3 Things to Know About Freediving by Mercy M’fon
Freediving can be exciting and mysterious for beginners looking to get their feet wet. Here are some things to know to get you started.
For those of you who have followed Wild Diversity's blogs for a little bit. You may know I have a fear of water's deep depths. I have dreams about being stranded in water. I get mini panic attacks when swimming if I can see the bottom. Oh and I almost drowned twice as a child. So naturally I gravitated towards freediving. I guess there is nothing that the water can do to me to keep me away from it. I am a self described water baby even though I don't feel that I am a strong swimmer. I love beaching, camping by a chatty creek, taking in waterfalls as if they are vitamin giving, and paddling on the rivers.
While living that solo challenging existence during the pandemic that many of us faced, I finally found the determination to do whatever it took to keep moving forward. With Oregon's murky oceans, rivers and clear ice cold lakes. I was surprised to find that freediving was a thing in this area. I stumbled upon the Oregon Freediving Company and I have enjoyed growing and learning with them.
If you are also intrigued about freediving and interested in getting started. Here are 3 things to know about freediving.
1. You Gotta to Relax
There are a handful of outdoor activities where being completely relaxed is a huge aspect to your success. Freediving is one of them. Being a black, queer, woman while running a nonprofit, supporting staff and guides, and trying to grow as a human being can put a lot of strain on one’s body. Sometimes I wonder if I am ever fully relaxed. Since I was young, conversations with the massage therapist have always been about me not tensing the muscles in my back and shoulders. I would argue that I wasn't flexing them at all. They would frown and try to work through my stone-like muscles. Nowadays, I am getting better at relaxing these muscles but I still have work to do. Life is stressful, yo.
For the enclosed water session, pool session, during my freediving training we were working on our breath holds in water. Not swimming, just floating and holding one's breath. The exercise required us to relax all the muscles in our body, to float and hold our breath. My relaxed position seemed to be the fetal position. Halfway through I realized how I actually wasn't relaxed and made an adjustment. I had to make two more realizations and adjustments to be able to relax all the muscles in my body. Needless to say, I didn't do as well in this exercise as I would have liked to.
A relaxed body will help you hold your breath longer and focus only on the energy expenditure for diving. Relaxing helps refine all the skills and training into an effective dive. There are many techniques one can do to become relaxed diving. And at home techniques like visualization and body scanning can help make relaxation a regular part of your day to day. It's good practice for freediving and good practice for life.
2. You Don't Have to Swim
Now, give me a chance to explain. Prior to my freediving training course, I was full of the pressure to become a stronger swimmer overnight. I began taking swimming lessons at the community center. They held an adult swim series and it was great. Beats being the only adult in a pool full of kiddy swim lessons. I can swim from A to B but the fear, anxiety and tension (see above) in my body prevents me from realizing it is something that I am okay at.
For the freediving course, one of the key pieces of equipment is your wetsuit. For those who are not familiar with diving activities or are not familiar with diving in Oregon's cold waters – a full wetsuit is a must to maintain your body temperature. In addition to that a wetsuit is pretty buoyant. So while you still will need to propel yourself forward, dive down and come up, you will not need to keep yourself afloat and you can easily spend a half day in the water practicing your skills without the worry of treading water.
How buoyant you ask? So buoyant that everyone has to wear a weight belt to even think about diving in a wetsuit. The right amount of weights will still keep your head above water with no effort. While I was out with my diving buddy, I failed to get the right amount of weights in my belt. As I had already traveled a few hours to our dive location, I still wanted to get the most I could out of the dive day. No amount of positive thinking or furious kicking would allow me to get my body fully under water. Once I stopped kicking, I popped up like a beach ball that was being submerged. I felt like a cartoon character.
3. This is Not an Individual Activity
The buddy system is an essential aspect to freediving. Yes, you will dive solo outside of training – but there is no amount of expertise or experience that qualifies one to dive alone. Pros, record holders, and experts always dive with a buddy or even a team. The unique buddy system in freediving is all about safety. Outside of training, your buddy will be on the surface while you dive. They are there to support you if you get into any trouble underwater. You and your buddy/buddies will take turns diving and supporting each other.
Outside of this buddy system, the risks in freediving can increase significantly. During freediving training reviewing and understanding safer practices is a major part of the course. It is not about pushing beyond one's limits but being wise and understanding the risks. During the training you will learn your limits; great diving techniques; how to perform a rescue; and the signs that someone is in trouble. All of this is what helps folks stay alive and dive with safer practices in mind.
It is such a great feeling of accomplishment to know you can support someone else and pull them out of danger.
What now? Freedive with Wild Diversity, of course!
Freediving has really opened up a whole new world for me. And I want to continue to build that openness with the Wild Diversity community. This June we have opportunities for you to learn more about freediving and get your feet wet. You can join our info session, participate in a breath workshop or take the full certificate training course. We partnered with our friends at the Oregon Freediving Company to offer discounted rates for our BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ community members. Plus all the donations during the breath workshop will go towards gear rentals for those taking the certificate training course. Sign up and learn more here.
