Writing the freediver Bible

Jon,

Take a look at FreediveUSA's archive post #160. There's some history there about IANTD's manual.

Peter S.

Originally posted by jvoets
Another interesting link is this page: Bibliography of breathhold diving
Someone has composed a long list of all scientific articles on breathholding.
Unfortunately you'll have to have access to a scientific library with subscriptions to these magazines to read them.

Click to expand...

Wow...those are some pretty obscure journals. It's definitely in the realm of a large university library.

Hi !

Can enybody tell me about any book written in English.
I can't speak french, i hate italian (just the language) and understand german quite alot.

But english version would help moust.

Jure

Online Encyclopedia Yes - Freediver bible No

First I would like to express my gratitude for the wealth of information that is already available on deeperBlue forum. Among other Austrians Herbert Nitsch is thankfully admitting that his success is based on international exchange (ie with freedivers from deeperblue) rather than on local coaches.

So far suggestions of how to organize freediving knowledge have been great and I am only complementing:

Why not creating a grid/structure of categories by launching off predetermined threads - each bearing the name of a different topic? Everybody is invited to contribute. Those who have been serving us so far in sharing their know-how consistently should be chosen as cadidates for a poll, in order for us to decide who we want to elect as moderators for an online encyclopedia for freedivers. Their job would be to compile, filter, organize and refine all contributions - including their own ones.

The backbone of this encyclopedia should be flexible enough to be useful in decades to come - just as UNIX systems are as flexible as ever without its developers forseeing the complexity of todays demands back in 1970.

Why I believe there is no freediver bible - in response to the interesting posts of majo, BlueIcarus and Uli:

In order to accept somebodies claim to possess the bible of a certain subject it

1. would have to be universally accepted (at least an authoritative exposition of some topic, respected by many who are experts in the field)
2. would have to have a key figure personifying it
3. would have to be timeless - not subject to updates

It is not my intention to persusade anybody of the veracity of the Hebrew/Christian Bible here - I only want to point to the fact that it fulfills all of these three requirements mentioned above:

1. Graphe is the universally accepted volume put on paper.
2. Logos is the living volume (the key figure - Jesus Christ)
3. Rhema is the spoken volume (only enforcing but never updating the timeless graphe)

Whether it is considered to be true or not doesn't take away from the fact that it is unique and therefore not reproduceable.

Lets take a look at different subjects:

Mathematics:
Both Leonhard Euler's Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum and C.F. Gauss's Disquisitiones Arithmeticae have helped me a lot in gaining mathematical understanding, and I could claim to have found standard volumes with key figures. But someone else may have a "better" suggestion, even rightfully so. I would be the first one to embrace a universally accepted "Bible" of mathematics.

Physics:
I may consider Newton as key figure with Newton's Principia as a standard or I may choose Einstein as key figure with relativity theory as key volume where absolute time and space are replaced with an absolute constant (speed of light). Note that Einstein didn't contradict Newton, he only updated his work and generalized his theorems.

Freediving:
1. Uli suggested five standard writings, all well chosen. But where is the universally accepted one?

2. The poll: "Greatest freediver" is only proving how hard it is to find the neccessary key figure to personify a universally accepted volume.

3. Of one of the five classics mentioned by Uli it is said not to be up-to-date - which will eventually happen to all the other classics: they are not timeless and therefore subject to updates.

I want to encourage the construction of an online encyclopedia for freediving (including a glossary of terms) but I think it's impossible to create a freediver bible.

have safe and pleasant dives
Gerald

Gerald,
The word "bible" does not only have the Judeao-Christian definition that you apply to it. Many dictionaries will simply state "a book" or "n.) A book with an authoritative exposition of some topic, respected by many who are experts in the field.
(taken from the online dictionary at http://www.brainydictionary.com/words/bi/bible136536.html).

Other parts of your post are also wide open to hearty debate but this is not the place for it. But I do like the for BlueIcarus's idea to be called an encyclopedia as it seems more expansive in scope. Then the awe of reading such a fulfilling document will turn it into a "bible" finally establishing freediving as the religion it should be! Imagine, tax deduction for buying freediving gear! Oh oh...I hope I don't get excommunicated for writing this post, I'm supposed to be Catholic!

Adrian

How about setting up a Wiki for writing the freediver manual / bible / whatever we want to call it?

Wiki is website that can be modified by anyone who visits it.
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/ where a joint effort is made to create a free encyclopdia on the web (in several languages)

encyclopedia vs freediver bible, continued

@adrian: thanks for the definition for bible in a broader sense. I did mean bible in a broader sense - but may be not clear enough, so for the sake of avoiding further misunderstandings I inserted the definition You gave me into my original post. By the way - did You read my last story about our freedive expedition to Croatia ? (included is a link to pictures).

@BlueIkarus: Your suggestion for the outline of an encyclopedia at the beginning of this thread is pretty good. Just some extra ideas about physiology: freediving should not be completely separated from scuba-diving. Recent experience has confirmed that freedivers are also subject to symptomes of narcosis and DCS under extreme circumstances. Besides, a freediver should be aware of the limitations and dangers of his safety-divers, a basis for synergy and better cooperation.

A brief survival guide needs to be written for those who want to go fast to intermediary depths and stay there. In comparison: taking them to the base camp of Mount Everest. For every page of know how two pages of safety should be given. I think most of us would agree about how to take them there. If the reader decides to go on, he should be made aware that beyond the "base camp" opinions will be divided. World class divers have different belief systems that result in different philosophies which in turn result in different techniques (breathing, equalization, ...). Without coming down on any philosophy in particular, he should be made aware that once he leaves the base camp the way to the top is branching out into different directions, depending on if freediving is a way of life, a sport, a science, ... with each of this branches being an opportunity to be introduced to a different character in the freediver world.

have safe and pleasant dives

Gerald

Hi divers !

I'm Stefan Seyer, the writer of the German ApnoeManual.
First some short things about my manual:

- The manual is a collection of informations from other
freedivers and some articles, specially breathing, are from
me.

- The manual is for free and can be downloaded from my site
www.StefansFreedive.de.vu

- The Manual is from freedivers for freedivers and it will grow
with the knowledge of all freedivers

- The manual is for free, but it would be nice, if somebody
plan to copy the manual for other people ( in a paper form )
or want to use some of these articles for other Manuals to inform
me about it.

At the moment I search for a sponsor, who is interested in to translate my manual in English. I thougth about to do it by myself,
but it's a lot of work for one person.

If there any question, please write !

Greetings

Stefan Seyer
www.StefansFreedive.de.vu
StefanSeyer@web.de

Originally posted by Uli

2. Homo Delphinus - the Dolphin within Man, Jacques Mayol
You won't learn anything new on freediving technique, but the history is covered quite well.

Click to expand...

Although its historic content is quite intresting, some of its conflicts with some of the articles I have found in the scientific journals. Not quite sure how that can be.

Originally posted by Uli

4. La Plongée en Apnée, Jacques H. Corriol
Only book I know that deals exclusivly with freediving physiology. The book was published in 1996 and is thus already a bit outdated in some aspects. (Unfortunately written in French

Click to expand...

Corriol is now in its third edition, 2003, so I guess that it isn't that outdated afterall. Very intresting book, only a bit difficult French for those who aren't familiar with the language.

Rik

'Manual of Freediving' the English translation of Umberto Pelizzari's 'Corso di Apnea' has been translated and is presently being published. Should be available within a few months and I will advertise on this site when it is. It is the most comprehensive and authorative book that I am aware of.
Keep an eye out also for Apnea Academy International, in a town near you...

I'm definitely interested in buying that book when it comes out in English. I've seen the original in Italian and it is very very complete.

Adrian

By the way the book is also being published in Spanish at about the same time. They have both been updated from the Italian version, with a section on the monofin.

I've just launched a Wiki where everyone can help out to create THE freediver manual .

It's located at manual.freedivingspots.net and VERY EMPTY at the moment, but with everybody's help we can quickly turn this into the best resource available

Come have a look and help out writing part of the manual!!!

Hi Oscar

the great thing about a wiki, is that anyone who thinks something should be changed, can do it right away, just click the "edit this page" link and make your changes.

I'll try to make some adjustments today to be prepared for localized versions.

I think your question / my answer is good for everyone, so I'll post it anyway.
For images: try to keep them small & to the point, every image will consume some of my limited (25 Mb) webspace.
For text: feel free to write what you want, my idea is to start with a simple intro that a newbie in freediving can understand, and then provide more in-depth / technical stuff in follow up pages.

A link that looks broken is simply a page that doesn''t exist yet, but that needs to be filled in the future. This is the case for the translations at the moment and for some of the "chapters"

it's not needed to create you own login when editing pages. but it helps a lot if you do. others will see who's contributing what better that way.

I'm very busy doing other stuff at the moment, that's why there aren't any updates for the last 2 weeks. Hope to get some time back to do more work on the manual