Wouldn’t be nice if during a dive you’re not the one who hits their gas reserve first, during a strong current you can comfortably maintain yourself, were able to overcome your equalisation problems and continue? These are just a few examples of the benefits experience by scuba divers who take additional training as freedivers.
During all freediving courses we pay a lot of attention to breathing patterns and lung exercises. With advanced breathing techniques it is easily possible to lower gas consumption and relax your breathing, helping to prevent fatigue and breathing difficulties.
Freedivers need to learn to preserve precious fuel (air), every move is refined to get the maximum benefit for minimal effort. Finning/propulsion techniques and streamlining are important for every discipline of diving, but none more so than those who operate on a single breath of air, we aim to glide underwater to save energy.
Transferring these skills to a scuba diver makes for a very gas efficient individual, one who can move around without expending too much energy.
Freediving presents more physical challenges than scuba, with limited gas, and the time it provides, it’s critical to master more advanced equalization techniques. Freedivers who Scuba dive overcome difficulties in equalisation more reliably, saving on cancelled dives and disappointment.
You will hear, see and experience what is happening in your body when you hold your breath. Improving your breath hold time can give you self confidence and relaxation.
In the unlikely event you have to deal with an unconscious diver, confidence and readiness is key to a timely reaction. Preparation not only improves your diving, it reduces the incidence rate of accidents by creating awareness
Pure Apnea instructors are training and competing in freediving contests with other competitors from all over the world. When the elite push the boundaries of this sport competitively their bodies are challenged and shallow water blackouts can occur. From incidents like these comes the opportunity to put that training into practise and see how it works, later we can share this experience with you and other students.
Shallow water blackout is a loss of consciousness caused by cerebral hypoxia towards the end of a breath-hold dive in water typically shallower than five metres (16 feet), when the swimmer does not necessarily experience an urgent need to breathe and has no other obvious medical condition that might have caused it. It can be caused by taking several very deep breaths, or hyperventilating, just before a dive. Victims are often established practitioners of breath-hold diving, are fit, strong swimmers, and have not experienced problems before. Wikipedia
Freediving courses at Savedra can be directly beneficial for scuba diving by broadening your diving horizons and making you a better, safer diver. But be aware that there is a danger that you’ll put your tank in the corner and convert your scuba diving passion into the purest form of underwater exploration where the silence talks and we don’t interrupt it with nothing not even bubbles.
Tomaz Jereb is an active freediver, a Pure Apnea Instructor Trainer, a scuba instructor accredited by several agencies and a commercial diver.
Tomaz provides freediver training from complete beginner through to master Instructor at Savedra Dive Center, Moalboal, Philippines.
If you would like to discuss the possibility of training with Tomaz drop him a line at freediving@savedra.com
