By Rick Stratton
Publisher, Dive News Network

A dive deep into the oceans blue without scuba equipment is a frightening prospect for most. A diver would not normally jump into the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and dive without the aid of their air tanks, fins and all of the other normal trappings of a scuba equipment…did I say this was about “normal”?

Think about this: you are hundreds of feet underwater suffering huge physical effects. The pressure is enormous; your hands and feet turn blue as blood rushes away from your extremities. Your other organs needing blood flow for survival, especially your brain and your heart, holler for oxygen the longer you are under the water. Even with all this a free diver stays because it is, after all, their passion. Free divers subject themselves to this physiological carnival every time they dive - on purpose!

Freediving is an aquatic activity that requires the practice of breath-holding while diving underwater and adventurous divers all over the world are being enticed by its challanges. There are a number of ways in which divers utilize freediving such as with spear fishing, free diving photography, competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling. Freediving activities are often broken up into non-competitive and competitive activities such as spearfishing and Apnea competitions. They can also include less recognized examples of freediving like synchronized swimming, underwater rugby, underwater hockey, underwater hunting other than spearfishing, and snorkeling. For those divers with a need for adventure and the chance to test their muster freediving offers all the thrills and chills of a landlocked roller coaster.

There are a number of disciplines within free diving. “Constant Weight Apnea” is where the athlete has to dive to the depth following a guide line but is not allowed to actively use it during the dive. Another is “Constant Weight Apnea without Fins” which has the same rules as Constant Weight, except no swimming aids, like fins, are allowed. There is also Free Immersion Apnea, a discipline where the athlete uses the vertical guide rope to pull themselves down to depth and back to the surface. “Variable Weight Apnea” is a record discipline that uses a weighted sled for descent. “No-Limits Apnea” allows the athlete to use any means of breath-hold diving to depth and return to the surface as long as a guideline is used to measure the distance and finally there is “The Jump Blue” also called “The Cube” where an athlete has to descend and swim as far as possible in a cubic form of 15 x 15 meters. All of these categories are currently being more developed in terms of competition but divers all over the world are already testing the limits in each category.

Special Thanks to the following for helping to make this article possible:

“We have a number of courses led by freediving champions that provide those interested in instructional certification at multiple locations across the US and Canada as well as around the world. In the eleven years since inception, PFI has trained more than 5,000 persons world wide.”
Kirk Krack
Performance Freediving International
www.performancefreediving.com

“I loved being in the water, especially out with just a couple of friends spearfishing,” he said. “The challenge of different tactics that comes with hunting and the pushing of ones own personal limits was addictive. I am the kind of person who really likes to know what’s going on while I’m doing it. That’s really what got me thinking about furthering my education about Freediving.”
Nick Fazah
East Coast Divers
www.ecdivers.com