What should we expect from Freediving Legends?

Like all sports stars, they tend to be a reflection of "us", not the other way around. We should all act in a way that is respectful and loving to friends, strangers, the environment and educate those that do not/are not with compassion.

John

The cooler athletes get more sponsors, better gear, and more money than jerk athletes. What is cool keeps changing sometimes the public likes the bad boy and sometimes they want Mr. nice. Some athletes don't realize it is a small world, their reputation precedes them.

I know some great freedivers who I would not want to dive with because their attitude towards others.

I know some unknown freedivers that I don't like to dive with......same reason. So the reflection of us all still is standing! There also will be people that don't like to dive with me, or with you!

cheers, pim

ps, we all should think how we represent our sport, not JUST the world class athletes. It is ALL of us that make the sport, lets not forget that.

interesting,

quote:
"The cooler athletes get more sponsors, gear ..."

i think there is a dude who gets loads of that but is extremely uncool, and nothing more than a mediocre freediver. only his marketing is better than others'.

quote:
"...those that enter the public view by achieving world record depths have a significant responsibility to the rest of us to display themselves as worthy ambassadors for our sport."

what about the possibility that the diver dives only for himself? why should he be an ambassador for anything other than himself? also, how can an individual claim he is representing freediving anyway? surely noone is representing me (other than me).

quote:
"They need to act in a considered way as the general public's image of freediving is almost entirely created out of the performances and behaviours of these few talented individuals..."

whose interest is the public interest? i assume it's more in the interest of businessmen than freedivers. freediving is so cheap and easy that it already is the everyman's sport. and without doing much more than spending some time training one can reach world class level. not possible in mainstream sports.

quote:
"We should all act in a way that is respectful and loving to friends, strangers, the environment and educate those that do not/are not with compassion. "

right on!


that's all very interesting, really. i just fail to see the issue, maybe because i'm not a businesman, have no interest in being one cause i much rather spend my days freediving with friends. and honestly, i hope the public doesn't take notice too much or sonner or later one businesman will come up and start limiting my freediving.

happy diving everyone,

roland

You could take the D Trump philosophy of there is no such thing as bad PR, its all advertising.

Hi Roland,

immerlustig said:

i think there is a dude who gets loads of that but is extremely uncool, and nothing more than a mediocre freediver. only his marketing is better than others'.

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The bad thing is that "cool" is a very subjective attribute. So it's all about selling yourself as cool to a layperson, not about actually being cool or doing cool stuff.

what about the possibility that the diver dives only for himself? why should he be an ambassador for anything other than himself? also, how can an individual claim he is representing freediving anyway? surely noone is representing me (other than me).

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Well IMHO you're partially right . Of course the motives for freediving vary significantly among freedivers. However, as a freediver you are part of a community, just like you are part of a community as employee, car-owner, footballplayer, etc. etc. .
It is the nature of people to judge groups based on thir judgement of individuals belonging to the group - of course, what else should they base their judgements on ? So, as a freediver, you will always be representing our sport and other freedivers, no matter if you want or decide to or not.

Jm2EURcc.

Veronika

I agree that many traits one has, automatically gets one the (un)priviledged membership to some community with or without your consent.

I absolutely disagree that you have any responsibility to that community until you project a suggestion otherwise. We all have such differing points of views and expectations that it is only a community by trait as opposed to a community of mutual intention.

This is an age old issue that has been proven time and time again. Slavery, racism, religion, parenting, education, etc..., have all shown how being part of a community produces those who defy the standard of the community for good purpose and result. If we produced only people who felt no reason to break the community enforcement, we would be barbaric and lack any diversity in interests or approach.

If a spearfisherman suddenly decides to spear the deepest and happens to do so deeper than a freediver, is he suddenly a representitive of the freediving community? Is the distinction between spearfisher and freediver so different that the nature of the difference will be so noticeable to the layman and that this difference will be understood not to reflect on freediving? Do you think he is going to care what the freediving community has to say about his approach or what the public perceived about him?

I think as honorable as it is that we all have a healthy affect on the uneducated public around us, we can not be the judges of what is more valuable between the meaning behind an individuals dive and the ANTICIPATED affect towards those who MAY perceive that dive. I am certain there are some things we may all agree are (un)healthy but that is not the same as saying everything deemed (un)healthy will be agreed upon in the community. This on its own says differing approaches are required to provide perspective, exploration, and personal growth for those in and out of the community.

Conclusion: The standard for those unintentionally representing the community should only be the standard of participating in a similar activity using similar practices. Those who form further standards are a seperate community. By their own suggestion of the importance of perception, they should feel the need to create a specific public image. The only way to do this is stop identifying themselves as something ambiguous, such as "freedivers". Instead they need to identify their community as something more specific so the public does not associate one's practices with the others'. Then the standard practices will be the differentiating topic in indentifying themselves to the public. If this is not attempted then by implication those who keep harping on others for their responsibility to the community are nothing more than finger pointers in my opinion.

Actually I find it rather backwards that those who ask for nothing from the community are pointed at with expectation, whereas when it comes to those who are actually representing the community (ie. educators) receive no critique other than "great job". Certainly they are doing a great job but being so new there is lots of room for improvement. Certainly nobody wants to sound like they are putting somebody down but if the perception is so important then who should be critiqued more than those on the front lines of introducing the material. Constructive critiquing should be essential in formulating better and safer introductions of freediving techniques. The courses out there should be critiqued on more than just one's increases in performance, since certainly that will only produce "great job" critiques.

Some thoughts.

I think people should just listen to their intuition/spirit. Everything wil become all right.
There appears to be a difference in attitude from some freediving people compared to the general company attitude. Freediving seems to change people, for the better.

I do not worry so much about the image outsiders may have, I favour paying attention to improve experience and skills inside the sport.

This sounds to me like a PR discussion, I suggest we put this energy in the overall devellopment.

Timing and words are important, a common mistake man still makes. And Legends are man, not Gods, like everyone they make mistakes. But please listen, don't get distracted by their timing or poor choiche of words, there is usually something really wrong when people choose to go public.

And for every man: radiate love, listen and you'll be a great promotor

Love, peace and water,

Kars

I have noticed that most of the time, the same people who choose to put you on a pedestal are the same people who tear you down when you don't meet THEIR expectations of what their idol should be like.

ADR said:

I have read your post 3 times and am unsure what to make of it. I think there may be a number of references to other posts(some mine) within what you are saying but I'm trying to refrain from making a bunch of poor assumptions and responding way off target from what you intended. Could you elaborate on your points if there were any posts that you are effectively referring to?

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I was only thinking of any comments I have heard recently and in the past regarding the statement, "Some might argue that it's their success and we don't have a right to expect anything from them and others may think differently."

So, there is no specific comment from yourself other than your general stance which seems to be in favor of anybody who reaches a world record depth is immediately included in those who we have expectations from. Most of my previous post addresses why I don't agree with that in general.

Cheers,

Tyler

I agree with Veronica. Everybody is a part of a comunity of some kind and mostly it is a minority of people who have the power to change or enfoce the image of it the eyes of public.
But I don't think any "legend" has any obligation to us. It is there free will to do what they like. We can only hope that they are the kind of people who don't care only about themselves and wont take actions that could throw a bad image on the entire sport.
Lets face it people write and read articles, make movies, talk about individuals. It is only about comunities when they become rebelish or something like that... Somethin unexpected or fulish, just not ordinary.

Kars said:

I think people should just listen to their intuition/spirit. Everything wil become all right.
But please listen, don't get distracted by their timing or poor choiche of words, there is usually something really wrong when people choose to go public. And for every man: radiate love, listen and you'll be a great promotor Love, peace and water,Kars

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Like a poem.
But you are giving some realy bad advice here Kars. And its somewhat contradictive so it doesnt do much good as advice I would say.
Sometimes you do better NOT listening to your intuition (partly feelings) and would do better if you took a few breaths and thought your feelings over. Our 200 meter man didn´t realy "radiate love" upon surfacing, but he might have followed his intuition.

Take a stance. "Anything goes" doesnt realy add to a debate.

Sebastian
Sweden

To balance my straightforward comment I send you some good karma along with it.

SanSan,

I strongly agree with you that a freediving legend doesn't have any obligation to us. I do however think that everyone of us should bear in mind that he or she is a representative of our sport as soon as he or she declares him- or herself as freediver. No matter how much of a public person he or she is.
I just did not agree with Roland regarding that you - if you put it to the extreme - can behave as you wish because you are responsible only for yourself anyway. If you do not care about the sport, ok (although it would still be bad behaviour IMHO). If you do, that doesn't work.
For me it's about sportsmanship, about (not) doing certain things, (not) behaving certain ways. No matter who you are, WR-holder or snorkeler.
The thing is that WR holders or freedivers who are in the media sometimes are the only impression the guy on the street builds his opinion on.

The question is, do we care about the opinion the public has about our sport ? IMHO this is a very tricky question. If it comes to media, to marketing, to reflecting on how the public thinks about us, a lot of people say 'naaah, that's not what we want, we just want to freedive'. On the other hand, I see people discussing about making freediving a popular sport, about getting into the Olymics, about making the sport spectator friendly, I see people looking for sponsorship, etc. etc. .
So, what do we want ?

Veronika

The question here has a profoundly philosophical base.
I believe that anyone who expects anything from anyone is doing themselves and the expectee (is that a word?) a disservice.
My desire would be that all human beings do things in the spirit of respect, love and harmony, but as soon as I start expecting it, I cross the line into a world view that gives us every bit of trouble that exists on the planet.
If someone does something marvelous, it's their business why they did it and for who. This person owes me nothing, and I expect nothing.
The conundrum is that if you truly expect nothing, you will always get something It's very Zen.
So: my love for humanity hopes that anyone who comes into any position of pwer (and therefore influence) does so because they love themselves and humanity, and therefore uses that power to enhance those qualities.
Peace,
Erik Y.

Erik

thats exactly the point I was trying to make, but I see ur a bit better with words than I am.

And would just like to say that one of the reasons I like freediving so much is the people. I noticed that almost every freediver I meet is friendly and heplful. I don't know why but I belive we'r a kind of spiritual people whose values aren't so much in conflict and depending on others. Or maybe is it only because we are a few and didn't get corrupted yet. However I belive the people on top, they that get the public eyes and ears won't forget how they started and wont forget about the sport. Not while there is only a bit of the freediving spritit left in them. But I know power has it's way on people.

hi veronika,

you have some interesting arguments and here are some of my ideas:

quote:
"The question is, do we care about the opinion the public has about our sport ? "

my question is why should we care about public opinion? whose freediving is affected by public opinion?

honest to god, i never heard anything from any person ever that freediving would have a dubious or bad image. the only people who tell me that are freedivers themselves. how is that possible?? i don't think that the majority of freedivers has to fight battles to get pool access. am i mistaken?

quote:
"However, as a freediver you are part of a community, just like you are part of a community as employee, car-owner, footballplayer, etc. etc....
....So, as a freediver, you will always be representing our sport and other freedivers, no matter if you want or decide to or not. "

hmm, i disagree.
i didn't join a club so why are you insisting that i have to represent a whole community. my freediving community consists of 3-5 people max.

i also am unaware that freediving belongs to someone (you say OUR sport). as far as i am concerned freediving doesn't 'belong' it simply 'is'.

quote:
"I just did not agree with Roland regarding that you (...) can behave as you wish because you are responsible only for yourself anyway. If you do not care about the sport, ok (...). If you do, that doesn't work."

believe it or not, i do care a great lot about freediving, even though i don't feel any responsibility to represent more than myself (dive buddies, maybe). are you saying that this is impossible?

warmest regards,

roland