Dive course

It's been a while since I posted...

The Lazy Seal Freediving Club teamed up with Vertical Blue when William Trubridge came home for Christmas, and held a 5 day advanced freediving course at Lake Taupo. We hired a bach for the duration of the course, where we all stayed and ate tremendously well at minimal cost. The weather was amazing (for here) and we had sun every day with only a little wind. Will shared an enormous amount of freediving knowledge with us - much more than I expected and it's already making such a difference to my diving. Everyone on the course managed personal bests.


Our typical day started with a good breakfast, followed by body stretching, lung stretching, lake diving, lunch (very important), theory lessons, breathing exercises, dinner, dive videos, then bed, all pretty much non-stop, but it didn't feel too full on.


I focused my diving on constant weight without fins, as apart from being much more at home in the water without fins, this is Will's speciality, so I was able to pick his brain and get the most out of his coaching. After figuring out how to get off the surface with much less effort than I've used in the past I managed dives to 36m, 38m and 40m (no warm up on different days). The 38m dive felt the best, but I hit the bottom plate so had to come up. I still have a few things to work out: I'm falling to the right while free-falling, I have to learn to deal with the pressure on my throat, and try to stop contractions before they start. There's so much to think about - I think I just need more time at depth. But good news, I've booked tickets to the Bahamas for three weeks of dive training and competition in Dean's Blue Hole in March/April.

Igor Liberti, an Apnea Academy Instructor from Switzerland joined us too and took some brilliant photos, here are some of his pics (the last one is me!):