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This article was originally published
on DeeperBlue.net
It is never good to meddle in the love lives of one's readers.
They tend to take it personally. However, in this case,
I hope you will thank me in the end.
I'm no Dr. Ruth (keep your underwater sex fantasies to yourself),
but I can give you some sound advice for a healthy relationship
in and out of the water: do not attempt to teach your better
half how to freedive unless you have a good plan.
Empathy is the mark of a good therapist, but more important
are detachment and objectivity. Your particular disease
is twisting your judgement. A haunting vision of What
Could Be shimmers before you, beckoning with its promises
of guilt-free weekends in the ocean and carte blanche from
your lover to buy all the carbon and Heiwa and Cayman Island
vacations you want, damn the mortgage! You dare to dream
that one day your soul mate will say with passion brimming
in his or her eyes, ""Honey, couldn''t we go freediving
instead of dinner with the Hamptons?""
You have to start with a lesson. You should start planning
weeks, even months ahead. Test your teaching with your friends
and acquaintances first. Tell them it's all for love.
If you underestimated the challenge of teaching your sweetie
and fail to prepare adequately for this most tricky of
couplehood moments, your relationship will enter a Twilight
Zone of warped interpersonal communication. Your clearest
instructions and your most patient encouragement will be
heard as deliberate criticism. It happens all the time on
the ski slopes, in the car, on the mountain, in the forest
- innocent couples struggling with the alien dynamic of teacher
and student. Marriages
unravel here. Summer loves disintegrate in a puff of wind.
For any other sport there is an easy solution: hire a qualified
instructor to teach that first lesson. The relationship between
an instructor and student is wonderfully simple: -if the
student doesn't like the instructor, he or she can select
a new one with no hard feelings (on the other hand, try to
make your husband or wife redundant).
Unfortunately for some of us, good freediving instruction
is expensive and hard to find. And at this point, it might
be overkill. If, after the first day in the water, your
true love wants to know more, then you can start thinking
about a trip for two to a FREE introductory course. But
first you have to tempt with a sweet taste of what the sport
can offer. Sip the wine before you buy the vineyard.
Still, without a plan, you are destined to fail. Let us
turn to the sport of windsurfing for edification. Windsurfing
was born in the early 1960s and it wasn't until the year
2000 that a pure beginner could learn to windsurf in a
single day and have fun at the same time. A windsurfing beach
used to be a good opportunity to watch marriages and relationships
collapse. Typically, men would abandon their girlfriends
to the struggle, while they sailed off for hours, returning
finally when the wind died to ask, ""You sailin'' yet,
honey?"" I've seen the carnage with my own eyes.
More recently, an evolution of equipment has yielded a wide
board that is easy to stand on and a sail that is easier
to handle. Instruction has been whittled down to the bare
necessities and all the basic skills can be learned on land
before going out on the water. Beaches everywhere are no
longer the war zones they once were and windsurfing is ready
for the masses. But it took the boardheads almost forty years
to figure out how to make it so.
As freedivers, we cannot afford to wait that long. Thus,
have I been forced to take matters into my own hands.
In my deep sea laboratory, I have made use of the finest
genetic nanomachines, psychological manipulation and brainwashing
techniques, and frequent sacrifices to the muse of Dr. Frankenstein
to create the next leap in evolution: the perfect freediver
boyfriend. His name is Frank and he will show you how he
introduces his girlfriend Anja to freediving.
Dry Land Essentials
Two important things will make or break Anja''s first day
freediving: her ability to equalize and her comfort holding
her breath. Many apnea instructors ignore equalizing because
it is too hard to teach and focus instead on static apnea.
Who cares how long Anja can hold her breath if she cannot
get down and chase the seal, tease the lobster and blow bubbles
at the giant squid?
The first thing Frank should do is give Anja the tools with
which to learn equalizing. This should start at least a
week before the ocean day. Can Anja pop her ears with Valsalva?
Great. Now she can learn a more reliable and safer equalizing
method: the Frenzel. (It is possible that Anja may
have narrow Eustachian tubes--learning Frenzel is much
more important in that case. Another thing to make clear
to her is that she should always equalize before she feels
any pressure in her ears. Often beginners don't realize how
quickly the pressure can build up and suffer a barotraumas
without realizing it. If ever she feels pain in her ears
or sinuses, she should stop and consult a doctor). Anja can
read the excellent equalizing document by former world record
holder Eric Fattah ( www.ericfattah.com/equalizing.doc ),
which covers control of the soft palate and the tongue piston
action that characterizes the Frenzel method.
There is an additional way of learning soft palate control,
vital to learning the Frenzel, which Anja can practice
lying in her bed every night. Try it yourself so you can
teach it to your freediving understudy. Breathe rapidly through
your nose and then your mouth. Alternate back and forth.
Five nose breaths, then five mouth breaths. Keep your mouth
hanging open as you switch back and forth. Concentrate on
the movement of the soft palate as it opens and closes. Then
alternate mouth and nose on every breath.
Once you become familiar with the sensation of the opening
and closing of the soft palate, try to move the soft palate
open and closed without breathing. Concentrate and if you
can't do it, or lose it, try the breathing drills again.
The last step is to stop in the open mouth breathing position,
soft palate open, then close your mouth and block your nostrils
lightly with your fingertips. Squeeze your cheeks to compress
the air in your mouth and relax. Air should hiss out your
nose and your ears should pop. Once you can do this consistently,
add the piston action of the tongue to drive air up into
your Eustachian tubes, and finally eliminate the cheek squeeze.
Anja can also practice static apnea on dry land. Frank should
lead her through a series of breath holds of increasing
duration, taking advantage of the body's adjustments to apnea. Anja
can start at thirty seconds and increase her time by fifteen
second increments while paying close attention to how it
feels. Frank will encourage her to only go as far as she
is comfortable, which may or may not coincide with her
first few contractions.
With a week of short practice sessions, each one no longer
than thirty minutes for both equalizing and static apnea
practice, Anja should be on her way to performing both with
consistency. This is plenty for the first open water session.
A minute of apnea and a few equalizations is all she needs
for her first underwater dives.
The Open Water Teaser
This is where Frank''s dry land sessions with Anja pay off
and the fun begins. Frank's superiorly-engineered intelligence
allows him to devote 100% of his attention to Anja. He tells
her in advance the plan for the day: snorkelling in the shallows
to get used to the equipment and water conditions, and then
equalizing practice on the descent line.
In secret, he packs a picnic lunch, warm clothes, and nice
blanket for lying on the beach after diving. He does not
lose sight of the opportunity to enjoy a day at the beach
no matter how the diving goes. He's a 'big picture' sort
of guy.
Frank makes Anja feel like a freediving star. He provides
her with the best equipment at his expense, even lending
her his most treasured fins, mask, snorkel and wetsuit. When
she's gleaming in neoprene, Frank tells her she looks cool
in a way that makes her smile.
He picks the best conditions available: a warm summer day,
a protected bay or cove, good visibility, no currents, flat
water, ample snorkelling opportunities, healthy marine life,
and a gently sloping bottom.
Frank begins the session with snorkelling and shows Anja
how to use her fins and clear her mask and snorkel. He
shows her everything that can be seen from the surface: his
favourite crab nest, kelp forest, or underwater seascape. He
invites her to make shallow dives 1m-3m deep to look at
marine life in detail as long as her ears don't bother her.
He shows her how freedivers move slowly and gracefully, but
also thrashes around and slaps the surface with his fins,
breaching and cavorting like a seal or a dolphin. Frank regales
Anja with his elephant seal roars. Freediving doesn't have
to be all seriousness and heavy breathing, you know. Anja
can express herself in any way she likes upon the infinite
canvas of the ocean.
After a short break to rest and review equalizing technique,
Frank sets up a descent line in 5m of water, always keeping
the bottom in visible range.
With the descent line, Anja can take her time to equalize
her ears and mask fully as she pulls herself gently downward.
Doing the Frenzel underwater for the first time is more difficult
than in Anja's living room, so she should stay shallow until
she can put it all together. The anxiety of immersion can
make even the simplest skills more complicated. Frank makes
full equalizations the goal, not some arbitrary depth. If
she can dive to five metres with Frank accompanying her,
demonstrating his own slow progress downward for her benefit,
-then Anja can try hanging at the bottom of the line and
relaxing her body for a few seconds to enjoy the view.
If Anja is unable to equalize, Frank cuts the descent line
session short so as not to discourage her. Either way,
he invites her on one last snorkelling tour of his most secret
spot. If she can dive to five metres, he leads her down
and points out the octopus in its den or the garden of pulsing
anemones. Freediving is sweet, but in the end Frank knows
Anja will make her own decision about whether or not freediving
is something she wants to explore further. He leaves his
expectations at home and so should you!
Some Last Words . . .
What about safety? The buddy system? Finning technique,
wetsuit technology, target dives, sambas and blackouts? Freediving
is a wonderfully complex and engrossing sport. But to the
pure beginner it is intimidating. The person that calls
you ""honey"' will certainly have been told that
breath-holding kills brain cells by all his or her closest
friends. "Didn't you see that episode of CSI Miami
where the crazy freediver kills his buddy?" You don't want
to push anyone's limits on the first day. Your goal is to
turn a snorkeller into a freediver with a smile. And if you
took things easy and you both have some fun with it, pretty
soon the love of your life will be asking you all about what
lies beyond five metres.
Meanwhile, I'll be out back teaching my girlfriend how to
windsurf.
Peter Scott
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