices that engage different perspectives however, for the trained, average freediver, it isn't risky. There are benefits to the practice and it can be undertaken safely, I think that was my point... Overpacking is due to poor training practices as are several other of your points.

I think that it is also important to point out the differences in this discussion between performance, one time dives, and repeated dives. Eric is probably talking about prep for a performance dive to extreme depths and I am talking about spearos, repeat dives and folks who operate up to 40meters.... There are definite differences between the two types of diving and the origin of this thread involved a spearo blacking out.

The surface interval addresses Nitrogen and DCS and the C02 narcosis question. Further, I think you are describing a performance problem rather than a spearo problem. Purging should be done carefully and in conjunction with a careful breathup if you are going to do it. Sure, you can dive negatively, or with other types of breathing patterns but for the average diver at base depths up to 40meters, and the spearo who is operating under 100ft, like most of them, then there is nothing at all negative about the breathup, purge, peak inhale and pack method as long as it is done correctly.

Sure you can overpressurize with packing and cause a vaso constriction lmoc or blackout, it can happen when you are doing dryland statics and tolerance tables too.

I do agree that for average divers who aren't going below 40meters, carefully purging early as part of the breath up is correct because of the rise in heartrate that accompanies purging. If bradycardia is a goal, then purging early and following up with another minute or two of basic breathup to continue lowering heartrate before peak inhale is appropriate instead of purging just before the peak inhale and pack. If you are trained to do it, and you are operating at depths more consistent with most of our skill levels than at extreme depths, it makes sense and is easy to do. You aren't risking anything extreme by the practice and it does help with C02 build.

On the other hand, if you are diving to the levels that you, and the more advanced divers go, then there are probably considerations that most of us don't face. That isn't controversy, that is modification to accomodate deeper and longer performance dives. Like Martin hitting the regulator at 5meters after a 100meter dive.

Lets talk about what works for spearos to 100ft. They are doing it repeatedly in the course of the hunt and its killing them. What is an appropriate pattern for them?



There are probably several good patterns for them.

Lungfish.

 

[efattah]

All this discussion is based on repeated 10-40m dives.

In my opinion, the only time packing is justified is for 'one max' dives such as what Martin does. I rarely if ever do 'one max' dives anymore.

Packing will always increase DCS risk, CO2 narcosis, deep water blackout risk, lung squeeze risk and surface interval times, when done with repeated dives such as a spearo does. There is no way to get around those effects, regardless of surface interval times. In my experience, packing increases the total dive time, but has a minimal effect on the actual bottom time, due to the increased descent time required from the extra buoyancy. Adding weight to compensate just increase the load when coming up. In my experience, I require 2 extra minutes to recover between packing dives, vs. between non-packing dives of similar intensity. Any extra bottom time from packing is quickly lost when you consider the longer surface interval required. Surface intervals are also critical in cold water diving when the total time in the water is limited.

I also think that purging late in the breathe-up is non-beneficial, regardless of the style of diving.

 

[lungfish]

Again, I can agree with you on some points regarding packing. It can cause problems, some of which can be mitigated by longer surface intervals, which is not a negative in my book. Improper application can cause problems also, and sometimes you squeeze no matter what you do...

I think a primary value of packing is that it allows for equalizing at average depths if we aren't wearing fluid goggles and are trying to operate at reasonable depths while we practice pursuit diving.

The values of packing for a performance dive are limited given that there are other practices involved. You can choose to do it or not, but it isn't necessarily a negative if you are trained to do it. Many, many freedivers use packing without incident. There are risks to every aproach, negative pressure diving has its drawbacks as well.

Surface intervals aren't a drawback for pursuit divers, it is another aproach to addressing issues when you choose a particular breathup pattern. If you are diving deep and long, longer surface intervals are a given. It is also a given that surface intervals must have a minimum and maximum duration for him to continue to be effective. So what is that minimum and maximum?

So lets get back to our Spearo friend here. What is appropriate for spearos, if you were going to give a class to any number of spearos on this site, what would you teach them to do to avoid SWB, DCS, CO2 Narc., etc. We aren't talking about prime atheletes, we are talking about Joe Spearo who isn't experienced beyond 100ft, probably hasn't taken a course, and is trying to survive his hunt with his buddies. What is the overall breathup cycle, safety profile and correct aproach to his twice monthly, Sat afternoon hunt? What does this guy and his friends need to know and do to survive their activities?

Lungfish

 

[tylerz]

I know there are a different aproaches to diving but only a few have enough experience and academic support behind them to warrant investigation.

Just to clarify, did you really mean to say by these words, that there are only a few people with enough experience and academic background who should be investigating what we are told by the few others? Isn't the only way to become experienced and academically supported, to investigate? How are you determining who has "enough" experience and academic support?

I do not think PFI would suggest that they are in the business of research. They do take a handful of information from other sources of research and incorporate what is reasonable into their courses and philosophy; mostly, as I understand it, in the interest of giving students a "good enough" background to reach some objectives of relatively comfortable and safe dives. But definately "not enough" to be experts or have precisely detailed comprehensions of the topic. I think it would be safe to say that the Italians have been involved, and employed, much more research when it comes to these topics, and noteably Apnea Academy has strong differences in philosophy, interpretation, and approach to PFI. If these two respected bodies have such differences, don't you think that exploring the nature of the differences becomes important to having a more accurate and precise comprehension of the topic? The value of this forum comes from exploring the suggestions as opposed to discounting them based on prejudice. Especially when there are more researchers and scientists in these forums than any freediving school.

It would be reasonable to say "according to PFI courses, they suggest...", and then newcomers would understand it is an opinion by one school. But stating things, that one has not looked into, as fact does not do justice to newcomers. Especially when conveying information to newcomers, if one has not looked into safety concepts themself, repeating what one thinks somebody else said, and assuming it to be accurate, is very dangerous. Therefore in the case of newcomers, I believe one should go to great lengths in the attempt to make a clear distinction between what is "known" and what is "opinion".

Your statement:
"Then do appropriate long breath ups until you are really ready, purge, peak inhale, pack and dive..." is comprised of only opinion of what is a good approach to a dive, yet with very little detail. It was presented originally amidst other technical details. As presented, it is extremely open to interpretation, therefore without further elaboration a newcomer can not get an accurate and precise impression of what is safe from that explanation. It has been presentedas though they are supposed to do what is stated. Now they go and try it, as described and I don't think many people would argue that, in its form, it presents a clear and safe practice. But how is a newcomer supposed to know that.

But even so, the fact that on these forums newcomers only have words as the medium to interpret what exactly is trying to be conveyed, wouldn't the safest approach be to only put emphasis on those elements that are minimally required practices and have the greatest degree of safety? Let's look at the recommendation from that light:
1. It is known that purging reduces CO2, which for safety reasons, whether you are trained or not, reduces your safety element. I have never heard an argument that suggests it is safer to recreationally dive with less CO2. The last thing required in teaching somebody to dive is generally purging or special ventilations. It is probably the most dangerous element to introduce to a newcomer. It is not about arguing whether it "can" be learned in a safe manner, but whether it will be.

2. Every doctor I have spoke to, or have heard that others have spoken to, has recommended not practicing packing. Experienced freedivers in the community are also suspecting physiological trouble from packing whether doing shallow or deep dives. I have first hand met 3 divers that have suffered from severe cases of blood in the lungs during shallow dives involving packing. Once again, without first hand working with another person, learning packing is not necessary and definately is a danger to newcomers.

Sure, you can argue about negative pressure diving, etc

Nobody was arguing about or suggesting negative pressure diving. To suggest not packing, is not the same as suggesting negative pressure diving. Packing can be considered as an artificial enhancement of our phsyique for diving. Diving on simply a peak inhale is not negative pressure diving and is more natural than packing.

but Purging and Packing as part of the breathup is not controversial unless you haven't been taught how.

That appears backwards. It is only controversial once one has comprehended the different sides of the argument. The controversy is in the experienced reasonsings and/or opinions.

I have been exposed to other techniques besides PFD, gang. Theirs is one of the most newbie/spearo friendly I have found.

Which other courses did you take?

... for the average diver at base depths up to 40meters ... like most of them, then there is nothing at all negative about the breathup, purge, peak inhale and pack method as long as it is done correctly.

Well, maybe you hit the nail on the head here, if you define "correctly" as when nothing goes astray from what we expected. But that is the problem, we can not control exactly when something goes astray. Therefore, if there is a known danger from some practice, then you can not say that there is "nothing at all negative" about that practice. You seem to be under the impression that there is no doubt if divers do as they are told, nothing will go wrong. Well, we have had plenty of experiences that tell us otherwise. At a PFI clinic this past weekend a participant came up spitting blood. They did not suggest she had done anything incorrectly.

Reference for surface intervals:
The Attitude A Breath Hold Diver Should Take To Avoid Arterial Gas Embolism
Battle, John M. MD, PhD Chairman MEDISUB Hyperbaric Institute.

From that reference comes your interpretation through the statement:

Surface intervals above 80ft should be at least twice the duration of the previous dive, and below 80ft should be 8min between, to cope with Nitrogen buildup, etc.

Whereas, Kirk quotes it as:

A dive to 69m for 2:20 which is typical of an expert competitive freediver the surface interval before any other freedive is 9:13.
He developed a simple rule of thumb; If the depth of your freedive was < 25 meters then your SI should be twice your total dive time.
If your depth was > 25 meters then your SI should be a minimum 8 minutes.

, which one can see has a much different meaning.

One or two cycles of rescue breathing can release a laryngospasm.

You state this as fact. Where do you see a reference to this? We have had a couple cases of laryngospasms here in Vancouver with Kirk present, and there was no such results. Saying that rescue breathing "can" release a laryngospasm, suggests that we know that sometimes it assists. But if it only happens sometimes, how did we determine that it was the mouth-to-mouth as opposed to simply the delay before it release? I do not believe you or anybody else in the freediving community has a reference that shows mouth-to-mouth assists. Please show otherwise and then we can safely conclude it to be fact.

Otherwise, it releases with the terminal breath at the onset of anoxia.

I interpret this as "a laryngospasm releases with one's last breath at the point that oxygen has been completely depleted from the blood stream." Is that intended? Where did you come across this idea?

I stand by my entire post.

Ok, but do you have any answers and reasonings towards the questions that were in response to your post. If I understand your response, I can summarize it as:

"Those, here in the forums, do not have the experience or academic background to assert opinions differing or going beyond those of PFI's course material. If you have been taught how to purge and pack you will not find any controversy in the topics or disapprove of such practices. There exists a study that recommends what it considers is possibly a safe interval practice under similar conditions as they describe. None of the responses and questions to my post are worth considering further."

I sure hope that is a misinterpretation, hopefully for obvious reasons.

 

[tylerz]

Bringing this all back to spearos, I hope you can see that the feedback is. The argument is that the safest way to dive is to not lower CO2 and to not pack. Regarding responses on pressure, gas exchange, and laryngospasms, to understand what is happening human physiology provides more knowledge for divers to understand their own body and connect their experiences with what is known about their body. This gives them more information on adjusting their personal diving style based on feedback from their body. And giving mouth-to-mouth is obviously a safety technique, and without thorough knowledge of its application, acting on assumptions could lead to more dangerous consequences than if one didn't.

So, my original response to yours, in the interests of SpearoPimp's, and other interested parties', concerns in this thread. They were a product of recognizing recommendations that are considered impractical and unsafe as they were presented in this environment for the specifics of the situation. Suggesting that it is in SpearoPimp's interest to purge and pack after already having a case of a BO is not at all cautious. So, I would suggest the recommendation was not targetting the concerns of this thread specifically, but instead a prefabricated idea of what is the right way to dive. Courses, for monetary reasons, must generalize their recommendations. They generally do not do in depth assessment of what is best on a per diver basis. Therefore, you can be quite certain that rigidly sticking to their practices is not the best solution for any given diver. To get the best experience from a course, you have to evolve and learn beyond it.

Sorry for the long post, but I see it as a severe thing when it comes to recommendations of safety. The most dangerous thing in my mind, is to influence people to not explore further. If you can't explain in detail why you are recommending what you are, then you should absolutely encourage other opinions to be explored as well. Being that this thread was about resolving fears, concerns, doubts, and major safety issues, I can't help but feel these concerns are relevant to people participating in topics involving newcomers and the less experienced. A false sense of security can come from the blind leading the blind. And believe it or not, everybody is still blind in this field. Just to different degrees in different areas. Not everybody comes away from PFI and other courses with such an unquestionable sense of security, some even having permanent damage after a short time employing the practices taught them, namely chest squeeze and ear barotrauma. Of course, I am not claiming it is because of these practices that they have been subjected to this damage, but at the same time it would be a lie to suggest it was not possible and just as likely. If you go to a PFI course or any other for that matter, if everybody tells you it is safe and unquestionable that what is taught is the "right" way, then you will go on doing things that way until something happens to suggest otherwise. That something may cause you permanent damage.

Immediately questioning, looking for substantiated verifications, and looking for more background of what you learn is the most reasonable means of prevention. So, where you seem to think the differences of opinion are due to lack of experience, education, or plain speculation, I am trying to say that many of these opinions come from looking further beyond what we learned from the same people.

 

[Fondueset]

Again - outstanding thread from all participants!

 

[Jon]

A couple of years ago I made an observaton that freediving seems to follow along the same lines as yoga and martial arts. That being there are different schools and different styles that one can master and each has its own merits and detractors. The way that Kirk teaches is not the same that Umberto does, or the way that Aaron and MT do, nor is it the same as Rudi. Each has developed their own approach and I enjoy reading aobut all of them- without ever putting one above another.

When it comes to blackouts I can say that I have never had one while freediving, not even a samba, BUT I have blacked myself out while packing. As a result I don't pack for diving, but I will llie on my floor and do pack streaches to loosen up my chest. I find them fine for that, with little chance of drownig in my livingroom, but don't feel it's worth the risk on an actual dive- unless I had a spotter right there, which we don't when spearing around here.

I know that we were taught to purge in the PFD course, but after reading Umberto's method of a much more relaxed breath-up it seemed to be more appealing for a long day in the water of spearing- to me at least and I don't mean to speak for anyone else. If I'm diving a line with others watching then I change my breath up to include that. Different things for different types of diving.

Jon (ymmv)

 

[Fondueset]

I barely feel qualified to speak - but I discovered packing when I was about 15 and had some mild samba/black out experiences - never complete - while practicing dry statics during the winter.

Now I will sometimes pack mildly before entering the water - just to open up my lungs a bit. As I mentioned before - my emphasis has been on deep, relaxed breathing and on extending the comfort range - without pushing.

It's also been interesting to adjust ballast for shallow dives by partially emptying my lungs. It's kind of interesting to dive without the effort of a full inhale.

Because of the place of diving in my life I don't like to bring any sort of compulsion into it.

 

[DeepThought]

Some of what I'm writing here was posted already but it never hurts to run through the basics again.
There's a thread in the safety forum titled something like "how to get a blackoutee to the surface". It has a few pictures and a debate on proper technique, check it out.

From my experience, exertion at depth costs me much more O2 than doing the equivalent at shallower water (the dive response can counter this).

The faster the diver will breath again the less serious the blackout will be.
Slapping a blackoutee does not signal to the body the calming message that air is available to breath again, your partners were not qualified to be your safety. Getting the mask off and blowing gently on the diver's face solves probably close to 100% of the blackouts (Some also call the diver's name). This should be done ASAP, not messing with boats or crossing lanes if you are in the pool. (alerting others is usually a good move that takes less than a second).
If the diver doesn't breath again there's mouth to mouth to try, if jaw is clenched you can also attempt mouth to nose. Those might not be so easy doing on the surface and without help.

Once as a beginner I had one stressful dive that left an impression on me afterwards. What helped me was standing - because that's the body posture I had during what seemd to be the longes ascent ever - and going through the details of the dive, focusing mostly on the stressful part. In the first few times I felt some of that stress rising again. I tried to immitate as much of that original stress as I could. I can't really explain what kind of work I did during these imagination dives, there was no real method behind it, I just played and fiddled, imagined things that happen and things that didn't... everytime the stress level was reduced till it became just another (clear) memory.

Now for the less basic stuff...
I know I'm repeating a line of thought that has been presented in this thread, but as an open community there is a value in supporting already stated things as someone might need to weigh them at the end.

Packing and purging are controversial, quite a simple fact that is demonstrated by us debating it. Or if it is "authority" that counts, citations (re. packing atleast) have been posted on these forums before.
I think that packing and purging could be quick performence boosters, but that doesn't make them the right/only way to dive. I think a shallow diver (<40m) can get almost the same results with different kind of schools, perhaps with more work during a longer duration, but some of us consider it as a safer apporach.
Just wanted to add to the doubt of using these tools for shallow serial diving.
I'm not adding 'science' to support this post as Tyler already did a very good job and there's plenty of data already in these forums about this.

BTW, I am not trying to dissuade anyone from attending a PFI course, I just think one should be aware it isn't the only way to dive.

 

[kmo]

I thought I should throw in a beginners POV on this whole high-tech arguement:

As relative new comer to freediving/spearfishing, having not had the chance to do a course for either safety or breathe-up routines, I must say that this thread has scared the crap out of me.

Following about 2 months of divable weekend weather, I have been doing a lot of spearing and getting pretty comfortable in depths up to 20m. I always dive with someone, but often we get out of sight for pretty long periods of time and basically dive solo. I know this is bad practice, for all the reasons mentioned in the thread above.

Anyway, on the weekend just passed, we went out in to a spot in 22-26m with very poor visability and did some drift diving. I was diving with some very experienced and well respected divers, and we all stayed very close together the entire time as the surface conditions were rough and we wanted the boat to pick us up.

Regardless of how close we were, we couldn't see each other from the surface once we got past about 10-15m down and were drifting faster than you could swim against to hold a position and rescue someone.

To cut this a bit short, I never reached the bottom all day because I had this thread in my mind, telling me that I was going to blackout for no reason at all. The fact that I never died might be considered a bit of a victory for Deeperblue, but I have some regrets about never shooting any fish when there were plenty there at 22m.

To be honest, I feel like I've never really pushed myself because I'm not sure that I know anyone who could revive me if I found my limit. When I first started reading the threads on DB I thought I needed to learn to pack, equalise hands free, exhale dive, and do all these advanced techs straight away, but I'm too scared to try anything but relaxation after reading a bit more.

 

[fcallagy]

Hi KMO,
I think quite a lot of freediver don't do exhale dives or pack or hands free equalisation but its still interesting to read about and see how others find it and maybe experiment in a safe location with. With the conditions you have described wasn't it better to come back up and dive another day than get a new pb or some fish but not get to enjoy them ? if you don,t feel confidence in your buddies try to find one that you can feel confiident with. Its 18 months or more since i did a course and havn't been to deeper then 10 m in open water because I know none of my buddies ( scuaba divers on snorkels ) could rescue me from a depth greater than that so I wait till I get someone that can or till i get to another course ( hopefully soon ) before getting deeper. Also you can test your limit and increase it by training in a safe environment but not by pushing till your in trouble (imho) I think getting scared is a good thing at times and I would have been scared in that situation and probably pulled out, the fish will still be there in 22m in better viz with less current someday just make sure we are still around to get them when it happens. safe diving and enjoy

 

[Cliff Etzel]

A couple of years ago I made an observaton that freediving seems to follow along the same lines as yoga and martial arts. That being there are different schools and different styles that one can master and each has its own merits and detractors. The way that Kirk teaches is not the same that Umberto does, or the way that Aaron and MT do, nor is it the same as Rudi. Each has developed their own approach and I enjoy reading aobut all of them- without ever putting one above another.

When it comes to blackouts I can say that I have never had one while freediving, not even a samba, BUT I have blacked myself out while packing. As a result I don't pack for diving, but I will llie on my floor and do pack streaches to loosen up my chest. I find them fine for that, with little chance of drownig in my livingroom, but don't feel it's worth the risk on an actual dive- unless I had a spotter right there, which we don't when spearing around here.

I know that we were taught to purge in the PFD course, but after reading Umberto's method of a much more relaxed breath-up it seemed to be more appealing for a long day in the water of spearing- to me at least and I don't mean to speak for anyone else. If I'm diving a line with others watching then I change my breath up to include that. Different things for different types of diving.

Jon (ymmv)

Good point Jon, I do very much the same thing - I only do dry land packing to maintain rib cage flexibility when doing my breathing exercises - never in the water. It has been 5 years since I did the PFI course so things might have changed somewhat, but having experienced PFI, then IAFD and SAFER and most recently Aharon Solomons (with Umberto's book), I have to say that for my style of freediving, the latter is by far the best method - for me. In addition, after reading and commenting on JimQPublics account of his experiences at the PFI course, it seems that this topic has great importance for those who choose to freedive. Samba and blackouts are a big no no!!!

KMO - you should be scared! Most people never take into consideration that blacking out will happen to them. That healthy amount of fear is what keeps anyone from making an unwise decision.

It appears to me, and I could be wrong, that spearo's freedive secondly to accomplish the primary goal of harvesting their prey. Umberto's quote in my sig is a very valid one - "The freediver dives to look inside..." If you are not mentally present and doing self checks moment by moment, that is when things will go wrong. If one trains solo - one has to be even more so. Training solo is usually a result of no one else to train with. So again, the relevency of this thread is very important. Everytime I get in the water - pool, lake or ocean, I know in the back of my mind that a SWB could happen - so I maintain the presence of mind to dive well within my limits and if I am having a bad day, I call the dive off and do something else on dry land...

 

[lungfish]

Ok, so I will keep my opinions to myself.
If weekender Joe Spearo can find a way to dive safely after having every possible safe technique ripped to shreds by a room full of egomaniacs, he is braver than all of us. Personally, I can't see any help arising from this discussion and you are all just scaring the hell out of spearos and newbies. I haven't seen your names on any relevent research of your own, nor do I see you teaching courses so you are all driven by something other than a desire to help weekender Joe Spearo and his buddies survive.

Good luck, and happy diving. Lungfish is outahere and www.deeperblue.net can rot.

Lungfish

 

[Cliff Etzel]

Ok, so I will keep my opinions to myself.
If weekender Joe Spearo can find a way to dive safely after having every possible safe technique ripped to shreds by a room full of egomaniacs, he is braver than all of us. Personally, I can't see any help arising from this discussion and you are all just scaring the hell out of spearos and newbies. I haven't seen your names on any relevent research of your own, nor do I see you teaching courses so you are all driven by something other than a desire to help weekender Joe Spearo and his buddies survive.

Good luck, and happy diving. Lungfish is outahere and www.deeperblue.net can rot.

Lungfish

You comments regarding this matter are both offensive and uncalled for. Egomaniacs? If you want to continue to avoid the very real threat - be my guest. Me personally - I have taught - and will continue to teach recreational freediving in the way it is meant to be taught - with safety first and foremost. If you choose to leave - it is by your choice - no one here is keeping you from doing that. No one is asking you nor forcing you to leave.

All the best to you in your freediving adventures..