A new personal best...50m Dynamic.

The Breath-up

The Dive and attempt

The Coach

The breath, after completing my first 50m dynamic!

The Assistant Coach

The Master "William Trubridge"

Taken from the AIDA website: On the morning of Friday December 16 at Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas; William Trubridge successfully dove to 101 meters without assistance of fins or weights in a time of 4 minutes, 8 seconds. Three days before, William achieved a new world record depth of 100 meters, couple days before this record, but he was not satisfied with it. These record dives was witnessed by Aida judges; Ute Geßmann (GER) and Ben Weiss (USA).

The constant weight no-fins (CWT) record will be submitted to the record books pending the results of a mandatory drug test.

“It took me just over 2 minutes to sink to 100 meters below the sea, but the idea that I have achieved this unique depth in unassisted freediving is taking a lot longer than that to sink in. What started out as an impossibility when I first was drawn to freediving, and then started to dimly take shape as a conceivable goal, has now become a reality. I can’t express how much of an honor it is to be able to take part in freediving history, and I hope to continue to test the boundaries of how much we as unfettered human beings are able to merge with the aquatic world.”  - William Trubridge

It only takes one breath and determination. Well done William!

Mares, Omer, Cressi fins and more...time to check out some gear.

I have been fortunate that up until now I haven't had to spend any money on gear, simply because I was able to use all my scuba gear for my freediving. There are some restrictions in using scuba gear of which one is the wetsuits being allot stiffer than specialised freediving wetsuits. One piece of equipment if felt I needed to get was  freediving fins, as on my last open water dive I really struggled to get to the depths I wanted to and it seemed as if I was wasting unnecessary energy on finning. So my research began on what Bi-Fins would suit me best.

 Scuba vs freediving fins.

Although I did make inquiries into going straight for a mono fin, the practicality and limitations from a training and overall field of use perspective made me decide to start with a pair on Bi-fins.

After allot of research and reading, I ended up going for the Mares Razer Medium stifness (which is the grey blade, the stiffer blade is the black blade). You can do alot of research online, but I just could bring myself to order online. When buying something that needs to fit properly like a fin, it is invaluable to go in store to fit them. Even after I had been in store I did more research until I was satisfied that this was the fin for me.

What caught my eye in the " Mares Razor" was the following:

Clip to remove blade.

• The foot-pocket was a perfect fit, meaning I didn't have to where a sock of any kind. (the less gear the better)
• The blade is removable, meaning if you want to change to a carbon fibre blade or simply replace a blade you can easily remove from the foot-pocket. (Just remove the two screws and two clips and the blade can be removed)
• Because the blade is removable, you have the option to keep the foot pocket and try various blade stiffnesses as you go.

The Cressi Gara and Omer Millenium fins also impressed me. The Omer fins also have removable blades where the Cressi Gara fins have fixed blades. Meaning what you have is what you keep. Cressi does not sell blades individually, so if you break a blade you have to buy a full set.

Foot-pocket showing screws to remove blade.

During my research I was in touch with Pierre Liebenberg from Spierre to get info on the Pure Carbon blades, but once again being based in Durban made it difficult to fit the foot-pockets. I will most definitely opt for carbon blades later on, but that will be when I hit the deeper dives. Also I didn't want to pool train with carbon blades.

Foot-pocket

I can definitely say that finding a set of fins is purely about the fit. Do your research online, but be sure to visit a store near you to see them first. What works for one person may not for the next.

It's all about the journey...

One of the main reasons I started free diving was simply to enjoy the journey. What you may ask do I mean by that? Well its simple, like most things in life the reality of something we have always wanted or a place we have always wanted to go to almost never meets the picture we have painted for ourselves with our minds eye.

It is more often than not the road taking us to this goal or destination that keeps us talking for many years after we have returned from this destination or goal that we have achieved.

Well, that is simply the ride that has totally captured me, and of course the fact that I can be in the water.

The 31 December 2010 was just one such day...Naturally there has been quite a bit of free diving talk around the house and my 3yr 10 month old son has picked up on the action. So on this day, he arrives back at home from a trip with my wife and tells me he is going free diving now, in the pool and I must get ready to join him.

Mask (or goggles as referred to by my little Mayol) and snorkel and off he goes. Now I need to add at this point that he has never actually had a mask on near a body of water, let alone a snorkel in his mouth, but he is marching to the pool in a similar fashion to the little Enzo Maiorca in the flick " The Big Blue" to dive out the coin which the kids have spotted in the water on the seas edge. 

Determined he puts my mask on and snorkel in, and pops his head in the water. It wasn't until he came up and I looked into his big blue eyes that I realised quite how blown away he was that he could see the bottom of the pool. That was a fantastic moment for me! Absolutely amazing...Even more amazing is how he just keeps on chatting away with his head under the water through the snorkel to me.

Make the journey happen for yourself, no one else is going to make it happen for you! 

Small Steps...

Part of the reason I am keeping this blog, is simply to track my progress. One thing is for sure is that progress is going to be small steps at achieving the various milestones. Today was another day for small steps in the right direction. After a good 2 hour yoga and meditation session to get myself and the others in the right frame of mind, I improved my personal best dry breath hold to 3min 29 sec.

The dive was rather rough with the weather coming in. Not what I would call ideal training weather, but we were there to dive. My best free dive for the day was 13m. I definitely could push to 20m but didn't want to push the envelope yet. As the diving becomes second nature, so I will push the limits.

It was amazing to stop a few meters from a Humpback whale and her calf, and on our return the almost 3 or 4 pods of dolphins. I jumped in but somehow missed them as they were on a feeding mission. So the free dive with dolphins must wait for another day. Maybe the same day I break the 20m mark...(Jacques Mayol smiles...)

Depth 13 meters, time 53sec.

Breath up's...

Naturally a breath up is what happens just before you do a breath hold, and thats where my focus has been since  my first session and static apnea pool sessions. It must be remembered that static apnea in the pool is considerably easier than static apnea being practiced outside of the pool. The reason for this is that the body has a function known as "The mammalian diving reflex". this reflex is activated when the head is submerged under water and the effect is a reduction of up to 50% in the heart rate. This is a natural reaction and all humans posses this.

So because the heart rate is slower when submerged the logical place to practice breath holds would be in the pool. However black-outs occur when pushing the boundaries, and this is best described as when the body "resets" itself and forces you to breath. If you blackout on dry land you will automatically collapse, reset and start breathing. The human body is quite amazing though, if you blackout in water, the body has another reflex that in a way over-rides the blackout. This reflex is called  laryngospasm, and basically this means your larynx closes up to stop water from entering your lungs. As a result, the golden rule of free diving is never dive alone. If you were to blackout under water, your buddy just brings you up and your body does the rest. You will start breathing shortly thereafter and your oxygen saturation should be back to normal within a minute.


Right, so that leaves me doing breath ups and breath holds on dry land. Yes, more difficult but safer and better prep for the pool sessions. I am currently doing 5 min breath ups, followed by breath hold which I repeat 5 times. Here is my last session and you can see the gradual breath hold improvements.  (1)  02:27.4    (2) 02:38.9    (3) 02:33.4    (4) 02:51.4    (5) 02:55.1.


Thursday is the next session in advanced breath holding and I look forward to comfortably get beyond the 3 minute mark soon. Hopefully  the ocean plays along and I can start looking at the 10m dive mark.

For now my personal bests are 6m depth and 3min 10 sec breath hold.

A good day.

Static apnea session

It has been a day of learning with Hanli Prinsloo a professional freediver from Cape Town. 

The day started with a hour and a half of Yoga and breathing exercises. That in itself was an eye opener as it was the first time that I have ever done Yoga. Trust me I can feel it today. The stretching that was achieved was amazing and the results together with the breathing exercises delivered results far above what I ever imagined.

My personal best breath-hold for the morning ended up on 2min 50 sec.

The most interesting aspect of the theory that followed was the manipulation of the body's responses to push the envelope of the breath-hold or apnea and naturally this is key when wanting to freedive to whatever depth you are trying to achieve.

Static apnea was then practiced in the pool and Hanli coached us through the various breath-ups and breath-hold attempts. My first attempt was a 1min 26sec, with the second attempt coming in at 2min 05sec. My dive buddy Dean and I then did a 4-5 min breath-up and my personal best on this day was a 3min 10sec breath hold. With this I must admit I was very pleased and it can only get better from here.

Line set to 15m.

We then hit the sea, or should I say the sea hit me.OK, I did three 5-6m dives, but the actual achievement for the afternoon was not loosing my lungs over the side of the boat. A swell of what looked like 6 foot to me was enough to call 6m the mark for the day. I felt great under the water, but with all the energy wasted trying to keep my lungs in my body I felt drained very quickly.

So that was the day, great bunch of guys Lance, Johan, Dean, Fritzel I mean Fritz and Thomas, not forgetting Hanli that shed some light on my path moving forward.

For me its Yoga and back to gym to get ready for next months advanced breathing course.

I am definitely happy with that 3min 10sec!!!