What do we want?

[CEngelbrecht]

I wanted to hear people's opinions on what is the ultimate goal that sports freediving can achieve. Is it having an annual individual world cup like in formula one car racing, is it an ATP like scoring system, is it focusing more on national team competitions, becoming part of the olympics or having its own 'aquatic olympics'? Or is it more down to earth, focusing on educations, arranging meetings without all the competing to exchange cock-and-bull stories, etc?

I didn't want to make a poll out of this one.

Chris Engelbrecht
Stud.phil
University of Copenhagen

 

[jensen]

Sorry Christian

I dont think FREEDIVE ever gonna be an olympic sport or anything like it, due to the fact " no body knows freediving" AND AND AND how cool is it waching divers holding their breaths between commercials!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most importaint of all WHERE IS THE MONEY.

Check out your PM.

Joe

 

[icarus pacific]

Originally posted by CEngelbrecht
more down to earth, focusing on educations, arranging meetings without all the competing to exchange cock-and-bull stories, etc

As above, but to have serious no BS, noagenda-laden, self promotional real telecast quality, (I'd watch) contest/conventions and have some krona in the hand... yeah, I'd go for that.

 

[efattah]

One undisputed governing organization.
No 'stupid' record categories (i.e. scooter under ice etc...)
Competitions and record attempts with the same conditions & rules.
One massive individual world championship per year; possibly four massive comps like in tennis.
Prize money like in tennis.
Rules which encourage innovation rather than discourage it.
A safety system which does not involve scuba divers, but does involve a 'sister line' with a drone camera which follows the diver for the whole dive, with live transmission to the surface.
One massive get-together per year, not a competition, but a gathering of recreational divers to dive famous sites, or new sites (i.e. exploring) since freedivers can cover a lot of ground (imagine the headlines.... giant group of freedivers discovers new shipwreck off cuban coast...again).

Imagine if someone built a 130m dive tank like the dolphin, specifically for freediving competitions, with video cameras along the walls etc., embedded safety mechanisms (i.e. escape chambers...)




Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

 

[icarus pacific]

I like it all, excepting the no SCUBA diver part. Since we're diving for ducats, lets have full time, professional, gas cert'd safety divers following the tour as do pro referees.

Genius. :king

 

[JMD]

I agree with Eric, especially about the in water scuba safety. In my limited experience observing competitions I didn't see much of any value.

I especially like the idea of once a year non-competitive freediver get togethers. Any chance we could arrange an event like that in Canada for this winter, next spring?

 

[Will]

My dream is a freedive Mecca, in somewhere like the Carribean or Red Sea (or both) where divers can congregate, dive, learn fom each other etc. There would be pernmanent divelines to all depths, equiped with remote safety systems like Murat's drums, as well as good fundiving locations. Medicine students could stay also to study freedivers' physiology, and there would be all the equipment to measure blood pressure and content, lung volume on the surface and at depth.
Competitions, courses with freediving giants, film shoots - with a focal centre, freediving could really progress.

Sebastien Murat was supposed to be working on something along these lines called 'Libertalia,' but I haven't heard anything new in a long while...

 

[donmoore]

What I want?

I know the answer to that. I like all the “how to run” a competition thoughts Eric F. and James had, and all the training facilities, courses and films Will said. To do this it is going to take money coming into the sport and to do that it’s going to take recognition.

Recognition of sports is achieved through one of two things. Either the wow factor which is from freakiness or visually stimulating, or it’s a sport people can relate too. The wow factor doesn’t bring long-term recognition. Name any sport that achieved its fame because of the wow factor and chances are its neither no longer in existence or its in obscurity.

Why was Michael Jordan the most well known person in the world for a while? Because most people in the world have thrown a basketball at hoop. They can relate to what he does and appreciate his skills.

Even though at age 43, I don’t have any realistic dreams of competiting with world class freedivers, the fact that I have held my breath, done my meager dynamics and depth dives, gives me the ability to relate and appreciate what they do. I loved db’s coverage of Cyprus. The build up is what made the competition interesting and exciting.

How do we get more people involved in freediving? More educations, clinics, and local competitions are all necessary, but their needs to be a mechanism or foundation to facilitate this. Freediving is a sport that should be done with others for safety reasons, and safety is of prime importance to get more people involved. I believe the answer is clubs.

Local clubs are how a lot of sports do it. By sharing costs and responsibilities they offer a mechanism to hold clinics, and competition. They offer an avenue to find people to freedive with for safety, education, and fellowship.

Here is what we are trying to do in our little corner of the world. www.stfreedivera.org We are still in the beginning stages. What also would be nice is membership for clubs in the AIDA and a place on db for listing clubs.
My thoughts,
don

 

[iceselkie]

Hmm, I sort of agree with that. Being here in Regina, trying to make a club is like running along the bottom of a slippery pool with a big heavy rock (or rubber brick). People are intimidated by the fact that a lot of people die down there without the air. & That's no good for making wow factor. What wows me is that we have amazing freedivers here in Canada.
One thing that disenheartens me is that the folks on the top end forget about touring and promoting. I liken it to the big rock stars not wanting to do concerts in smaller, lesser known venues.
I would like to see freediving to be more accessible. The swim coaches here don't even know what freediving is. Ultimately, little kids should get a little bit of freediving slapped into their swimming lessons. They are already in a group, they will grow up informed and will be less likely to take risks. They will know that there's more at the end of the rainbow than swim meets and medleys.
Seeing a younger generation getting into a well-loved sport is, to me, more valuable than a trophy as such.

 

[cebaztian]

Good discussion!

I see people are hoping on; more money- more sponsor - more (better) media attention - more public attention.

All this go hand in hand!

Part of my work is "selling" this sport to media. I find two things problematic as a journalist:

1) The names of the categories. PLEASE change them to something people understand. In media we are short of time; we do NOT want to waste precious seconds explaining that "constant weight without fins" is actually "deepdives without fins".

2) Static... (my god do I hate this part everytime I am sitting in the edit room). The whole competition is resolved by DOING NOTHING for some six minutes!
Make the international competion into: DEEPDIVES and POOLSWIMMING.
And make a pointsystem that enables dives without fins to be compared with ordinary constant and dynamic dives.

After that we are closer to a spectator sport.

Sebastian/ Sweden (http://www.fridykning.se)

 

[icarus pacific]

Originally posted by iceselkie
I would like to see freediving to be more accessible.

Freediving, like anything else you really, really want, is as accessible as you make it.

welcome to DB, Brianna and you're right- there is some amazing talent up there in Canada.

 

[noa]

there are so many things. Eric and others are spot on with their suggestions but i still find some problems. to make a sport popular you need the mentioned wow factor/visual stimulation. to an outsider, watching freediving is like watching grass grow. you must admit, it's boring. i don't even want to discuss static, it shouldn't exist ! dynamic should be left as a marathon type event for finswimming comps, it has no connection to diving. constant weight, that's the only disipline we sort of have that raises our profile. but i can't think of any other sport where you just go in a straight line and back as SLOW as you can. this does not again make for a very good show. two things are neededduring a dive, first frequent direction change, and speed. with these two factors put together (in so many possible variables, even with multiple divers at once, speeding through an underwater "course") we could have fairly spectacular freediving and be able to get some media attention thus money thus progress thus...

 

[Kars]

Hello guy's my first post here, I'll do my best

I like competitions, but I like them for the people I meet.

Generally I'm against the influence of the 'big' money, as money can ruin peoples mind, I think it can ruin our sport attracting divers in search of fame and fortune.

I also agree that our sport is totally unsuited for television, sure a dive into the deep looks nice, but afther a few athletes it get's boring to the untrained eye. It's a bit like soccer for girls. People cannot immagine wat a freediver is going through during a dive. Sports like the marathon are a lot more acceseble.

The way I see to get more people to freediving is to start clubs like suggested above. I've been to Belgium for 4 competitions, and I really like the way they take on the sport. In Belgium it's presented as a familysport, where fun is the most importand factor. Usually there is a party after a competition, and there is a lot of support between the participants, every PB effort is treated as a true winner.

The media usual makes errors and screwups, and again the numbers, dangers and those dawm prejudgements like bad sport for your brains ruled, instead of al the feelings we all find so beautyful. So I think that the sport is VERY misunderstood in the media, and therefore in the general public. Talk to a scubadiver and you know.

To me freediving is not about being the best, it's about discovering myself.

*I hope I did not float to much off-topic *