teaching kids to freedive

[sjurba]

In our local divingclub we run a freedivingcourse every winter,and this year Im asisstant instructor unntill I pass my "exam" in a couple of weeks (hopefully).Its the basic cmas course were doing, and I was kind of wondering how far in to the matter one should go,like breath ups,removing of snorkel when diving,hook breaths and so on.Its good to learn the "right" way first to avoid bad habits,but one should not make it too difficult either.Anybody got any experience with this,as my co teacher is quite old school when it gets to theese things.

 

[Kars]

Ok, I'm not a freedive instructor, but I've helped a few beginners. Also at the moment I'm working on my professional swim instructor ship, I teach children how to swim, young ones too! 4-8 year olds typically.

For their diploma's they also need to swim 3 - 6 or 9m under water, here my years of Freediving really pay off LOL. My guidance consist of technical direction of diving deep, and swimming slow with big strokes. Also to exhale deep and inhale before diving. Swimming along the bottom is easier too. And being relaxed and quiet before helps too.

Now if they are into underwater swimming I would teach them how to snorkel, duck-diving, taking snorkel out, clearing mask and snorkel, finning and buddy system and response ability.
About breath-hold I would explain about the basic relaxation = nicer diving. Do some relaxation practice, Watsu stuff. Also I would say as preparation, relax, easy slow breathing, exhale, slow inhale and dive. When to 'come up' is, when your urge to breath starts, then slowly and relaxed come up. So if you relax well you get rewarded with a pleasant en longer dive.

But then again it's all a dangerous endeavor, since children are very often not mentally conscious, they are not able to think through things - see and predict danger, and are constantly challenging each other and themselves to push boundaries.

An example is a friend of mine who described to me how far he pushed his dynamic when in junior school. He said his view went black in the end and was disorientated for a few moments pushing to 25m.

At this moment I believe in explaining dangers in simple steps with the young, putting understanding and response-ablitity in their hands, the difficulty is that they are not my children and ultimately their parents decide.
However these parents should understand that if they are not around their children will still experiment, challenge and push themselves exploring boundaries.
As an instructor you face a dilemma, granting knowledge will help people to be able to dive saver, but it also enables them to push a bit further. The safety then lies in the value the individual sees in (his/her) life. Forbidding a hobby or passion will put a dent into a persons appreciation of life.

The danger is when a child suffers an incident or (God forbid) death in water, you can get blamed.

Now doing dangerous, challenging 'individual' stuff can be very rewarding, as I'm sure many here have enjoyed. The mental inner dialog in search for limits and improvements surely help a person become an aware, balanced and knowledgeable person. Someone who also can recognize the psychology in himself and others making him very likely to be suited for a management position in life. Learning to manage yourself is the first step. (I'm still working on it btw.) Maybe you find it interesting to know that elite universities do not look much at your high school grades, but what kind of things you do with your free time. In this they look for 3 developmental categories: Art, social, individual.

This is a video discussing Dangerous Things in general, including fast cars and guns.



Sorry for the disorganized rand, I'm just to tired and lazy to perfect the piece.

Hopefully it's of use, and I love to hear and learn from other people's views.


Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

 

[Simos]

I am certainly no instructor but I would really keep things simple when it comes to kids and focuson enjoyment. I would not bother with breathup at all or hook breaths and the like. Just take a deep relaxed breath and dive - duck dive, staying relaxed under water and diving well within their limits and coming up smiling. Various underwater 'games' to keep things interesting and discouraging any form of 'pushing' themselves. The most important thing for me is to become 'one' with the water and be really comfortable/relaxed in it and enjoy it - the rest can come later.

I am trying to teach my 3 month old baby at the moment - he is a bit shocked when he comes up but he's only been underwater twice so far. In any case, he's a lot better than I was when I first put my head under water (which was at a much older age). My main aim is for him to smile and laugh when he's in water...

 

[cdavis]

Age is critical to the approach you use. Simos is right, for little kids (less than 10 years?), go for enjoyment. Both my kids just were not into pushing depth or distance until older than that. My youngest could dive 40 ft+ at 8 or 9, but only did it when he wanted daddy's approval. For his own diving, he stayed above 20 ft. My oldest wasn't interested in depth until 14, when he went from 20 to almost 50 in one jump.

Once they get old enough to want to push, be careful, they are stupid. Lots of safety instruction,technique instruction, war stories, etc is a good idea.

Connor

 

[Simos]

Age is critical to the approach you use. Simos is right, for little kids (less than 10 years?), go for enjoyment. Both my kids just were not into pushing depth or distance until older than that. My youngest could dive 40 ft+ at 8 or 9, but only did it when he wanted daddy's approval. For his own diving, he stayed above 20 ft. My oldest wasn't interested in depth until 14, when he went from 20 to almost 50 in one jump.

Once they get old enough to want to push, be careful, they are stupid. Lots of safety instruction,technique instruction, war stories, etc is a good idea.

Connor

Yes very true - definitely when approaching teenage years I think you need to start explaining what not to do etc, especially with hyperventilation. I still vividly remember being in a friend's pool when we were kids and deciding to have a competition on who could hold their breath for longest and someone had heard this 'trick' somewhere which involved really fast and heavy breathing before holding the breath so we all used to do it. Luckily noone could push enough to black out but it was just luck, I vividly remember myself hyperventilating very aggressively for a while before holding my breath :-(

And of course teenage boys will do anything to impress girls and others lol

 

[esom]

good topic. you hit the spot for me simos

 

[sjurba]

Thanks for all your good input,most of the kids are in the 8-11 year age and with huge gaps in previous exposure to water; from barly swimming, to kids with scubaparents who got theis first mask at the age of 3 . At the moment were just doing games of picking up stuff from the pool bottom,perfecting finning,getting comfortable with the snorkel and mask and so on.anybody got some good games for getting kids to forget themselves and enjoy the fun of snorkling?

 

[Kars]

Well doing things together they like, so have them buddy up and share and interact with each other. You can play on their imagination by asking questions like, what do the fish think? what do they like to eat? where do they sleep?

To correct maybe a faulty impression of my previous post. I'm not in favor of exploring any true limits at such young ages, I was just indicating some idea's to limit the children, prevent them doing stupid things like diving alone and hyperventilation - 'a trick' which many find out by themselves (!), and make the dives more comfortable and enjoyable.

Like Connor said children will limit themselves too, going deep is scary because it's a long way up and the need for air is strong and sudden.

Tips like move slow like a fish, breath slow etc are I think some good useful principles to give to children who're ready. Growth is not linear, it's by leaps and bounds. Just keep the instruction short and match it to their needs, interest and understanding, and take microsteps. When they feel they've mastered a trick they will clamor for more. Offer choice of challenge, "do you want something easy or something difficult?".

Let them experiment their own way. When you assist unwanted the things they do become uninteresting. Let them control as much as possible.