I've *never* been disciplined about training or practicing my freediving. I always felt like a free-spirited, dionysian freediver... just playing, undisciplined, and hence, not performance oriented.
Maybe part of the problem is not knowing how or where to begin.
The C02 and 02 tables opened my eyes, and I wanted to try them... but I doubted I'd get to it.
Tonight I tried the O2 table -- and I'm happy. First, it wasn't like meditation, which I am good at, but have difficulty pursuing as a practice for some reason. The 02 table is much more active than that, though, it's muscular exertion.
These observations:
* damn this is hard doing OUT OF WATER. It feels different.
* holding this air in is painful
* the difficult part is holding the air in
* the air pushing against my vocal chords caused me to lose my breath
* clearly, this involves muscular conditioning, as I observed my muscles around my throat tire after 20 minutes and I started making sounds as I was unable to hold the air in
* I would do this very differently IN the water, than OUT. I would let the air out much sooner, and then sit there in the calm and peace of the water, in perfect stasis -- not needing to move, not needing to breathe, not thinking, just sitting there, being, my eyes and mind filled with the blue of the water in front of me
* Is it merely the pressure underwater that makes it feel so much easier IN the water? Or am I doing something different? I don't know.
* the very last Hold was hard for me. I grabbed a tube of lotion that sat on a shelf next to me, and put it between my teeth; then I pinched my nostrils shut. The contractions did NOT feel like they do underwater, and I'm not even sure they were contractions. On the plus side, I accidentally went 10 seconds longer, so the last hold was 2:40.
I won't do the nice HTML mark-up table, but the O2 table I did was:
2:00 rest between each successive hold; successive holds were:
1:00
1:15
1:30
1:45
2:00
2:15
2:30
2:30
I completed the table; I won't say easily, but it wasn't really a challenge, and I felt good for doing this. Also, it opened my eyes: this is clearly a function of muscular development and acclimation --- something I can exercise --- and here, what I'm doing, is the exercise for it.
Exciting progress. Thank you for the 02 table and inspiration!
Maybe part of the problem is not knowing how or where to begin.
The C02 and 02 tables opened my eyes, and I wanted to try them... but I doubted I'd get to it.
Tonight I tried the O2 table -- and I'm happy. First, it wasn't like meditation, which I am good at, but have difficulty pursuing as a practice for some reason. The 02 table is much more active than that, though, it's muscular exertion.
These observations:
* damn this is hard doing OUT OF WATER. It feels different.
* holding this air in is painful
* the difficult part is holding the air in
* the air pushing against my vocal chords caused me to lose my breath
* clearly, this involves muscular conditioning, as I observed my muscles around my throat tire after 20 minutes and I started making sounds as I was unable to hold the air in
* I would do this very differently IN the water, than OUT. I would let the air out much sooner, and then sit there in the calm and peace of the water, in perfect stasis -- not needing to move, not needing to breathe, not thinking, just sitting there, being, my eyes and mind filled with the blue of the water in front of me
* Is it merely the pressure underwater that makes it feel so much easier IN the water? Or am I doing something different? I don't know.
* the very last Hold was hard for me. I grabbed a tube of lotion that sat on a shelf next to me, and put it between my teeth; then I pinched my nostrils shut. The contractions did NOT feel like they do underwater, and I'm not even sure they were contractions. On the plus side, I accidentally went 10 seconds longer, so the last hold was 2:40.
I won't do the nice HTML mark-up table, but the O2 table I did was:
2:00 rest between each successive hold; successive holds were:
1:00
1:15
1:30
1:45
2:00
2:15
2:30
2:30
I completed the table; I won't say easily, but it wasn't really a challenge, and I felt good for doing this. Also, it opened my eyes: this is clearly a function of muscular development and acclimation --- something I can exercise --- and here, what I'm doing, is the exercise for it.
Exciting progress. Thank you for the 02 table and inspiration!