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New guy from Belgium

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 90 days.
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elleboog

New Member
Aug 2, 2013
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Hello everyone,
I'm 19 years old and i come from Belgium.
As i'm new here i will explain why i joined :)
About a week ago i saw a Ted talk of David Blaine (on youtube) explaining how he held his breath for 17 min and i immediately became fascinated by the concept of freediving and decided i wanted to learn to hold my breath. For a long time.
I knew i could do it for about 3 minutes and in his video David Blaine said he would every morning do 1 minute of hyperventilating then 5.5 minute hold and repeating this over and over. So i did the same for 3 mornings (holding 3 minutes) repeating 4-5 times (breathing 5 minutes in 20 minutes). The third time i decided to hold longer because i didnt even get contractions at 3 minutes and i got to 5 minutes rather easily.
I started to search on the internet, to find better ways of training and more background information and noticed that most people advice against hyperventilating, also i found out about the O2 and CO2 tables, which i use now (without hyperventilation).
But i must admit I still have no idea what I am doing, partly because of the inconsistency of the information on the internet(concerning breath up, packing, hyperventilating, training,..).
For this reason i have decided i want to follow a freediving course, because I am really determined to become good at this :), but I can't find any information on freediving in Belgium.
So if anyone here knows where i could find someone to teach me how to freedive (in Belgium), please let me know. General advice is also welcome :)
Thank you for reading (and replying to) this post, and sorry for my bad English.
Greets from Belgium!
 
Hallo Elleboog!

check the website of AIDA Belgium: AIDA Belgium and this place: AIDA secties | AIDA Belgium

I sometimes train with Dirk Wouters and friends. I'm not an official instructor yet, but have 8 years of experience and a current national depth record.

5 minutes is not something for beginners, it's already an instructor level number, though as you know, there is a lot of knowledge to be learned, and starting at such level you probably have skipped some key understandings on your way.

One thing I like to offer to your consideration is the following:

What is the difference between breath-hold diving and freediving?

I ask this because I want tell you that freediving is much more then numbers.


Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

ps Your English is absolutely fine!
 
There is also a great book that I can recommend you. It's called manual of freediving by umberto pelizari. It covers almost everything, sometimes a bit boring but for me it was very useful.

Yes you are right, hyperventilation is very bad. Actual I also did a video on this on my YouTube channel. I mention hyperventilation and why you should not do it.

You are lucky living in Belgium you have the pool tank called nemo 33. It's am amazing place for freedivers to practice. Check it out at YouTube.

Be careful and have a great weekend.
 
hallo elleboog,

je kan altijd met ons komen meezwemmen te Antwerpen en omstreken.
Dan maak je kennis met de verschillende disciplines van vrijduiken en hun protocol.
Wij ( Dirk Wouters en co.) beoefenen de sport (nog) niet in clubverband, wat wil zeggen dat je
alles rustig kan proberen en opnemen en onze aanwezigheid zorgt voor de extra veiligheid.
Woon je te ver weg? Geen probleem laat me weten waar ,dan kan ik je misschien in contact brengen met iemand in je buurt.

Jeroen
Antwerpen
0489396171
 
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