The Tongelreep was opened for the public again, after the European championships were held here in the past 3 weeks. The urge for water was very high, so planning a training in the water again felt really good.

Monday night, we started of with a brief static session. My goal was set by Jorg at a 3 minute preparation static and a 4 minute (or more… ) static. As it’s been a while since Geneva’s non-impressive static, we set out on a training curve were my goals wouldn’t have any pressure on my mind. The preparation static was no problem, although contractions may have started a bit early, I had no heavy contractions.

Same goes for my second static, with the goal at 4 minutes, Jorg tapped me at the intervals: 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes and after that every 15 seconds. Contractions started early, as I recall around 2 minutes, but they never intensified to the level of contractions I used to have. This made it possible for me to do a 5 minute 15 seconds static, with no heavy contractions in the end. I think that having low intensity contractions may have startled me and thus making the decision to surface. At first I never believed Jorg when he told me it was a 5:15 static…as it felt like a 3 minute static. So in the end when reviewing we came to the conclusion I was using only swimming goggles and no nose-clip, so we’re continuing down that path for the future static sessions.

The second part of my training consisted of technique training for the monofin, but first I coached Jorg during his freediving specific crawl exercises. Jorg started enjoying this exercise a few weeks back and he does this every training before I get into the water. It’s good to see him putting in all the effort in such a training.

The monofin technique training showed the progress I was going through since the past weeks. I started of by making the monofin amplitude too wide, looking back at the footage from the underwater-camera helps me to see my mistakes. We did a couple more lanes and tried to tweak it down more and more… The end-result was actually satisfying to see, never thought my lower-back would become flexible at all.

Preparation for the Bizzy Bluehole competition (http://www.freediving.biz/Bizzybluehole/) in Dahab is reaching it’s final steps, although I’m still waiting on a confirmation on certain points.

My Suunto D3 is in the diveshop to get it’s battery replaced and maybe they can fix the cracked button as well. Although the button works, it would be better if it’s working good and I do not have to press multiple buttons to get the same result, hehe :D. So I hope I’ll be able to actually record my depths in Egypt and post them back later on this Blog.

Creating a Lanyard is also on my ToDo-list and I’ve gathered some information on the topic and it seems the rules are strict yet unclear due to interpretation differences. But I’ll just create a lanyard and post it up here for some criticism and alter it by the feedback I receive.

Of course my training schedule will get it’s focus on the depth-related exercises like equalization, breathe-ups, surface/recovery breathe-technique, dry-walks, (dry)statics, etc. So stay tuned for some more blogging on this topic.

My monofin training has a small interruption of about 2 weeks as the Tongelreep is hosting the European Championship Synchro Swimming & Platform Diving 2008.

Never the less I went to the pool for a final technique training tonight. I expected it to be crowded as it was the last night the pool was open, but fortunately things were just as normal. Not to crowded and good circumstances to train my technique.

I started with a normal freediving specific crawl and repeated the 50m crawl without breath 6 times. When I finished that I got ready by getting my Leaderfins monofin out of the bag and started with the technique exercise from last training. But unfortunately my feet got cramped a bit. So I swapped back to the Specialfins monofin which is a bit softer and has more loose footpockets.

When my feet got used to the movement of the exercise I got out of the water and stretched my ankles and swapped back to the Leaderfins monofin again. Now my feet were used to the motion and I could perform my technique exercise. I think it was a good one again, but as Jorg was unable to attend the training due to other obligations I’ll have to guess it went ok :D.

The tongelreep will be closed till 28th of march and in these days we’ll substitute the monofin training with drywalk exercises.

Tonights monofin training proved to be a very good one, as I got my technique pretty much the way it’s supposed to be. In a preparation we did some small statics, with only the normal swim-goggles. It’s an awkward feeling at first but after a few tries it was actually not annoying anymore to have the water up my nose. Jorg did a couple of statics as well and tried out the underwater MP3 player.

In the training pool we started of with some small fins to get the movement training started. At the end of the training we picked up the leaderfins monofin and did various exercises to trigger the right effect. As it’s my lowerback that’s getting strained when i try to swim faster, or make shorter amplitudes. We went back to a earlier exercise which did trigger the right movement. Arms alongside whilst swimming with the monofin, but this time focussing on making a smaller amplitude. As soon as Jorg spotted the technique was how it’s supposed to be, he signaled me and I brought my arms to the stretched out position. So doing it with the phases separated, it did trigger the motion we were looking for.

Next time it’s time to get it on film and analyze it to see what improvements I’ve made so far. I’m very excited to see that my body is capable of making the monofin movement. Now it’s time to tweak and train and perfectionize it…