At the end of 2003 I started freediving and ever since that time I’ve been evolving and growing in my freediving experience. However with all the good that comes from freediving, somewhere along the way a bad habit has been digging itself in my way of experiencing freediving. I’ll try and put it in words as the “Split second decision”.

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?