Thank you DeeperBlue! Here, have my free eBook about free diving :)

[kanthand]

Good point about the kindle reader. I just read through the book ln my iPhone. Found some more errors of course

I'm not sure if the table of content works for everyone but it works on my kindle readers (ipad, iphone and mac). If you push any of the underlined links in the book it should tale you there. Altough the Kindle often times places you a bit off center from where the "link" pointed to. I would like to number the pages but it would 't work as the number of pages changes from device to device. Even placin the iphone in horizontal mode dramatically increase the number of pages

Then don't bother it anymore. Its a minor issue for the PC-emulation, which only very few ppl will use, I immagine. If link pressing works on newer ebook readers then its fine. Mine is just too old to have touch screen or to have the name kindle rofl

 

[vasile]

Thank you very much!

 

[oskarvarg]

Take heed! If you download this book there is no need to buy my book about how to hold your breath as that is incorporated into this one. I just saw a few people purchase the hold your breath book and if you read this; just ask for a refund and tag it as an accidental purchase.
Otherwise you will definitely feel cheated

 

[Darkonos]

Ima drank this thanks.

 

[kanthand]

First of its great you took time and effort to share your knowledge. :king

Pro's: Downloaded it, and it was quite an easy nice read. Liked, that the language is good to grasp (for a non native speaker like me for example), and the style thats sort of a "friend" telling you the informations. Not to serious writing, which is quite a diveation of usual reads. The practical experience note is great, which lacks on most other overview books about apnea. E.g. Apnea Manual. Great ways to introduce a beginner into taking a full breath and recovery breathes after the dive. The latter gets overlooked in most writings.

Con's: I'd liked to have the one or other topic beefed up. If you have read a bit more about apnea and the "Apnea Manual", someone realises quick that a couple popular breathing/relaxation techniques are left out. Also disciplines. Well I can imagine you wanna keep it really basic for the ppl that haven't read much about apnea. In that case how about Mentioning further sources like the Apnea Manual and so on.

A personal question:
Is the 30sec inhale -> 25sec exhale breath up technique before diving teached to you by the "Total apnea school"? And you do them for 5 min then exhale complete and take your full breath to start the dive afterwards?
I ask because its the first place I really read this advice. On most places it was more like "the shallower the better" or exhale twice the inhale on small scales (4 in and 8 out or something)
I am sure as hell curious about it, and will give it a "dry". And when it goes well, maybe wet with my buddy after telling him what I am experimenting with.


Tiny issues I discovered whilst reading:

1) Location 79, You mention the 2 possible Black outs as shallow water Black out (30 to 0 feet under water) and the pool Black out (like on doing static based on hypoxia). It sounds very similar to me tbh. The depth is both 30 to 0 feet. And the cause is both hypoxia. However I remember the deep whater Black out. Other ppl here know better than me about it though I have a source that talks about it a little:
[ame="http://vimeo.com/2060317"]NSUC: Samba and Blackouts on Vimeo[/ame]

2) Location 123, If I remember correctly the issue should be hypoxia not hypercapnia. If you hyperventilate you get rid of CO2 in your body. So you still burn 02 and produce CO2. But before you get pCO2 that trigger your breathing reflex, and/or diving reflex, your too low on Oxygen and once your close to 80% spO2 your system shuts down (Black out).

3) Location 158, just a little Numbers error. In the CO2 table, 8th cylce, there is 0m00s recovery. Which means you would make a straight hold from cycle 7, leading up to 3min breath hold. According to the previous numbers the recovery should be 0m45s.

hope I helped a bit ^_^

 

[kevtron]

Is the 30sec inhale -> 25sec exhale breath up technique before diving teached to you by the "Total apnea school"? And you do them for 5 min then exhale complete and take your full breath to start the dive afterwards?

I actually did an Apnea Total class a couple years ago as well, and have since gone on with AIDA. I learned this breathe-up with AT as well, though have switched to the longer exhale breathe-ups like you talked about, which is also what AIDA teaches.

I haven't read his ebook yet, so don't know how detailed he explained it. Basically the way my AT teacher explained it was to purse your lips (kinda like you're going to give someone a kiss on the cheek) which will limit the possible flow of air in and out. Then you actually do your inhale slowly through that, and your exhale is just relaxing your body, but because of your lips the air can only go out so fast.

And then yeah, you've got the idea. It should be around 25-30 seconds per inhale or exhale, so do a full round about 10-12 times, and when you feel ready dive.

After learning other methods though I don't really like this one as much. I prefer to breathe in for a 4 count, and out for increasing multiples of 4 until I feel relaxed and ready for a dive.

 

[oskarvarg]

Awesome! Thank you kathand! I will look over everything you mentioned after work tomorrow. Expect a new updated version to be online within 24 hours that adresses everything you mentioned. I want this book to be good enough for people like you to actually recommend and with you helping out like this I hope that that can be possible.
Now my fiance is looking at me like she is angry... its 2:20 am and i start my new job in four hours :-D

 

[Hydro-Mike]

I am impressed, you are a credit to the sport. Nice easy to read and understand. Thanks Kathand for the directions on the pc download.

 

[Tommy_R]

Hi,

even when i think it is far from complete - you pointed this out yourself - i think it might help beginners so i will try to help you.

on 72: the example you are giving is not a DCS case its a pulmonary barotrauma ( the expanding lung example )

164 : no real mistake but i think the most basic CO2 table is not jumping to one breath in hold 8

191: not looking up is mostly a streamline and equalization thing ( yes it is also conserving some oxygen by not using the muscles in the neck but thats not the main reason )

260: it's not the diaphragm with high CO2 - It's the brain realizing a lot CO2 in the blood/body causing the contractions.

All of the above wont make a big difference for the beginner reader but it just sounded a bit off.

Tommy

 

[marcusmonde]

Hello Oskarvag!
My name is Marc and I am an instructor at Apnea-Total for a couple of years already. Thanks for your interest and glad to read that you are hooked on freediving!

Thank you for mentioning that this comes from your personal experience and not as set rules from our school, breathing times for instance. Everyone is different, with different lungs capacities, anatomy, etc... Only an experienced instructor may know what is best I believe and a good one adapts to the person in front of him or her.

But again, freediving is a wonderful world and I am glad that you became part of it with all your enthusiasm.

Never dive alone, stay safe and don't hyperventilate!

Marc

 

[oskarvarg]

Pro's: Downloaded it, and it was quite an easy nice read. Liked, that the language is good to grasp (for a non native speaker like me for example), and the style thats sort of a "friend" telling you the informations. Not to serious writing, which is quite a diveation of usual reads. The practical experience note is great, which lacks on most other overview books about apnea. E.g. Apnea Manual. Great ways to introduce a beginner into taking a full breath and recovery breathes after the dive. The latter gets overlooked in most writings.

Awesome, thanks


Con's: I'd liked to have the one or other topic beefed up. If you have read a bit more about apnea and the "Apnea Manual", someone realises quick that a couple popular breathing/relaxation techniques are left out. Also disciplines. Well I can imagine you wanna keep it really basic for the ppl that haven't read much about apnea. In that case how about Mentioning further sources like the Apnea Manual and so on.

Yes, this was a conscious decision to make the book more accessible. I figure I'd use what worked for me and let the people reading it find their own methods later. I'm guessing there are about as many breathing techniques as there are free divers Same thing with the different disciplines. I remember when I started looking into this sport it almost had me turn in the door trying to sort everything out at first. But now that I am into it, bringing in more information is so much easier.


A personal question:
Is the 30sec inhale -> 25sec exhale breath up technique before diving teached to you by the "Total apnea school"? And you do them for 5 min then exhale complete and take your full breath to start the dive afterwards?
I ask because its the first place I really read this advice. On most places it was more like "the shallower the better" or exhale twice the inhale on small scales (4 in and 8 out or something)
I am sure as hell curious about it, and will give it a "dry". And when it goes well, maybe wet with my buddy after telling him what I am experimenting with.

My teachers had some things to say about this. They believed that the shallower breathing techniques would put the diver at greater risks. I know that there are two, could you say competing, schools of thought here. Again I chose to focus on what I knew as to lessen confusion. And it worked very well for me. Getting past the five minute mark in just two day was an amazing feat. And to add to this I did not get any tingling sensations or acid feelings. The one thing that made me stop was that the convulsions got my mind messed up. So It felt safe and it gave great results. And yes, you understood the technique perfectly.



1) Location 79, You mention the 2 possible Black outs as shallow water Black out (30 to 0 feet under water) and the pool Black out (like on doing static based on hypoxia). It sounds very similar to me tbh. The depth is both 30 to 0 feet. And the cause is both hypoxia. However I remember the deep whater Black out. Other ppl here know better than me about it though I have a source that talks about it a little:
[ame="http://vimeo.com/2060317"]NSUC: Samba and Blackouts on Vimeo[/ame]

Awesome video! I rewrote the entire chapter about blackouts to put it in line with what was taught here. It made perfect sense.

2) Location 123, If I remember correctly the issue should be hypoxia not hypercapnia. If you hyperventilate you get rid of CO2 in your body. So you still burn 02 and produce CO2. But before you get pCO2 that trigger your breathing reflex, and/or diving reflex, your too low on Oxygen and once your close to 80% spO2 your system shuts down (Black out).

My instincts and memory is telling me otherwise... Anyone wish to comment further on this?

3) Location 158, just a little Numbers error. In the CO2 table, 8th cylce, there is 0m00s recovery. Which means you would make a straight hold from cycle 7, leading up to 3min breath hold. According to the previous numbers the recovery should be 0m45s.

Bah! Nothing a real man can't handle! Hrm... Hehe, changed it Thanks for all the help!

 

[oskarvarg]

on 72: the example you are giving is not a DCS case its a pulmonary barotrauma ( the expanding lung example )

164 : no real mistake but i think the most basic CO2 table is not jumping to one breath in hold 8

191: not looking up is mostly a streamline and equalization thing ( yes it is also conserving some oxygen by not using the muscles in the neck but thats not the main reason )

260: it's not the diaphragm with high CO2 - It's the brain realizing a lot CO2 in the blood/body causing the contractions.



I looked in to all your comments and have made the necessary changes Thanks for the notes Tommy!



Hello Oskarvag!
My name is Marc and I am an instructor at Apnea-Total for a couple of years already. Thanks for your interest and glad to read that you are hooked on freediving!

Thank you for mentioning that this comes from your personal experience and not as set rules from our school, breathing times for instance. Everyone is different, with different lungs capacities, anatomy, etc... Only an experienced instructor may know what is best I believe and a good one adapts to the person in front of him or her.

But again, freediving is a wonderful world and I am glad that you became part of it with all your enthusiasm.

Never dive alone, stay safe and don't hyperventilate!

Marc

Marc! Of course! You are the best teacher one could ask for! I am really glad that I took the course through you guys, it taught me so much. I am throwing some links to your site in my books here and there, hopefully some more people will come and learn from you the same way I did. Stay awesome over there!

 

[oskarvarg]

The updated version will go online in about 5-10 hours.
I hope that you guys take the time to review the book. Just one or two people writing a few words of what they actually thought would mean a great deal to me

 

[kanthand]

[..]They believed that the shallower breathing techniques would put the diver at greater risks.[...]

sure shallow and quick breathing can lead to hyperventilating either. I see the point and that there are many ways to do things wrong :/

2) Location 123, If I remember correctly the issue should be hypoxia not hypercapnia. If you hyperventilate you get rid of CO2 in your body. So you still burn 02 and produce CO2. But before you get pCO2 that trigger your breathing reflex, and/or diving reflex, your too low on Oxygen and once your close to 80% spO2 your system shuts down (Black out).

My instincts and memory is telling me otherwise... Anyone wish to comment further on this?

There is of course the chance that I am wrong. So.... rest of DB go ahead :wave

Hehe, changed it

Thanks for all the help!

your welcome
and awesome that your open for advices and improvements . Hope you had a great first day on your new job!

 

[oskarvarg]

sure shallow and quick breathing can lead to hyperventilating either. I see the point and that there are many ways to do things wrong :/

There is of course the chance that I am wrong. So.... rest of DB go ahead :wave

your welcome
and awesome that your open for advices and improvements . Hope you had a great first day on your new job!

Thanks! Don't forget to leave a review
First day at job... I got 20 minutes of sleep before work actually so it was messed up. Still did very well though. Now I will go to bed and have the best nights sleep in years