Today I’ve been to a boat store to pick up the accessories for my lanyard and mounting them into a proper lanyard. Earlier this week I had to order a few of the components as he didn’t have them in stock. So I ordered a carabiner which could clip around a cable of at least 15mm and a quick release hook with a workload of 200 kg and a maximum load of 400kg. Both components are stainless steel and have a length of 70mm and respectively 35mm.

Combining them into a lanyard was the next step in the “making of…”, so by the rules I figured that a cable length of approximately 500mm would do the trick. So we took a plasticized wire rope and fixed a cable-guide (for a minimal bending radius) and mounted the carabiner and the quick release to the 500mm wire rope. The wire rope is clamped and shortened, leaving no loose ends to scar me or tear my suit.

The quick release is attached to a ankle/wrist band with quite a large D-ring, but it suits the design in proportions. This band is also used for fitness exercises for the legs and covers the working load as well. As an extra safety measure, as seen in other lanyard designs, I added the quick release and attached a rope with a ball to that (of course I still have to shorten it).

With all things mounted together the distance between the center of the 15mm cable and the center of my wrist will be approximately 700mm, which seems like a good length. The total weight of the lanyard is just under 300 grams, so I reckon I’ve thought of all the points described in the regulations. I hope the lanyard gets considered valid to AIDA regulations and does it’s job when the emergency poses.

Let me know what you think of my lanyard…

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.

Is there such a thing as training too much…I think it depends on what your goals are and how you implement them into your life. In the past six months I had quite a few questions coming to my mind about my goals, motivation and what I like to do in life. It occurred to me that I experience more joy in freedive training itself then participating in a freediving competition. Although it’s always a lot of fun to go to freediving competitions, it doesn’t bring me the joy a training can bring me. But don’t get me wrong that I’m going to set back in my participation in freediving competitions, I just like to highlight the fact of enjoying training.

Whilst training I can focus on my goals more easily, whilst keeping in mind that I’m doing it all to make progress in my freediving experience. When Jorg and I set goals for a certain period, these goals will keep my mind strong for a “down” period where I don’t have a strong motivation. When I go into the gym for my fitness-exercises, I won’t think about how big my arms will get after training them. My thoughts will be that I’m training for my overall body fitness and I’m trying to stay in shape so that I can elevate my freediving performances due to a fit body. I’ve found that to be a good motivational factor to get more from my training and myself.

So how come you never see it paying off in competitions? That’s the question… and not a odd question to ask. But if I look at my training and performances during the past freedive years, I’ve booked some serious progress over those years. For me knowing that I’m capable of doing a 7 minute static and actually doing it in a competition is a world apart. I’d rather do this in training and see Jorg smile about it*, then doing this in a competition where proving yourself means more than the performance itself (in my experience).

* An example actually caught on camera: at the end of this clip from my 13 project Jorg was just as pleased as I was with my 125m performance.

I enjoy my training and I will train as much as it takes to keep myself satisfied whilst relaxing at home.

…is a thing I keep in mind all the time. The “Sharkbait”-way has always been different and throughout time we’re trying to open up our view on the approach to freediving to the outside world.

I know that trying to be different and proving it whilst doing so is quite the bumpy road, as the difference triggers a certain expectancy from the opposer. That’s where I get my drive to show there is a different approach to things.

I originate as a soccer player, always working hard and trying to make my effort for the team in a way they get energized to play better. Making the step to freediving at the end of 2003, was refreshing and challenging. Over the first years I got a kick out of a good training, trying to improve, perform and rise to the edge. The major difference for me was that I now had a challenge within myself, where my mind proves to be an unexplored area.

Me being a disbeliever in the start, where I believed 5 minutes was the limit for me…Jorg has been there to support me with the same way of thinking. Stimulating me in a pursuit of showing a different approach to freedive training and rising above myself.

I know I’m on a distinguished path, proving it by approaching the freedive-world differently and showing respectable performances. I’m not in an urge to convince the world our way is better, merely showing there IS a different approach to freedive training & performance!

Yes, I know! I always tell everybody not to do it, and now I’ve done it myself. As you can read from Sanne his post, Sanne made it partially to get to all his goals. I blame the partially part somewhat to myself because I changed so many variables during this test. Besides the added pressure I always give to Sanne, to give him somewhat of a competition feeling, I maybe changed to much of the winning combination. Normally we always train in a 50 meter pool, we did the test in a 25 meter pool. Our normal training pool is 2,20 meters deep, we set this pool to 1,40 meters (for safety reasons). And maybe even the temperature made a difference, 2 degrees higher in the test pool.

I calculated that it would inflict the performance, but never guessed it would be such a difference. First of all Sanne started with his DNF 105 meter test drive. Right in the first lap I could see that the technique for such short laps was not there. Sanne completely changed his pace and the turns were too rushed. All in all it resulted in a small LMC from which he could recover by himself at 101 meters. So strange to see him come up at this distance with some trouble! All in all, 2 minutes for a 101 meter dive is way too much. So next time we stay in the 50 meter pool.

And after the small LMC we decided it was better to not do a max attempt anymore. So Sanne set the goal for the dynamic with fins to 100 meters. Besides the problem with his body positioning because of the shallow water, it still looked as a very easy dive. And I’m sure that if he had started with this one, the 125 meters would be done with amazing ease. Oh well, one can just wonder what would bring this the next time in the 50 meter pool.

All in all it’s just good to learn the hard way during training then to learn from it when it matters during competitions. It’s the first thing that doesn’t go exactly as planned in project 13 and I’m glad it happens in week 9 and not week 13! The thing is that I expected much more problems with his 6:20 static he had to do, but to my amazement that was no problem at all.

So what’s next? Only 4 weeks to go and the final is getting closer and closer. Focus for the last 4 weeks is no completly on relaxation and technique. So no more high intensity schedules were Sanne need to catch a breath between laps, but only the fine and easy feeling of burning legs and those nice low oxygen levels and blue lips.

Monday is the first day of the 8 schedules that will take Sanne from where he is now to a 7 minute static, a 125 meter dynamic without fins and a 150 meter dynamic with fins. And I have no doubt that he will make it! His physic has been trained, his mind is programmed, let’s get it on!