So far I’ve dropped a few things I really love to do besides freediving itself; i.e. creating movie clips. I still have a few clips I want to produce, so over the time I will try and find some spare time to get some video stuff out there again.

The status on the current mental project has come to a point where I really get into my beliefs and motivation to why I’m freediving. Which is a important point in the progress of finding out how my mind works.

Last Monday I’ve done a small test with the monofin to see what speeds and time I could do a 50m lane. The first lane was about 25 seconds meaning a 2m/s speed. And on the return lane after a 2 minutes rest break I even improved the time to ~24 seconds. I thought I’d not be able to improve as a fast finning lane is quite tiring, but it was good to see I could. Static on Monday wasn’t all that relaxed, but still a 5 minute 12 seconds was enough for training.

Yesterday Guy and I went out to the Tongelreep for some technique training for DNF, which was a good insight in how to visualize the technique.

When I’m doing a freediving performance, whether it’s for training or for competition, my decision making isn’t controlled in a way I’d like. It should be as simple as this: if your brain doesn’t send a signal to your body to surface, you won’t surface from a performance.

So, why is it that I never had the urge to really push my self and see where I end up when I wouldn’t have made the split-second decision? In all my freediving I never had a single black-out and I actually think that on itself that is quite a remarkable achievement, since I’ve been freediving on a certain level where you’d expect it to happen. So far I’ve been looking at this from a negative/rational side and keeping in the back of my mind that blacking out sets you back in training, competition and in general.

Why shouldn’t I try and find my real limit and go for the experience and see how I recover from a black-out, as there have been just as many positive/inspiring stories as there are negative/rational stories. Maybe it takes away my split-second decision making organ and persuades it into not making the early call to bail.

The quest to end this habit has been around since Jorg, Marieke and I have spotted it in my behaviour… And after looking at this part of freediving from a certain point of view it’s time for me to look at it from a different point of view and meet my match in finding out where real limits are defined. I won’t go blindly into black-outs now, but I see it as the process where this whole training period revolves around. Explaining it in two key-phrases:

Breaking the mental limiter.

Black-out not as a means, but a consequence I’d be willing to accept.

I would like to hear your Feedback
If you had a black-out:

• What is your opinion on this matter?
• How did you experience a black-out vs. eventually raising your limits?

If you didn’t have a black-out:

• How is your point of view in this matter?
• What is your opinion about a black-out?

One of the new features is that I’m able to share my data in a graphed form with my readers. So this way I can give you a little insight into my performances and you can keep track of my current training goals.

I put up the Training Progress page so that it’s all easy to find and the neat thing is, whenever I update my spreadsheet online, the images showing my progress graph’s will automatically be re-published. That way it’s always the latest news, just in!

Freediving 25 meters of DNF I take about 24-25 secondes, on which the following schedule is based.

• 6 x 25 meter starting every 1 minute 10 seconds
• 6 x 25 meter starting every 1 minute
• 6 x 25 meter starting every 50 seconds
• 4 x 25 meter starting every 45 seconds

Totalling 550 meter in 21 minutes and 550 seconds immersed.

This is a very good schedule to start with. During the following weeks I’ll be adjusting it to a level William Trubridge made me do in his course.

The 25 meter pool in the Tongelreep is perfectly in distance, but the pool depth is 5 meters. This makes it all a little harder as you really have to worry about your altitude in the water. On the other hand, what better training circumstance could I have for improving my awareness of altitude.

As I really couldn’t find more time in the past few weeks, I decided to go with a nice clean lay-out which is able to show the different features and functionalities. This should make it better to read and easier to navigate.

If you find any errors just let me know through the contact form.

When I started freediving for Team Sharkbait, Jorg and I put up a plan of how I should always be able to do a certain performance under any conditions or preparation. At the time I put all my faith into that believe, but guessed it would be a long shot to be able and do 5 minutes static in any condition and a 100 meters of dynamic with fins no matter what.

Last night I’ve proven to myself that the disbelief, justified or not, was groundless. In the last few weeks Jorg dropped me in the small whirlpool at the Tongelreep for static sessions and all of the statics have been 5 minutes or more. 

Last night was the perfect example for myself to see that no prepration and stomachache resulted in a 5 minnute 10 seconds static. Also the Dynamic with Bi-fins didn’t pose a problem. 103 meters without a hassle proves for myself that my disbelief and doubts were not justified.

This provides me with a confidence boost for the coming weeks. So let’s see what happens.

Personal Bests
The personal bests I’m training to improve are my DYN: 125m, DNF: 109m, STA in competition: 5m 33s. To achieve these goals I make use of different training exercises and techniques, which consist of:

• Dry-walks
• Dry-statics
• Statics
• Crawl without breath
• DNF/Breaststroke technique
• MAX-attempts in all 3

Exceeding PB’s
I want to exceed my personal bests within the next 4 months, this time I will not be focussing on a set distances or time. I will have my focus on doing maximum attempts again and thus improving my personal bests.

“Why this change in approach?” you might ask. Well; In the past few months I’ve been looking back at why I cease to do maximum attempts. I believe one of my restraints is my mind not allowing me to perform to my limits. When looking back on the past year; I’ve seen myself  perform in competitions and everytime I’m in a competition it looks like I’m backing out on my own beliefs and set out paths.

Jorg, Marieke and I have been trying to pinpoint the reason why I’m backing out of it. Where I have to conclude that it includes a certain fear for blacking out and performing badly in front of a crowd. Although I’m only training for personal bests, my mind is always aware of the fact that a bad performance is witnessed and going over the top is a thing I’m not willing to experience.

So how to find a balance in all of this is my main question I’ll be struggling with this next period. Because my body might be ready for a good performance, but how will I convince myself to actually do that max performance?

Reporting
I will write about my progress and for the short updates right after training or the morning after I’ll be using Twitter to communicate the results of the training. I added the twitter feature to the site in the Mini-Blog on the right in the main section, this is where the latest training news appears.

Schedule / Upcoming events
I will be scheduling and planning my training sessions through Google Calendar which is also available on this site, view this public calendar or you can subscribe to the shark-bait calendar with your own Google-account by adding it with the button on the bottom-right.

Here’s a preview from the upcoming days in training:

Stay up to date through the rss-feeds or by reading this site.

As I’m still finding my way through the proper technique and the helpful tools to get rid of my scissor-like leg movement, Kostas joined me last night with another helpful tool; the video-camera. Looking back at the footage right after I did the 25 meter test runs, made it more obvious I needed to lower my right leg even more.

As a comparison we made a few clips where I did a run with:

1. initial technique without the speedo fins
2. corrected technique without the speedo fins
3. initial technique with the speedo fins
4. corrected technique with the speedo fins
5. corrected technique after use of speedo fins

When reviewing the footage some interesting facts grabbed my attention. In relation to how it felt whilst doing the different test runs, I can say that even though you wear the fins, I still need to be paying attention to the lifting of the right leg. When applying the force with the legs, the moment of ultimate propulsion at first seems to be short. But after re-capping the things William said in his course you can keep the propulsion going by scooping more water, by pointing the toes inwards at the end.

My scissor isn’t gone by long, but getting aware of the fact by reviewing the footage is very helpful. Another thing which makes me aware is by looking down at my legs whilst swimming… it’s not the most elegant way, but then I seem to see the errors and correct them instantly.

The next few weeks I’ll be swopping between my DNF-technique and the DYN monofin technique.

First day
It started with a introduction of technique used during the CNF, which he’d broke down into the arm- and legstroke. It’s good to see him explaining all this theory out of his own experience, like where he applies certain corrections and i.e. accidentally finding out why certain stuff is working by looking back through videos.

A lot of other theory explained about lung capacity, certain different thesis’ and practical experience led William to finding a kind of formula to calculate how many air to use for a dive. Although it’s unproven by science it did make sense when he explained it.

After the theory he taught some of his stretching exercises, through which he could stretch his overall body in preparation of CNF or CW dives. In combination with breathing exercises with purpose to stretch the lungs and the rib-cage a preparation for depth training seems to make sense. In some of the stretching exercises or maybe most, I found out that my body wasn’t really all that capable of bending. I do believe that with a little dedication to these stretching exercises, it will be increasing flexibility and thus a better preparation for going into the blue.

With the body stretched up and ready to go we were dropped in the pool to show our technique to the careful eye of the world champ. With pin-pointed accuracy he spotted technique imperfections and showed a way to get rid of these imperfections. For myself my scissor-like movement with my right leg still is one the major imperfections, but by hanging on the side of the pool and slowly making the movement I could get rid of the imperfection. As for the other participants they could also benefit of the observations and comments by William.

Second day
This day started of with theory again, more specific to total lung capacity versus residual volume. He explained an other theory which he worked out for himself and he combined with exhale statics. This approach seems to make sens when you are training for depth, as you’re in this kind of static whilst your falling down by negative buoyancy.

Glenn setup his heart rate monitor through which William was able to show a heart rate drop from 60 to 38 within a minute, which proves his way of using certain pranayama locks. Later that day all participants would be  hooked up and check if they were able to pull of these locks…as for my own heart rate… sigh… I don’t know why but my heart rate starts of at about 100 rest state after 4 minutes of slow breathing and after performing a lock…it would only drop to let’s say 83, but all in a time of 2 minutes for which this is a normal drop in heart rate for me. so for me it’s unproven, but the others were able to get the sensations William was talking about.

After the heart rate monitoring everybody made a maximum attempt in the pool without any preparation, for most of the freedivers this was a first and they all performed really well by down no warm up.

To round up the day we were to execute one of the tables explained earlier in the theory. A certain amount  of 25m laps and decreasing rest times made a perfect training for 30 minutes. Quite tiring and an interesting way of training, although I do see resemblance with my own training schedule’s which Jorg puts me through.

Concluding
Overall a succesful weekend and lot’s of new things learned also about an amazing athlete doing 3 days of trianing and one day of rest in a really awesome blue hole in the Bahamas. Thanks William Trubridge and Glenn Venghaus and Peter Wurschy from Apnea Academy Amsterdam for setting up this oppertunity.

The announced schedule for this weekend (roughly):

Saturday
16:00 arrive in pool Beverwijk
16:30 - 17:00   Introductions
17:00 - 18:30  Theory (technique & dive strategy)
18:30 - 19:30  Stretching (body & lungs)
19:30 - 21:30  Pool (technique & drills)
21:30 - End (estimated)

Sunday
12:00 arrival pool beverwijk
12:30 - 15:00   Theory (training program, diet, psychology)
15:00 - 16:00   Stretching (body & lungs)
16:00 - 18:30   Pool (max attempt, pyramid training table)
18:30 - 19:30   Videos, diploma, question time
20:00 -  End (estimated)

Just to let you know what William Trubridge is all about, check out this great performance:

Other information about William Trubridge is posted on Vertical Blue.