Personal Bests?

[andrsn]

kirk's class

pete,

that's the second time i've heard something like that. do you really think the class is worth the $$?

i do feel like i have a sufficient grasp on the medical issues involved with freediving. my buddy and i take every precaution when we fish. i trust him with my life and he trusts me. i know you're never supposed to have that thought, but i know he'd be there for me if anything were to happen. i will never consciously put my life in someone elses hands, but if i had to it'd be him. i'm kinda getting the impression that it's going to take alot more than kirk's class to get comfortable at the depths i want to go.

i'm thinking twice about the class, and i'm starting to think about focusing more on how i should train and when and how i need to push myself to advance safely.

thanks again,
anderson

 

[laminar]

Kirk's Course

Andrsn,

I have not taken Kirk's course, but I know many people who have. I've also helped organize competition safety and world record safety arrangements with Kirk. I've watched him brief freedivers, scuba divers and offer instruction to beginner to advanced freedivers. The common thread is this, Kirk is well versed in safety. Most people will agree that the transfer of his safety knowledge is the most important part of the course. His approach is in highlighting ways to minimize the obvious risks of freediving. This is really important if you do want to try exploring deeper depths. Ideally, you and your buddy should both go. You'll get a chance to practice underwater rescues of all kinds over and over again until they become automatic with an expert eye watching. There are many "little things" to learn which can improve your confidence as a buddy.

Kirk also walks the talk. He's made dives to 70m + and can do consistent 6 min statics. He also has a solid background as a SCUBA instructor and trimix dive trainer.

If you have questions about your goals for taking the course, why not email him directly at kirk.krack@performancefreediving.com He's busy training Mandy Cruickshank of Team Canada for a no-limits record right now in the Caymans so he might take a while to get back to you.

Kirk has also had many spearfishing freedivers in his courses who may be able to give your some feedback about what they learned. Perhaps Kirk can give you some names to contact.

Hope this helps,

Pete

 

[Aquiles]

Hello there guys. I'm Andersons' freind from Florida. I thought that I was a deep diver till I read some of these posts. Wow! 60 meters! That is facinating to me. I love to hunt the deep water. I spearfish the 100 foot mark and I know that I have beat that once or twice chasing monster blacks. I think that I have hit the 113-115 mark (sorry I use feet instead of meters)at least twice. The highlite of this story is what I feel is my personal best-----it was not a dive but an experience. As I came up from one dive chasing mutton snapper in 95 to 105 feet I had the amazing pleasure of seeing a freeswimming beautiful atlantic sailfish. It was on the surface swimming languidly. It got within 8 feet of my speartip. I could see every rippling muscle in this 7 foot beast I took aim and quickly pulled my aim away from the target. I turned only to find my freind Mike locked on target. I turned and pushed away the barrel of his gun. The fish looked us over and swam away. That had to be my pb. To me it's not the depth but the experiences that happen when I am in that deep blue water that keep me in the blue.
The one thing that I noticed is that the lung squeeze is so impressive at that depth that it can intimidate even the most adept freediver. The one diver that stated that he coughed up blood scared the heck out of me. When I did my personal best I thought that something in my chest popped. I'm not a very big guy, 150 pounds and 5'10 average lung capacity . The thing that lets me dive 100 feet with a gun line and float attached to me is my mind. I have never taken a course but I can imagine that it could only benefit Anderson and I. I don't know what else to say since this is my first time on the forum I will keep it short as to not sound like a newbie.
One other thing, it's great to have found a place to share our one of a kind experiences with people that have such an appreciation to the sport!

See ya in the blue,

Aquiles

 

[Pekka]

I would like to know how much harder does it get to start ascent as you go deeper?
For example I did dive to aprox 30meters and I could feel the pull downward but it still was pretty easy to start the ascent.
I also did dive with more wights on and at 27m I felt like I was trying to lift something heavy with me from the debths. :yack I felt bit scared after that to dive with any weights on..
Does it get hard to ascent as you reach something like 50m or deeper?

 

[laminar]

Weighting for depth

It all depends on how deep you're going.

With your weighting, it sounds like at 50m, you would probably have a real chore in making it back to the surface!

When I dive to 45m+ I wear 6lbs with a Picasso 5mm suit. I am pretty buoyant on the surface and have to use an arm stroke to get myself down deep enough to start finning.

I am negative at the bottom, since I start to sink at around 35m to 40m, but the way up isn't any harder than shallow depths. I think this has to do with the amount of weight you wear. Also, it's so much easier to kick against negative buoyancy with a carbon monofin. I know people who weight themselves heavier for similar depths, but I prefer to be lighter rather than heavier at depth. I hate the feeling of sinking too fast and not being able to completely equalize an ear. That's a good way to get panicked.

I remember wearing 16lbs of weight in winter with a 7.5mm semi-dry, with plastic bifins at 50 feet and thinking I had way to far to go.

If I want to play (recreational dive) I add 2lbs and start sinking fast at 30m, which is perfect since I like to play at around 15-25m.

Pete

 

[jasu]

Originally posted by Aquiles
I could see every rippling muscle in this 7 foot beast I took aim and quickly pulled my aim away from the target. I turned only to find my freind Mike locked on target. I turned and pushed away the barrel of his gun. The fish looked us over and swam away. That had to be my pb

Hi, Aquiles. a Sailfish, wow! Seen those monsters only in pictures hanging on a rope. Respect you! Well done! Maybe I am able to see that king of fishes some day... :king

Have nice diveing!
Jasu

 

[Crusty-Scaley]

Does anyone have information on a dive clinic near Northern California.

I have always told people I only dive around 5 meters or so, but I was surprised with my mosquito to find out I was hitting 10 meters (around 30ft) and still looking for deeper water. It's not so easy here to gauge the depth with out some sort of device, because visibility is regularly about 1 to 3 meters.

I just had one of the best dive experiences of my life, thanksgiving day getting abalone. Reading this post just got me to relive the experience and pumped me up to improve my diving technique.

 

[Macker]

ok now Dont laugh at me .....

my best is 7 meters, i only started freediving a few weeks (maybe 2 months) ago, but i live in Ireland and its always freeeezing here so just as i was getting started freediving its started coming into winter, so i have to wait another few months before i can start again, BUT i have Joined the Gym and im living in the pool since i joined, hehe my girlfriend is going mad cos anytime she goes looking for me i am in the pool, what i am doing is swimming full lenghts under with one breath, to practice for when i can dive again, its is not a full olympic size pool, but its big enough, my girlfriend timed me staying at the bottom one day for 1.35 minutes so i was pleased with that cos im only starting, but i hope to get 2 mins soon, and then in the summer start going for 10+ meters.

any advise from you guys would be great cos i need some excersises to do in the pool to get me ready for next summer.
Thanks

later
Macker

 

[DSV]

Hi Maker,

Welcome to the addictive world of freediving.

First off please be very careful doing statics (breath holds) on the bottom without proper safety. Even doing dynamics (swimming underwater) is dangerous without supervision. I know its hard to find a spotter that knows what to look for if you black out. Go to the training section of this site and you can find some helpful hints to pass on to your girlfriend for now.

We don't laugh at anyone in this sport. :naughty
Anyone that is willing to get in the water and hold thier breath is my hero.

I was lucky enough to meet the Irish National Freediving team last year in Ibiza, Spain. They were a great bunch. Go to www.freediver.co.uk then scroll down to Hot News and at the bottom of that list is Ibiza 2002. They have some pics and the final results with the names of the divers. You may be able to look them up and get a training partner out of it.

Good luck and keep training.

DSV

 

[DSV]

Crusty,

Try www.performancefreediving.com the contact is Kirk Krack aka freedive Guru. They always have clinics in your area.

Macker sorry for the spelling error.

 

[Macker]

attn: DSV

Hello dsv mate...
Thanks for the info, i can already see this site will be a great recource to me, i wasent aware their was an irish freediving team, but its cool to find out my small island has a team
thanks for the advise too, i will check it out with my girlfriend cos im sure she will be interested in my saftey too. you are right when you say addictive ..... wow when im not in the water im moaning about not being in the water, lol im going to the pool now in about 20 minutes, but just for a relaxing swim (and jacuzzi hehe)
thanks again and i will be more causious when training, hope to speak to you all soon.
Take care

Later
Macker:duh

 

[ivan]

Wheres Aquiles

hi

Maybe Andrsn knows but where the hell has Aquiles been lately, interesting about his Sailfish encounter.

cheers

 

[DeepThought]

My new pb is about 26 meters -hey, that was the bottom.
I'm kidding, it was'nt easy at all, it's good that the bottom was'nt any deeper.

It's a good increase for a newbie who never had the chance to freedive in waters deeper than 6-10 meters.

so 26 is 20 meters in the poll, or 30?

 

[Aquiles]

Im taking finals this week and the next. I will not be found on planet earth for the next two to three weeks

Thanks asking though

Aquiles

 

[ivan]

Hey man I was missing ya

hi

What the hell is the finals is it some big spearfishing comp or something.

cheers

 

[andrsn]

Re: Hey man I was missing ya

Originally posted by ivan
hi

What the hell is the finals is it some big spearfishing comp or something.

cheers

He's getting tested on how to pull/scrape teeth. :blackeye

Anderson

 

[Pekka]

I guess as this thread is still hanging around, I might update my PB.. not very stunning but solid -36M.. I didn't know about mouthfill and couldn't equalize very well... but next time then...
Thanks for good tips and I try to stay safe while diving..:head

 

[Skindiver]

in a way.. ( andrsn & others)

diving deep recreationally is like doing recreational statics. There is no way i can do even a reasonable static outside of training for a serious competition or in competition even better. When i spearfish i often say to myself .. ok lets go touch the bottom and about 1 m from the bottom i start rounding out , head back and try appease myself by saying ...'well i could have if i really wanted to'.

Im sure there are people out there that can push themselves for no real reason. I need a good one. Competition. During the Hawaii Pacific cup i dove chunky dives easily in competition and a day or two later, in the same bay, recreational freediving at half that depth was pretty darn.... 'how the hell did i do it yesterday' and hope i havn't lost it ' suddenly.

Trust me and wait for the clinic, you will double your depth, not so much because of the things you may learn but because thats the focus and the job at hand and nothing less will do for that space in time. You wont turn till you reach the number you are secretly mulling over in your head. I predict - 40m

I have learned that i do the job when i really need to do it.
All my personal bests have been set in competition. I find that diving deeper in comp and mastering a new depth along with the techniques learned does help with spearing depth but only when im not trying. You know like when you start your acsent and look up and you see you are helluva deeper than you didnt realise ? How did you get there ? Subliminal mind stuff.

regards
Skin.

Sorry to cover old ground if these issues have been resolved by now. I was reacting to andsn's post way back on page 1 or 2 and didnt realise how many posts the thread had moved on since then

 

[ivan]

hi

I have never been at a world freedive champs like yourself. But I have noticed a similar thing. One day I was doing some dynamics that were pretty crap, then my mates arrived and they were all watching me all of a sudden with the same breathe up and all that I equaled my pb. I think like you skindiver that if I was in a competition for freediving I could easily pull off pbs in competition just because I feel like I need to do good when people are watching. A lot of people however say that there comp results are way off their Pbs at home Im not the same.

cheers

 

[Mattedhead]

This post is probably a day late and a dollar short, but I thought I'd give my two cents. I just returned from Kirk's Clinic Wed. and it was amazing. Several people have posted their concerns.."is it worth the $" ABSOLUTELY! My main reasons for taking this course were to become #1 a safer freediver and a better dive buddy, and #2 to test my limits in the safest, most comfortable atmosphere possible, and #3 to learn the techniques necessary to hunt at greater depths and for a greater duration. All three of these goals were realized. Before the clinic I was diving to ~65', and hunting comfortably to 55'-60'. In two days my "warm-up" dives were exceeding my previous PB's...70' for 2:30 used to sound like a circus act...now it's a warm-up. Go figure. By the last day I was pulling off 30-35m dives with confidence, and if it weren't for a sinus block I would have had 132'(40m) under my belt. So as far as I am concerned...Yeah it's worth it. Deeper, longer, and SAFER. I'm already trying to figure out how to get in the May clinic. If anyone has any questions about the clinic feel free to PM me.

matt