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Pellizari's Dives

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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ivan

looking for deeper water
Jan 26, 2002
1,503
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hi

Today I thought about something and have a quick question. When Umberto did his 80m Constant weight dive (84m in training) how does he equalize.

I know most freedivers these days use Erics famous equalizing method but Im sure that wasn't invented when Umberto did his dives and I also believe that Umberto didnt even pack for his dives. So I thought how would it be possible to have enough air without packing to use the normal hand pinch method and not get crushed lungs at 80m :confused:

cheers
 
Umberto uses Frenzel to equalise to 120m (inverted, Variable) and then a Valsalva at about 135 which takes him to 150 (No Limits). He has very little trouble equalising CW, due to incredible diaphragm control, and I suspect he is mouthfilling as well.
I don't think Pelo even packs when he goes on holiday...
 
hi

Will but I thought Pellizari did these dives before Eric even invented the frenzel fattah method :hmm

cheers
 
umm - Eric didn't inven't the Freznel technique...
 
The Frenzel Technique was invented by Herman Frenzel a Luftwaffe commander in WWII. He taught his dive bomber pilots this technique because of the rapid pressure changes as the pilots went into dives to bomb their targets.

I'm not sure why Eric F. does not refer to Mr. Frenzel in his paper?

DSV
 
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Will but I thought Pellizari did these dives before Eric even invented the frenzel fattah method

I am pretty sure that Eric did not exactly invent the mouth-fill technique. It was surely used before Eric was around.
But I think he must have been the first to describe it in all details in the literature, so I guess we definitely owe Eric some flowers and may well call the mouth-fill technique "Frenzel-Fattah".

Cheers
Uli
 
Whats on who

As far as I understand Fattah added the Mouthfill part to the Frenzel part (closing epiglottis),

Umberto as I understand it, has developed a strong diaphragm (=big breaths) and also fils in two stages. A second top off after pressing out diaphragm.

The invention of packing (in freediving) is claimed by Bob Croft.
 
Back in 1998, I had spoken with several divers who had competed in Sardinia. I was asking about deep equalizing techniques. Several divers used a 'mouthfill' method which involved filling the mouth up each time you tried to equalize. Among those divers was Australian Tony Heugh, who explained to me how he would fill his mouth up with air each time he tried to equalize.

I was doing a chi-gong standing meditation around October of '98 when an idea popped in my mind. All of my ideas come to me during chi-gong standing meditation (the fluid goggle idea came during such a meditation).

It occurred to me that one might benefit by filling the mouth only ONCE, at the maximum depth which one could fill the cheeks completely. When this idea came to me, it was not at all obvious that a single mouthfill method would have any advantage over current techniques, including the 'repeated mouthfill' method. I tried to do many calculations but at the time I didn't understand enough about the various airspaces to conclusively decide whether or not the technique would be helpful.

Further, I was uncertain if it was even possible to trap air in the mouth and equalize with the throat still closed (epiglottis closed). I didn't understand enough about the anatomy of the nose and throat to figure that out.

Eventually I began doing experiments, and at first it seemed that it was impossible to do the standard frenzel with the throat closed. However, after many hours of practice, I found that it was in fact possible, but it was simply a reflex to raise the soft palate whenever you close your epiglottis. Eventually I 'de-trained' that reflex after many hours of practice. At the time I had never heard of anyone else spending 3+ hours a day on the couch trying to detrain a throat reflex, so I began to wonder if anyone had done this before. I thought that if this technique really did offer an advantage, then surely someone must have thought of it before. The fact that I had never heard of anyone doing a single mouthfill made me think that the technique could not possibly offer any advantage over existing techniques.

Mayol himself described the extreme effort it would take to 'force' air into his ears while trying to equalize head-down on his 80m+ dives. This alone told me that he had not used a single-mouthfill technique.

Anyway, it was not until early 1999 that I took a trip to Alouette lake to test out the technique for real. At first I tried filling my mouth at the surface and then doing negatives. I quickly found out that performing the technique in the water, with so many other things to think about, was not easy, and I kept losing my mouthfill or my soft palate would lock up. Eventually I managed to do it on negative dives.

Then I tried a dive where I filled my mouth up at about 10m and continued down to 22m. I was amazed that when I got to the bottom, my mouth was still full of air. I sensed that the technique might actually have some merit after all. This confused me even more, because by now (several months later) I had spoken to many more divers about equalizing techniques and still none had ever mentioned a 'single-mouthfill' technique although many had spoken about repeated mouthfills or reverse packing, diaphragmatic frenzel, continuous valsalva, saline equalizing, etc...

I competed in Nice, France in 2000 and did several 67m dives, but I didn't feel the need to do the mouthfill and instead relied on the diaphragmatic frenzel, which I found I could still do with little difficulty at 65m+. After the competition was over I had a long talk with Herbert Nitsch about equalizing techniques. I explained my 'single-mouthfill' technique to him, even though I didn't actually use it at the competition. He told me that he had tried the repeated mouthfill and reverse packing methods before, but he had not heard of the single mouthfill -- and like most people, the idea that a single mouthfill at 30m could last you until 100m+ seemed ridiculous.

It was not until I was training for the CW record in 2001 that I found out how much energy I saved by filling my mouth at 30m and then never doing any effort until the bottom. It allowed me to sleep during the descent, and I saved a ton of energy. The descent became a joke. The ascent was the whole dive.

It was during that time, June 2001, that Herbert was training for the CW record in the Austrian lake. I had been chatting over e-mail about how much energy I was saving by doing the single-mouthfill. Unfortunately it is so hard to learn that Herbert hadn't been able to do it yet. Equalizing was his limit and although he was aiming for 82m, he ended up with a 72m record.

Two months later I did my personal best of 88m and found that even after equalizing at the bottom I found that my mouth still had air left for more equalizations, ultimate proof, for me, that this technique did offer an advantage.

I did the 82m record and then eventually decided not to go to Ibiza. However, when Herbert congratulated me on my 82m record I spent some more time chatting with him about the single-mouthfill method, and I told Herbert not to give up. During training in Ibiza he finally figured it out and did 89m, followed by 86m during the competition, breaking my short-lived 82m dive which had only passed 'official' ratification the night before.

At that point I had some mixed emotions. I wondered about my philosophy of sharing techniques. The selfish part of me said that if I never shared techniques, perhaps I would still hold the record! Then, I figured that I would get good karma by sharing and good things would happen eventually.

I had also been chatting with Patrick Musimu. Early the next year (2002) he was trying for the CW record with the IAFD. He had a personal best of 79m and was limited by equalizing. Pipin was trying to teach Patrick the sinus flooding technique, which Patrick tried, but he found he got very dizzy and disoriented, since he was not on a sled. I kept e-mailing Patrick during the days before the record, offering more detailed explanations than are given in the document on my website. Patrick then did his 87m record with ease, and told me that three days before, he had gone out into shallow water with Isabel and finally figured out how to do the single-mouthfill.

So, when faced with the question, was anyone doing the single-mouthfill technique before 1998? I suppose we can never say for sure. Unfortunately when people say 'mouthfill' technique, almost everyone thinks of the 'repeated mouthfill' technique, and people like Dieter Baumann say 'oh, I've been filling my mouth since the 70's.' Unfortunately it isn't the same technique. Dieter was Herbert's coach during his 72m lake record where Herbert missed his target of 82m due to equalizing. I felt like asking Dieter why he didn't teach Herbert the 'mouthfill' technique back then.

What I can say is that so far, of the people who are currently doing the single-mouthfill technique, none are doing it very efficiently. Herbert still broke his eardrum in Cyprus despite the mouthfill technique. Musimu himself said he thought he could maybe make 95m with the mouthfill. However, if done properly it will get you far, far deeper.

Currently my personal best for a negative dive, filling my mouth at the surface, using a sphera mask, is 32.8m. With a full pack, I can get a full mouthfill at 35m with great effort.

Doing the math:
negative dive:
0m to 32.8m = 1atm to 4.28m = 4.28x

Mouthfill @ 35m = 4.5atm
4.5atm * 4.28 = 19.26atm = 182.6m

So, if I were to fill my mouth at 35m with the same efficiency as I did on the 32.8m negative dive, using the sphera mask, I would reach 182.6m, head-down, equalizing with a mask. Now THAT is an example of an efficient mouthfill.

If someone like Hubert Maier with 14L lungs did it that efficiently, he could probably get to 200m+ with a mask!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Last edited:
Eric,

Tried to karma-lize you, but the karma system is not working for me. I always enjoy your posts, but I think that this is the best that I've read so far.
 
hi

Wow thanks alot Eric top post.

I have another quick question, that German guy with 14L lungs why does he dive so much shallower than Herbet. I would have thought with 14L lungs he could just use the standard Valvalsa technique and still do very deep dives with some air left. :hmm

cheers
 
The invention of packing (in freediving) is claimed by Bob Croft.
I knew that issue would pop up in this thread as well... :D

Cebaztian:
I appreciate it very much that you added "(in freediving)", because as far as I know, the technique we freedivers call packing was used before Bob Croft by doctors in the treatment of asthma-patients and by oboists when they had to play very long notes.

I have another quick question, that German guy with 14L lungs why does he dive so much shallower than Herbet.
Ivan:
I heard from a friend who knows Hubert Maier, that he is without a doubt very gifted, but he is not a big fan of long training sessions. (Herbert Nitsch on the other hand is a former competitive swimmer and is used to swimming lap after lap after lap...) Maybe Hubert is more of a "soulfreediver"?
Another reason might be that Hubert's parents own a farm and a small hotel. He is very busy helping them, so that he presumably cannot train very regularly.

Eric:
Thanks for your clarification regarding repeated and single mouthfill! I always enjoy your posts and lots of Karma to you!

Nevertheless a few comments:

The last mouthfill of a repeated mouthfill is a single mouthfill. Just think of the many freedivers, with a pb far from there limit of equalization. But it is of course your achievement to teach us Boyle-Mariotte and give us hints how to find the optimal depth for the last mouthfill. Many many people didn't think about that before you wrote your article(s).

To support Dieter Baumann a bit (or to give his position more weight :D): one could say, that even a series of ordinary Frenzels is in a way repeated mouthfill. And with the comments above, the single-mouthfill technique is not that far off.

Cheers
Uli
 
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Maybe Hubert is more of a "soulfreediver"?
Another reason might be that Hubert's parents own a farm and a small hotel. He is very busy helping them, so that he presumably cannot train very regularly.

Maybe it takes more than a big lung to be able to go for extraordinary depths?

@Uli
I am not sure if Herbert's training frequency differs that much from Hubert's. It would be interesting what Herbert himself thinks about this...
 
Actually, the repeated mouthfill technique is FAR from the single mouthfill. The repeated mouthfill does not require detraining the epiglottis from the soft palate. If the repeated mouthfill were so similar, then people would learn it instantly. Instead, people like Herbert who knew the repeated mouthfill, still took a long time to learn the single mouthfill.

The repeated mouthfill is nothing more than a method of reminding yourself that you must push so hard with your diaphragm until you feel the air in your mouth -- it is just a method of testing to see if you have enough pressure on your diaphragm to pull off an ordinary frenzel. It does not require trapping air in the mouth, closing the epiglottis and relaxing the soft palate.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Eric,

I think I understand the theory of the single mouthfill, but I can't seem to hold enough air in my mouth to sustain a dive to 65+m. I am able to bring up another mouth full or 2 after 65m and I know it's not by using my diaphramn because I have trained myself to keep my abdominal area as relaxed as possible.

And if I was to fill my mouth at 30m I can barely make it to 60m so I draw up another mouth full around 55m and I can sail past 60m to about 65m to 68m before I need a little more.

My problem in the past has been to uncontroled swallowing reflex anywhere from 55m to 68m and I loose that air and can not recover it from my stomach.

Any thoughts?

I would like to discuss equalizing and nutrition with you a little more and if you be kind enough to humor me by emailing me personally so we don't cloud up this great thread I'd appreciate it.

DSV
 
Maybe it takes more than a big lung to be able to go for extraordinary depths?
St3fan:
You know Herbert (and I think Hubert, too) so there is no use argueing with you ;), but Herbert rides his stationary bike in apnea, doesn't he?


The repeated mouthfill does not require detraining the epiglottis from the soft palate.
Eric:
A little experiment:
1.) One puts on a mask.
2.) One takes a full inhale.
3.) One closes the throat.
4.) One sucks a bit air out of the mask without the use of the muscles responsible for inspiration (diaphragm etc.).
If one can do this, the throat will have to be closed, while the soft palate has to be lowered.
Is this right or wrong, Eric?

Regards
Uli
 
hi

Okay gys so if Umberto doesn't pack does anyone know what his lung volume without packing is, how does he develop a strong diaphragm is it from simply practicing sucking your stomach in and out ;)

cheers
 
Hi Ivan,

in Pelizzari's and Tovaglieri's book "Corso di Apnea" it says on the flap about Umberto:
"(...) vanta una capacità polmonare di 7,9 litri."

Regards
Uli
 
I don't know if it is a testament to the clarity of the instructions and excercises in Eric's Frenzel-Fattah technique document, or a reflection of how intuitive the movements really are but the first time I seriously tried the technique I didn't have a problem de-training the epiglottis - soft palate reflex. I can't get to 32m on a -ve yet, but I'm on my way.
 
Originally posted by Uli
Hi Ivan,

in Pelizzari's and Tovaglieri's book "Corso di Apnea" it says on the flap about Umberto:
"(...) vanta una capacità polmonare di 7,9 litri."

Regards
Uli

Cheers mate, I guess that book is not available in english :(
 
Originally posted by Will
(...) the first time I seriously tried the technique I didn't have a problem de-training the epiglottis - soft palate reflex.

That's exactly what I thought. There was absolutely no "detraining" necessary.

Regards
Uli

P.S.: Ivan (or better Andrew?),
I heard "Corso di Apnea" should be available in english in the future. Will, do you know more about that?
 
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