So we do a lot of interval training in the pool and in the gym: short sprints or bursts of activity with brief periods of rest. Although it looks like freedivers move gently through the water, freediving is anaerobic and is metabolically closest to sprinting. Cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, mobility, alignment, and strength are critical. We learn to stack the odds in our favour through extensive and specialised training in and out of the water. When this happens, various changes happen in the human body which allow for the greater conservation of oxygen, namely the slowing of the heart rate and the shift of blood to the lungs, heart and brain.įreedivers hack into this dive reflex. The reflex is triggered by cold water contacting the face. Aquatic mammals like seals and dolphins exhibit this trait most strongly but it also exists in humans. This reflex allows mammals to optimise respiration underwater for extended periods of time. I love the camaraderie of training and exploration.Īs a new freediver, you learn a lot about safety, science and, specifically, the mammalian dive reflex. It’s a diverse, international group and the wider freediving community has been so welcoming. Over the past six months, the club has become a family to us. My partner is a freediver, too, although we met before we each qualified. We also meet regularly on weekends to dive in open water-lakes, dedicated watersports quarries, and the sea. My club, which has thirty regulars, trains every Monday at a pool at the Queen Mother’s Sport Centre in Victoria. There are about ten freediving clubs around the UK. I joined a freediving club in London this year and became a certified freediver this summer.
Freediving was really the next natural step. I have a PADI Advanced Open Water scuba diving qualification and have done about fifty dives around the world, including some wrecks.
I spent most of my childhood summers in pools, lakes and oceans in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. As a child, I consumed every book and documentary I could about the oceans and I swam from an early age. I have had a lifelong fascination with the sea. Spearfishing has its roots in freediving, too. Freedivers were also employed for the salvage of valuable items from sunken ships and to sabotage enemy vessels or ferry supplies. Greeks collected sponges off Kalmynos island and the Ama divers of Japan gathered pearls. Common among ancient cultures around the world as a means of gathering food and resources, the first documented dives date back to 5400 BC. I think life must have begun in water: I believe we were born of the sea.įreediving is the art of diving underwater on one breath without the aid of mechanical devices. There is a richness to the underwater world that amazes me. An aquatic microorganism may be the common ancestor to all living things. There are scientists who think that life began more than three billion years ago in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. But most often, I feel a deep connection to nature and life itself. Sometimes, the experience is intensely physical-I sense the movement of my limbs through water. Sometimes, I feel as though I’m travelling into space, into a great expanse of unending blue. It has much in common with Buddhist meditation, another important part of my life.Įvery time I dive, I take a journey. To me, freediving is a form of meditation in movement: it’s about the synergy of mind, body and spirit. To get ten scallops took us repeated dives ten metres down over three hours. My partner and I recently tried underwater foraging for scallops, crabs and lobsters with our hands, as ancient divers did. The sport marries many of my interests-exploration, history, science and nature. Freediving also allows me to indulge my passions for photography and film. My goal is to swim with large aquatic mammals and pelagic fish such as seals, dolphins and whale sharks.
I became a freediver to connect with the underwater world in the purest way. Freediving requires that you enter into a state of total, meditative calm. To preserve oxygen, every single muscle relaxes, the breath slows, all thoughts become still.
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