Last Friday Kostas invited a few friends from Bruxelles over to freedive with us at the Tongelreep, Eindhoven.

We started of in the training pool where we analyzed the technique and showed them a few of the exercises I normally do. But most important we had fun doing some laps in the 50m pool.

After that it was time to go to the -5m pool, where we reserved to freedive for a short while. It’s always too short in time to be there, as the water is always very clear. It proves to be a perfect area to make some bubble rings to swim through. Although it maybe “only” 5 meters of depth, it’s very nice to make a few freedives there. Our guests from Bruxelles seem to agree to that.

It’s been an enjoyable evening again and we have been invited to visit them back in Bruxelles sometime, although they had to admit their pool wasn’t comparable to the Tongelreep Thanks for visiting us and I hope you enjoyed it.

Two weeks ago I started training for monofin again. I bought a great monofin from Leader fins last year, but did not get the time to actually practice with it. Now Jorg and I put it up in the schedule and I’m gonna train and practice for the monofin for a while.

I have to say that I can already see a difference since last year test-runs with the monofin and the runs I do now. I’m not ready to actually monofin my way through the water, but I’m getting used to the foot-pockets and the different way my legs are bound. I do about 4-6 times 50m with it and then get back to the proper exercises to get the monofin motion going.

Special monofin exercises and filming them are very great tools to achieving a proper technique. My technique was very bad and still isn’t a Peter Pederson-style by a long shot. But I’m making progress with my lower-back not being that stiff anymore. The exercise that got that fixed, is a standard item on the exercise list now. As my lower-back flexibility has to improve much more…but looking back at some of the earlier video’s and present time video’s it shows a little improvement. So as long as there is improvement I still have hope that I can go from very bad technique to reasonable technique.

We’ll see what the coming weeks will hold in store, but one things for sure I’m going for it. I’d like to see what a few weeks of technique training can do.

I integrated our flash picture-gallery into our site, which makes browsing easier and you don’t have to leave the site for it. The same goes for our videos which I integrated through custom players from YouTube.

Ofcourse all of the sites are still located at their original locations, but now it’s integrated in the site it’s a little easier to find. Here’s an overview of the things I integrated and it’s original locations:

Picture Gallery Integrated
http://www.shark-bait.com/media-pictures.html

Original Location
http://www.shark-eye.com/

Video Gallery Integrated
http://www.shark-bait.com/media-video.html

Original Location
http://www.youtube.com/TeamSharkbait

Feeds into Sidebar

Other useful feeds I’ve integrated into the sidebar from the news-section, where stuff like; forum posts, youtube’s latest and Shark-freediving News have been columnized.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate and ask us here

Find the photo’s we made here…

I’ve already posted about the performances I did at the Coupe des Dauphins, but what we did do all weekend in between the disciplines… Well the initial plan with heading for Switzerland was to combine it with a snowboard adventure, unfortunately this could not take place, but still we headed for Geneva at midnight on Friday. Jorg, as a coach, volunteered to drive the whole deal to Geneva. Of course with the safety/emergency stops planned in between During the night there wasn’t much traffic around so the trip was pretty much without any big obstacles, but the fog was a bit thick in the mountain areas.

Arriving 8:00 o’clock in the morning and initially we drove around a bit to find all the places we needed to be, like the pool and the Youth Hostel where we stayed. But still the pool doors hadn’t opened at that time, so we headed for the mountains as we still wanted to see some snow this weekend. First mountain ofcourse didn’t feature snow immediately, so we drove for a 2nd one which was just a little bit further…

The roads got narrower and steeper by the minute and eventually we reached a nice mountain road which we pursued on foot. It featured quite a few nice panorama views, but still no snow… Time to get back to the pool and inscribe for the competition and see what time the Official Top’s for my performances were planned. As my OT was quite in the start of the day Jorg already entered the water to make some underwater pictures from the other competitors. After the dynamic without fins we watch the other competitors and arranged for a few others to meet up at the Pizzeria across the Ibis Hotel. But It turned out there were two Ibis Hotels in Geneva which both had a Pizzeria in front of it… So eventually we didn’t meet up with anybody, which was a pity.

The next day I was first with my static, after that we headed for Chamonix in France to find some snow. The road to Chamonix already featured quite a few nice panorama views which already made the trip over there worthwhile. To get up the mountain they featured a pedestrian fee to get up by lift, so we went up to the first plateau on the mountain on the Mont Blanc. Really a nice place to be and clearing your mind is no problem whatsoever on such a great place.

We headed back for the pool again, as we planned to arrive about 20 minutes before my official top for dynamic. Finally arriving about 15 minutes before the official top, I think that the one who had his official top after my performance was already sitting in a chair near the pool’s edge preparing himself. 30 seconds before OT I entered the water and took a few deep breath’s, got on my way and dove my planned dive. To head back into the mountains again so that Jorg could take a nap and me and my girlfriend could enjoy the mountains by night.

By the time Jorg had finished sleeping we arrived back at the car, to head back to the pool again. There we watched one of last competitors and waited for the ceremony to start. Until that time we talked a bit with William about some technique details, his future plans and some other fun stuff. After the ceremony the group of Freedivers were set together for a group picture.

Then it was time to head for dinner in a nice italian restaurant in Geneve near the airport, this time we made sure to follow William’s girlfriend to the place, as we didn’t want to end up without the others again ;). During dinner we had quite a few laughs with the other freedivers, but the waiter also made the freediver group laugh as he was a little bit like Louis de Funes…he was so fast paced that we were almost betting our money on when he was gonna drop down. We ate our good food and finished our drinks as we had to head back for the Netherlands.

We departed in Geneva at around 23:00 at sunday night, but this time Jorg and I took places in driving as we both had to work on Monday again. I think it was about 6:00 in the morning we arrived home. But we look back on a marvelous weekend. Thanks for the organizers to invite us to come and thanks to all others for the great weekend.