As a budding freediver you might find hard to determine which freediving school, freediving organization or freediving instructor is the most suitable for your basic training.
With this article I hope to give you the information you need to identify a competent freediving instructor, a good freediving course and a decent facility where you can undertake your training.
The Instructor
It’s cliche but true, what really makes the difference between a great course and a bad one is the instructor. Choosing your Instructor is in my opinion without doubt the most important aspect of your training, no instructor can teach you more than they know or have personally experienced.
Simply stated to be a competent instructor, with something worthwhile to offer students, you first need to be a good freediver.
Good freedivers do not come off a production line, like any worthwhile endevour becoming a good freediver requires practice, commitment and experience. Without these you can never progress as a diver, and more importantly for you the prospective student to note, will have very little to offer as an instructor.
Talk to instructors about their experience, when weighing up your options we suggest you interview your potential instructors on their diving background
- How long they have been an active freediver
- How long have they been an instructor
- What their personal freediving acheivements are to date
- What their freediving ambitions are for the future
- How often do they dive for fun outside of conducting courses
- What agencies do the certify with and why
If you find yourself talking to an instructor that doesn’t go diving for themselves (outside of training dives with students), doesn’t compete, has no ambitions to push forward and better themselves then we humbly suggest you try someone/somewhere else.
The Course
Looking online, or even visiting schools and instructors in person, you will be presented with lots of choices, it can be a bit confusing.
A lot of the entry level courses will seem similar, and for the most part they are. Depths may vary, training dives and academic sessions will be presented differently, but ultimately they get you to the same place and cover the same topics.
Perhaps more important than the course is the agency, other than issuing cards, producing student materials and marketing themselves, agencies get to decide who represents them.
The requirements placed on an instructor by their agencies are quite telling about how serious an organisation they are.
Agencies that allow people to become instructors for them after meeting surprisingly simple requirements such as diving to relatively shallow depths, or accumulating a rather small amount of diving experience are probably more focused on selling books, not so much quality education.
My suggestion to you is to find out what level of experience someone needs and what they must achieve before they can offer you their services as an instructor with one agency or another, your prospective instructors should be proud to discuss it, if not you should wonder why.
Do not fall into the trap of having a charlatan waste your time, effort and money, get some quality instruction accredited by respectable agency.
Where to train
This Is as important as any other consideration, if you do not enjoy the place how much are you likely to take out of the experience, look not just at the dive center but at the surrounding area as well, if things go to plan you’re likely to be back there again as long term relationships tend to form between students and instructors.
Typically good freediving areas tend to have several instructors, if not schools, offering their services there. Good year round conditions, favorable topography like deep walls with easy shore access, and some interesting marine life all come together to make freediving meccas.
I work and train in Moalboal, south west of Cebu island in the Philippines, here I have formed some great memories about the freediving life. Every day training in the ocean with other instructors, sharing experiences and learning from our victories and each others mistakes, celebrating new personal, and even national records in training sessions and local competitions, mostly having a good time doing things we all enjoy.
Moalboal, and places like it, with a central mass of freedivers tend to have environments that are extremely conducive to pushing the sport forward.
With so many freedivers and instructors in one place, the shared knowledge and experience is fantastic, this environment also provides opportunities for competitions and events that showcase what we do and provide new challenges for us all.
My suggestion to you, the budding new freediver, is to do the research and find your slice of paradise. Be warned, there will be good and bad wherever you go, be savvy enough to know the difference.
Tomaž Jereb he grew up diving in Adriatic sea. In his teens he gained diving experiences through cave diving explorations and the regular practicing of freediving.
He has worked as a professional commercial diver in busy ports, nuclear power plants and offshore projects, in different locations around the world, while still meticulously improving his freediving abilities anytime when not on duty.
Passion for freediving led him into several national freediving records and podium results in competitions all over the world. His breath hold abilities are currently over 8 minutes and 30 seconds and climbing as well as performances in deep disciplines.
Tomaz is an accredited Scuba Instructor but in truth there is not much time for blowing bubbles these days, his
primary focus (some might call it an obsession) is pushing the limits of his own freediving ability and sharing this with others by teaching full time.
Tomaz is accredited as a freediving instructor Trainer with PURE APNEA and CMAS. Originally he taught exclusively Pure Apnea, CMAS is a recent addition as a result of a newly formed partnership between the two agencies.
Tomaz chose Pure Apnea as he felt this was the most credible agency in the market, it was felt that some agencies give instructor credentials away a bit too easily, the requirements Pure Apnea place on their instructors sets them apart as a genuine market leader and advocate for the sport.
