Free Diving AIDA 2 star

Rosie Hancock and I started our AIDA 2 star freediving course with Steve Millard on Sunday. We did a theory session-looking at the different competition disciplines, anatomy and physiology, nutrition, mind set and equipment for free diving. I have always breathed out during breath hold, and I have now found out why this is way bad! The breathe out "full" sensation is your bodies response to elevated CO2-by breathing out you are effectively lowering the P02, which could cause black-outs. In the afternoon, it was off to the pool for static and dynamic apnea sessions.

This was the really interesting part! Contrary to my expectations, your breath hold improves with repeated attempts (well up to about 5) The mammalian diving reflex is activated by repeated submersion, and it actually gets easier once it has kicked in. Anyway, my fourth attempt gave me a time of just under 3 mins, and Rosie's fifth 3:27. We then did static apnea, having spent some time practising turns and starts. I had a go with a mono fin-which I found quite straightforward. In scuba we used to teach a technique called dolphin kick, and the monofin works pretty much the same.

While we were in the pool 2 of Steve' s students acheived PB's for static apnea of 5 minutes- so we have some way to go!

Tomorrow we are writing the exam and doing some dives in open water. If equalisation goes OK, the plan is to get to 20m I believe!

I wanted to do this course for interest, and also to try and use the techniques as a stealth method of interacting with marine life, particuarly for photography. I used to spear fish years ago, and there is no doubt that the lack of bubbles and noise make marine life easier to approach. I'll continue to add to my blog as the course progresses, but so far, it has been not only interesting, but also suprised me in how my performance can improve with skilled tutelage