As I’m back into training again, working my way to a few personal bests, I’ll be scheduling and reporting about my training and progress towards personal goals.

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.

Looking back on the past few days of competition and training I must say I’ve learned quite a lot about the freediving to depth, techniques and about my approach. The depth part is a new and undiscovered area which I really like to explore more.

Besides that I also liked the competition and to meet all competitors and enthusiasts. Good to see there a lot more people out there having the same thing with freediving. All freedivers were very open to each other, helping with technique and helping out with anything.

For me I think the best for future training and depth-options in the Netherlands I’d best be of with doing FRC-dives, which give me the possibility to train for deeper dives within shallow waters.

The stretching which Jorg already told me was very important for deep dives, has proven it’s point and this should be in my preparation for future deep freediving.

Coming here I think my body was well prepared and my ears have seen multiple depth’s without tiring out on me. In my opinion the pool exercises and training from the past weeks/months really paid of in this event.

Putting it all together this whole event was about training, getting into depth’s again and totally for exploration. But in the results ending up with a reasonable 100+ points and respectable depth’s (CNF: 35m, FIM: 33m & CWT: 40m & All PB’s) on a 13th place overall is good inspiration for the future. I really like to compete in more depth competitions and explore the capabilities and moving the boundries for my body in depth.

Overall feeling I have with competitions is still that it brings a certain structure and planning which really suits me…For the Bizzy Blue hole depth-competition I liked the fact of choosing my own time of entrance to the water, which makes it like the approach Jorg and I always use for pool competitions.

The last day of the AIDA competitions and I feel very confident in doing the 40 meter constant weight. It was about 10 o’clock when we arrived at the Aqua Marina and the weather had settled a bit since yesterdays 10 mph wind speed. The water still was a bit choppy, but over the Blue hole the waves were not too high.

Preparing the dive with a few stretch exercises and planning this one only with valsalva technique. So no mouthfill, just on pure relaxation and focus on good equalization. As the water was a bit colder than yesterday, I decided to go in only 15 minutes before my official top (OT).

10 minutes before my OT I did a 1 minute 20 seconds static at 10 meter, which should let my body know that I’m about to dive deep. I felt really at ease and confident that I would make it. 4 minutes left to OT and I get called to the line and the safety prepares the depth gage and connects the lanyard to the competition line. I hear Marieke telling me I’ve got plenty of time down there, which reminds me that I do indeed; so no lightning decisions.

I start the dive and descent with my normal speed rate (~1 meter per second) and reach 25 meters without any problem. I start the sink phase and focus more on the equalization, just as I think the equalization starts getting harder I see the bottom plate within normal reach. I choose a tag to bring up, put it in the side of my cap, finish the turn and head back up to the surface. A total of 1 minute 16 seconds dive time and I resurface and do my surface protocol within 2 breath’s, gave my tag to the judge and got a white card presented. This is how a freedive should go, feel and be executed. I’m very very pleased with this dive and depth! I recall Sebastian (organizer) saying this was one of the best dives on execution of that day.

Later that night at the meeting there was a BBQ arranged. Also a small pop-quiz with some freedive related questions, which was really fun to do. Everybody drinking Sakara’s and having fun. A really festive night and kind of closure of the event.

Last night we decided to go training in the Blue hole with a few other freedivers. So we arranged our taxi to be there at around 10:30 and we were of to the blue hole. The weather was a bit on the rough side, yeah you might put it that way… The waves luckily rolled over the reef and were not as high anymore when they passed over the blue hole.

The training dives went pretty well and I wanted to train my equalizing thing I learned yesterday, but my ears weren’t really up for it. So I tried a few times, but had to call it a day with a 31m dive.

Dave actually felt much better than the day before, although he wasn’t fully recovered. He started of with a practice dive for constant weight without fins, but had to come up free immersion style. After that he did a few really good free imeersion dives to 40m and they looked real easy on him.

Marieke tried a few dives as well and surprisingly she dove down to 16 meters without any problem. I think it’s a good thing she enjoys the deep waters just as much as I do.

Tomorrow the last day of the AIDA competition days is up and I think I’ll be registering for a 40 meter constant weight. As Dave, Marcus and Allan already told me…just try and relax and the equalization will be just fine. This is actually what Jorg has been telling me since a long time, but now it seems to make more sence as the 33 meters or more are getting easier, it all comes down to being able to do more depth training in the end.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings and I’ll report back later.

Today the 2nd day of bizzy Blue hole’s Aida competitions were up. The first official top time had been moved to an earlier time, so the freedivers had to readjust their taxi appointments a bit, but everybody was right on time. Dave, which whom I share the taxi with, had to cancel due to ongoing belly problems. So Marieke and I got the taxi at 9:00 and got to the blue hole to sit and relax for a while.

Daan had swapped with Martin and so he had is dive in the beginning. Daan did a good 44 meters constant weight without fins, which was good for a new national record as he got the white card presented.

I started preparing 35 minutes before my official top and got ready with a small hang at 10m’s. The hang was about 1 minute 20 seconds, it helped me great to prepare for my dive. At 11:38 I was up and arrived at the small yellow boat and got the d3 attached around my wrist and the safety took care of hooking me up to the line. I prepared and took off a few seconds over official top. My duckdive wasn’t optimal which loosened my weight belt, never the less it was no problem. At around 23 meters I did a mouthfill, which actually got me to the 33 meters without equalizing just holding the pressure on my eardrums. At the point of 33 meters, I wanted to top up my mouthfill, but instead of topping it up, it slipped back into my lungs…startled as I was I turned around and headed back to the surface. That was the stupidest thing to do as I had enough air left to just relax and refill the mouth again. In the end it’s never too late to learn from moments like those. I surfaced after a 1 minute 16 seconds dive without a tag and lesson learned.

I’m very pleased with the dive as it was my first ever successful mouthfill performed Although now I’ll have to train a lot to get this thing right the next times. Also I instructed Marieke to remember me that I must realize I have enough air and should take my time down there. Never make the quick decisions as I normally do when I’m down there. The fact of having enough air was confirmed later this day when I did a test for lung capacity; without any packs I got it to 6,9 liter and with a limited pack I got to 7,8 liters. I was kind of surprised and on the other hand it helped me gain some confidence.

After the competition Marieke and I were going out in the water again to check out the bells. Unfortunately the sun was hiding behind the clouds so we did not have all the proper light to make the pictures. We managed to make a few, but never the less we enjoyed it. I think we’ll go out there again sometime later this week and then with proper sun shining over the corals.

Registration is due, so i’ll head out and maybe post back later.