freedive-nomad

Asia's First Deep Pool - DIvecube

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 23:56:11 GMT

Freediving Divecube in Taiwan - Asia's First Deep Pool

Check out my YouTube video about Divecube, Asia's first deep pool (21 meters deep) located in Taichung, Taiwan. Why would I travel off my small island with great freediving to travel hours to dive and teach in a pool? Watch the video below to find out why.

If you want to learn more about Divecube, check out my. blog post on my Taiwan website Freedive Guide to Divecube .

10 Reasons I Love the Molchanovs Core Silicone Bifins

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 05:18:42 GMT

Molchanovs Core Silicone Bifins Review

I've had my Molchanovs Core Silicone Bifins for a good four months now, I even made two videos on it, one on Tik Tok that Alexey Molchanov himself loved and YouTube . I must confess that I still adore them to this day and love them so much that I've only used my expensive carbon fins only a handful of times since and will make a perfect Xmas gift.

And given the price point at US$115 (use coupon code FREEDIVENOMAD for 10% off your purchase), it's a relatively cheap gift for a freediver as a pair of carbon fins can cost US$500+, fiberglass fins $150+, a new wetsuit US$300+, dive computer $300-$1000+++ (ya, freediving can be expensive ).

These fins are is so versatile I call it the Swiss Army knife of freediving fins and that's why it belongs in every freediver's arsenal of equipment or as a gift for your favorite freediver below the Christmas tree ?

QUICK FACTS

The fins are made from hypo-allergenic and UV-resistant silicone with an open foot pocket design allowing your foot to stay straight when finning. It comes in 3 colors: white, black and blue. It has a left and right side for a better fit, something I have yet to see in other fins or foot pockets.

Hypoallergenic, UV resistant special silicone and designed for all temperatures.

WHY I FRICKING LOVE THESE FINS

1) PERFECT BEGINNER FINS

Recommending fins for a new freediver is tough. Is going cheap a safe option? Not necessarily. A beginner pair of fins cost between US$70-100+. But a new freediver could quickly outgrow these fins and maybe they are better off spending another $50-100 to get some fiberglass fins?

I feel very comfortable recommending these fins to beginner freedivers as they will still have plenty of uses even if the new diver upgrades to more expensive fiberglass or carbon fins (see below) at a price that’s not too far off from cheap plastic beginner fins, plus its arguably better as plastic fins are too stiff and can cause beginner freedivers to bend their knees too much and thus incorrect finning technique. The softness of the silicone fins will help new students achieve a more energy-efficient kicking technique.

Therefore these are easily my #1 choice to recommend to beginner freedivers. The ONLY downside to these fins is that they are not long and less aesthetically pleasing than long fins.

2) EASY TRAVELING

If you've ever gone on a plane with your long finds you'll realize what an absolute pain in the ass it is. If you are traveling on public transport you will most likely need to buy a special bag just to carry it.

Moreover, if you are getting on a plane, do you check them in or carry-on?

If you carry on, will the airline let you bring them onboard because of the length? If you check them in do you have a suitable suitcase that can both fit in and protect them at the same time?

WIth the Molchanovs silicone bifins you don’t need to buy a special bag or suitcase just to fit them in. You can chuck them into a backpack, or have them hanging from a carabiner off your backpack. Moreover, they fit in nearly all suitcases, even carry-on ones.

Traveling with it on the scooter and laying it down by your feet make your scooter wider, I can’t tell you how many times my long fins have hit something while riding my scooter, not to mentionthe number of times it’s fallen off my scooter. Now, I can just chuck the fins in the seat of my scooter and not worry about it.

So if you have super expensive carbon fins and are flying somewhere to dive, you can put away the stress of how to bring your fragile fins on a plane and bring your silicone fins instead so long as you aren’t planning on hitting any CWT personal bests.

3) SUFFICIENT POWER

If I had to put a percentage of what’s the difference between these fins vs my carbon fins I’d say about 80%, but take that with a huge grain of salt.

I usually use these when I teach my beginner courses and I've been able to do blackout rescues drills from 20m in these fins. During the same session, my friend was able to rescue me also from 20m with the same fins and she's literally half my size.

Alexey Molchanovs took these down to 102m at Vertical Blue in 2021 where his CWTB is about 120m+.

Although you are not likely to hit your CWTB personal best with these fins, they are sufficient for training, safetying and rescuing.

It's powerful by any means, but you make up for it in so many other ways.

4) PRACTICE MONOFIN

Using a monofin is powerful, elegant, and graceful.

Before investing a significant amount of money in a new monofin, you may want to practice the technique first.

But you shouldn’t practice your mono fins technique in your long blades because it's simply too hard on your back. Thus short fins are the solution ie the Molchanovs silicone bifins (though any short fins would work).

5) GREAT FOR POOL TRAINING

I rarely wear my carbon fins in the pool because the blades can easily crack if another diver steps on them and you step away or bent against the pool wall or floor so I usually bring my fiberglass fins. Now I can use these instead when teaching pool sessions and it’s a lot less awkward and clumsy moving around in the pool with short fins vs long fins.

6) GOOD OPTION FOR SCUBA

If you are a casual scuba diver then these can double as scuba diving fins. These are especially convenient if you are shore diving as you can clip the fins onto your BCD with a carabiner.

Going on a trip where you'll be both scuba diving and freediving? No need to bring two sets of fins if you have these in your closet.

7) OPEN FOOT POCKET

Generally divers can use short closed foot pocket fins from scuba diving or snorkeling for their beginner course, using one with an adjustable strap and open heel is not advised as they are not designed for freediving-type kicks and you don’t get a proper power transfer from legs to fins.

However, these are different, because they are nice and snug while also keeping your foot in the right position, pointed.

Keeping your toes pointed is important to get full power from a kick. This is easy to do on a front kick where it naturally is forced that way from the front kick, however, on the back kick most divers I see tend to lead with their heel thus losing power as the blade does not contact the water at the correct angle for maximum propulsion

The Molchanovs silicone fins keep your toes pointed leading to much better technique on the back kick.

8) SURFACE FINNING IS GOOD

I love surfacing swimming with these as they are easy on the legs as kicking with them is quite soft. And since they are short blades, they also don't annoyingly pop out of the water.

This makes them perfect for snorkeling so if you don't pursue freediving to a more serious level, you can always use these for snorkeling.

9) COMFORTABLE AF

These are simply the most comfortable fins I’ve ever tried on even with my super wide Fred Flintstone feet. Unusual for fins is that they have right and a left foot and the fit is very snug but not uncomfortably so. It also has arch support.

It didn't matter if I wore them barefoot, with lycra socks or 2mm booties, they still fit perfectly and comfortably.

A fellow freedive instructor on the island I teach on has princess' feet ie it didn't matter if she wore socks, booties or bare feet, her feet would eventually get torn up and she's tried so many different types of foot pockets out on the market. But not with these fins.

10) BETTER MANEUVERABILITY

Short fins mean better maneuverability. This is great for when I'm teaching a pool session as I don't have to take large awkward steps with my long fins. Though this is a rather minor issue.

Better maneuverability is most useful when you are in the open water and taking underwater photographs or videos.

So if you are an underwater photographer or videographer, in addition to the benefits of easy travel, comfort, and power you can also move more efficiently into better positions to take the perfect picture or video.

There you have it, ten reasons why I absolutely love these fins. Don't forget the two videos I made where the links you can find in the intro paragraph. If you already have a pair or are looking to buy something special for a freediver that won't break the bank, these would make the PERFECT gift. And if you do buy a pair, don't forget to use the coupon code FREEDIVENOMAD for 10% off.

Episode #10 - Freedive Equipment

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 22:36:22 GMT

Freediving Equipment & Costs

Show Notes

This episode is a quick primer on what freediving equipment you'll need for a beginner freedive course, whether to rent or buy and general cost for each piece of equipment.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

How to check freedive mask fits> - Youtube Video

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

Show us some love by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Book Online Course - Beginner online theory course for Molchanvos. Includes 1.5 hours online, manual, online test and certification fees.

You Can Find Me At

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Kit

Transcripts

Hello futur e freedivers,

And thank you for downloading this episode of the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by Octopus freediving.

This is episode #10 about what equipment you’ll need as a beginner or for your beginner course and general cost. In the next episode I will go into more details on fins and wetsuits. Jingle please.

Hello again, Ray here aka the Freedive Nomad and the host of this show.

When I first got into freediving, I thought it was going to be a lot cheaper hobby vs scuba diving as freediving doesn’t have as much equipment. Boy was I seriously wrong.

I just saw a meme on Facebook that said “Steal a man’s wallet and he’ll be poor for a week. Teach him to dive, he’ll be poor for the rest of his life”, and that is true for both scuba diving and freediving.

Don’t get me wrong though, freediving can be as cheap as the price of mask if you are diving in warm waters but it can also get really expensive.

If you buy all your equipment at the lower end of the price range you are still looking at at least a few hundred US$. Great budget places to buy your equipment are Decathlon which make high quality entry level equipment for any sport including freediving or Amazon which quality can be a bit of a hit and miss but at least you can return it

So let’s go over the basics first -

As a beginner student at a minimum you will need a mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit, weights and weight belt and a wetsuit.

Mask - These can go anywhere from 15-50 US$ or more. If you have a mask and snorkel from scuba, I would use those as some of my students have done before. This is something I’d also consider buying because it's generally not that expensive.

Freedive masks are lower volume, as you need to release some air into the mask from your lungs to prevent the mask from squeezing on your face too hard from the increasing hydrostatic pressure. And they come with either plastic lenses or tempered glass lenses. Plastic ones are easier to scratch but harder to break. Glass doesn't scratch as easily but can shatter if you drop it. I personally prefer plastic because they come in a curved lens which is slicker and less boxy feeling vs glass lens.

I’ve seen on some FB groups and online forums people often ask which masks are the best. And the answer to that is different for everyone as it really depends on how the mask fits on your face. I have a $15 mask I bought off Amazon that fits better than a $50 branded mask.

To see if a mask will fit you correctly, pull the straps over to the front of the mask, look towards the sky and place the mask over your eyes, then you want to feel if there is any space between the edge of the silicon skirt of the mask and your face. If there is, that mask is not right for you and try another one. Do not suck in through your nose as most people do.

If you need more of a visual on this, check out my instructor trainer video on it in the show notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_GgeX4V2Xc

The Aqualung Sphera mask seems to be the most popular mask out there and I’ve heard some people say that it fits 80% of people’s faces, and unfortunately, mine is not one of them. Personally I have found the Molchanovs Core Freediving Mask fits my flat and wide face perfectly (use coupon code FREEDIVENOMAD to get 10% off your order)

Snorkel - Again you can use your scuba one if you’d like. Get the most basic uncomplicated J shaped snorkel. You don’t want that fancy stuff on there like the splash guard which may cause you to breathe more carbon dioxide or the purge valve as those leak, break easily and you can have that flapping in your face as you descend or ascend on your dives. You can get a snorkel for US$15-30.

Fins - the beautiful long fins are the hallmark of freediving and is one of the more costlier pieces of equipment.

An entry level pair of fins are about $100 which are plastic. If you can afford to pay a bit more, I’d go for fibreglass which probably has the best price to performance ratio but there are plenty of advanced divers taking plastic fins deep.

On the top end you have carbon fins which can set you back $500 which you honestly don’t need. If you buy carbon or fibreglass fins you have a choice of stiffness of the blades, either soft, medium or stiff. Get the soft stiffness is all you need if you have good technique and it'll save your legs.

If you have closed pocket short fins from scuba diving or your snorkelling then you can use this for your beginner freedive course, I’ve had students use these. Do not use the ones with the adjustable strap as you won’t have much power transferred into your fins as they are not designed for freediving kicking

Tune into the next episode where I will talk about the best fin option I feel for beginner freedivers.

Wetsuit - as I’ve said in a previous episode this is the one piece of equipment that I advise my students to consider buying as everyone pees in their wetsuit and it can be kinda gross no matter how well it's cleaned.

Some locations you may not even need a wetsuit if the waters are warm enough but i’d cover up with a rashguard as you never know when jellyfish are out to bite you. Also, even if you are in warm water because the thermal conductivity of water is 20x that of air, even water a few degrees below your body temperature is enough to make you feel cold, so layer up.

If you already have a wetsuit from scuba or surfing, I’d check with your instructor if you could use that. No reason to buy a new one. I used my scuba wetsuit for for awhile until I got my specialized freedive wetsuit.

We’ll get into more detail about wetsuits in the next episode.

Weight belt and weights

Freedive weight belts should be rubber and here is why, as you dive deeper, your body will shrink due to hydrostatic pressure. If you use a regular scuba nylon belt, then as you shrink, your weight belt will loosen and fall down to your armpits. With a rubber belt, as you shrink, the rubber belt will continue to cinch onto your waist staying in place instead of awkwardly in your armpits.

Unfortunately, these rubber weight belts cost around US$20-30 pretty expensive considering how basic of a product it is, like the snorkel.

For weights, the starting point is the thickness of your wetsuit plus 2kgs. So if you have a 5mm wetsuit, then you want to start with 7kgs. Note, that everyone’s body composition is different and the range of weights you will need to wear will vary widely.

And the first thing you will do at the start of an open water session is your instructor will check to see if you are properly weighted.

I would check with your school or instructor if they provide weights, most schools that have students who fly in would have weights you can use as it can get pretty expensive to fly with them.

So those are the most basic equipment you will need - depending on temperature of the waters you dive in you may need neoprene boots or gloves to help you keep warm.

Just a quick bit on choosing the color of your equipment. As you go freediving in bigger groups or you go to a school or go boat diving there’s going to be a lot of equipment that are the same color and look alike. Most of the equipment is black so if I have a choice to pick a color other than black, I would do so. Also, mark your equipment, I use a permanent pen to mark my fins, snorkel and mask or you can wrap some colorful electrical tape around your snorkel, it will also help your safety spot you in low visibility waters. So if you ever see my Instragram, that’s why I have a lot of hot pink equipment. Easier to find, harder to lose, easier to be spotted in the water and I just like that color.

To try to find used equipment, look for a Facebook group in your local area for freediving and post on there, I started one in Las Vegas, I’ve seen groups for Southern California, here in Taiwan, Bali, Austin, Texas etc. etc.

Check if there is a scuba or spearfishing shop near you that rents equipment, some have programs where you can use your rental costs as store credit to buy your equipment from them.

And that’s it for today’s show.

If you’ve found this podcast really helpful and want some way to support it you can either leave me a review on the Apple podcast platform or buy me a coffee at freedivepodcast.com/coffee.

That’s it,

Dive safe and never dive alone!

Episode #9 - Freedive Course Cost

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 09:29:53 GMT

Freedive Course Cost

Show Notes

Find out about the cost of a freedive course and what to do if you can't afford one.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freedivin g

Resources

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

Show us some love by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Book Online Course - Beginner online theory course for Molchanvos. Includes 1.5 hours online, manual, online test and certification fees.

You Can Find Me At

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Kit

Transcripts

Hello future freedivers

Thank you for downloading this episode of the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving, makers of some of the best freedive accessories on the planet.

This is episode 9 where we go over the cost of a freedive course and what to do if you can’t afford a course.

Let’s hear that jingle.

JINGLE

Generally, a beginner freedive course is about US$300-500 regardless of where you are in the world and I think that price range is pretty much within 1 standard deviation of all the beginner courses globally and if you don’t know statistics that means i reckon only 32% of courses would fall outside of that $300-$500 range. Apologies for getting a bit nerdy.

And this is for the course itself. You will still need to check with your school or instructor whether it includes certification costs, study materials, equipment rental, transport, accommodation, etc.

I was pretty lucky with my first course, my course fees included all equipment rental, accommodation and my instructor even picked me up at the ferry pier with a rental scooter.

So, $300-500, I understand, that’s pricey for a lot of people and absolutely unaffordable for many but if you compare it to a lot of other recreational activities its comparable or even cheaper.

Like a full course in scuba, surfing or rock climbing lessons. A day out deep sea fishing. A 2-3 hours of golf lessons. 2 hours rental of a wakeboarding boat. A big night at the pub, or a really expensive date.

Freediving is a practical skill you can use for the rest of your life whether it’s for fun diving or using the techniques to relax or help you fall asleep which I do often. So in my humble opinion its a pretty good investment.

If you simply can’t afford a course, I would approach an instructor or school or try to barter with them to exchange some work or services you are skilled in.

For example, here in Xiaoliuqiu I taught one student a second level course for free in exchange she helps me out on some courses on the weekends and sometimes helps me with some underwater photography.

I had one student when I was in the US who really wanted to learn freediving to help him with his spinal cord disease but didn’t have the financial means at the time as he was not working so we agreed on an installment plan.

I can’t speak for all instructors out there, but part of the reason I love teaching freediving is to help people change their lives for the better much like it did for me, and after 20 years in a soul sucking job it's great to be in a line of work that you can see bring joy to people’s faces.

So if you can’t afford a course, get creative. All the instructors I know are good-natured people and I’d like to think most would be open to a reasonable offer.

But I have heard stories of students begging for a discount cuz they can’t afford a course and then show up to the class with $500 carbon fins, don’t be that person.

Also as an alternative remember that Ted Harty has a free online safety course for freedivers at freedivepodcast.com/podcast - it's just 45 minutes long but jam packed with information that could save you or your buddy’s life.

And for a limited time I’m offering an one-on-one online theory classes. It’s 1.5 hours long online with me and includes freedive theory lectures and dry skills like breath-holding technique and freediving equalization. It also includes a 100+ page manual and a theory certification from the certifying agency Molchanovs. This is usually US$150 but as my listener you can get it for US$100 at freedivepodcast.com/theory again that’s freedivepodcast.com/theory. If you have any questions regarding this course please email me at ray@freedivenomad.com - and the times I’m available to teach generally are 6am to 9pm Taiwan time which is GMT +8. You won’t be able to freedive after this course but you will have all the knowledge you need for a level 1 course.

And finally I’d like to talk about meditation, something that should be part of every freediver’s training.

I started my meditation journey five years ago, I took a course in transcendental meditation which cost around US$1,000 and I learned one very important thing, meditation is really hard. And I don’t think I’m alone there. Mediation is something you have to be very consistent with in order to see the benefits and ya I was able to maintain a practice for weeks or even several months but somehow I find a way to break the habit, it sounds a lot like trying to quit smoking.

That was until I randomly downloaded the Synchtuition app and within days I was sleeping throughout the night and improved focus during the day, things I was having trouble with and it's so easy to maintain this practice as I just listen to it 20-25 minutes a day, every day because it's so easy. I sometimes just listen to it before my nap.

Synctuition has over 150,000 5 star reviews, over 4m users and backed by over 100 studies - for a free trial go to freedivepodcast.com/meditate

And that's it!

Dive safe and never dive alone!

Episode #8 - What Does A Freediving Course Look Like?

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 00:09:13 GMT

What Does A Freediving Course Look Like

Show Notes

Wondering what taking a freedive course is like? Then this episode is just for you!

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

Show us some love by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

You Can Find Me At

Information about taking a freedive course from me in Taiwan

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Kit

Transcripts

Hello future freedivers

And welcome to the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving, makers of some of the best freedive accessories on the planet.

This is episode 8 where we walk you through what a freedive course looks like.

JINGLE

Ray here again, the Freedive Nomad and this show’s host.

A beginner freediving course has three parts to it - theory, confined water or pool and open water diving.

Before getting in the water you must learn some freediving theory - when you sign up for a course you will most likely be given a manual to read first and then review that with your instructor either in person or online.

Here you will learn your physics and human physiology related to freediving, equalization, relaxation and breathing techniques, risks and safety protocols. You’ll then need to pass a written multiple-choice test before being certified but not necessarily before you start diving.

Confined water sessions - This can be held either in a pool or in the shallow part of an ocean or lake with little current. This can be done in either 1-2 sessions depending on your instructor or school.

You will learn to do a static breath-hold (as well as buddying and rescue). Static breath hold is where you float on the surface of the water face down while holding your breath trying to stay as still and relaxed as possible. This will help you get used to holding your breath for an extended amount of time with fewer variables to deal with.

You then move onto dynamic apnea . This is finning horizontally while underwater across the pool with a target horizontal distance to cover, typically 25-40 meters, on one breath. This will help the diver to practice proper finning technique, body and head position while holding their breath and build up your confidence to be able to cover a distance horizontally before tackling it at depth.

Open Water Session - Typically these are done over 2-3 sessions lasting about one and a half hours a session. Depending on where you are, you will be either swimming out to the dive spot from shore or taking a boat out unless you find yourself in one of the half a dozen deep pools in the world.

The instructor will first set up the buoy and line. Around the buoy are handles to hang onto when not diving or when preparing for your dive.

When your instructor is setting up the buoy, take this time to work on your relaxation and to settle down from the swim if there was one or from your boat ride. During these sessions you will work on proper weighting, equalisation, duck dive, finning down and up, bottom turn, buddying and rescue.

During the open water sessions you will learn to descend and ascend using two methods. First one is called free immersion, or I hear it called pull downs a lot in the US where you use the rope to pull yourself down or up with your hands.

This is a good way to start as you can control your depth easily to check or work on your equalization. You then move onto constant weight, or kick downs as it's sometimes called in the US, where you will fin down to your target depth.

And finally the requirements to get certified

Pass the written exam
Demonstrate buddying and rescue skills during static, dynamic and depth diving

And pass performance requirements which are different for each agency but it's in the range of

1:30 to 2 minute static breath hold
25-40m dynamic
And 10-16m in depth

All with good, proper & clean technique.

Generally each agency has 3 levels for recreational diving. Level one is obviously beginner level. Level two is advanced level and depth requirement is 20-24 meters and level 3 is called masters level and the depth requirement for that is around 32m where equalization starts to become a challenge. Some agencies you can become an assistant instructor after passing a master level course.

Many people can go from a level 1 to a level 2 course without any training in between. However after level 2, that will require some training to reach the performance requirements for level 3.

And after this level you get beyond recreational freediving and into instructor courses and competition courses like the Wave 4 course for Molchanovs.

Just a quick note or disclaimer, this episode has come all from my experience teaching for 3 different agencies, PADI, AIDA and Molchanovs. There are like 9-10 other international agencies out there and most of them have similar requirements but some are very different like Apnea Total which doesn’t really have performance requirements and just require demonstration of proper technique and FII which does the 3 levels in only 2 levels.

And that’s it for today’s episode but before you go,

As I’ve said in previous episodes, the safest and most enjoyable way to learn freediving is to take a freedive course. But I know that not everyone has access to a freedive course. If that’s the case, Ted Harty, a US National Record holder, has a free online safety course for freedivers and spearfishermen. To sign up go to freedivepodcast.com/safety again that’s freedivepodcast.com/safety.

And once again, please sign up for this podcasts Facebook group at freedivepodcast.com/fb where you can write in any questions regarding freediving.

Dive safe and never dive alone and maybe take a freedive course, or at least Ted Harty’s online safety course.

Episode #7 - Freedive Course Prerequisites

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 00:00:27 GMT

Freedive Course Pre-Requisites

Show Notes

Ready for a course? We briefly go over the few pre-requisites for freedive courses and what to do if the thought of freediving in the open ocean kinda freaks you out.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

Deepest Pool in the World - Deep Dive Dubai

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

Show us some love by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LO T

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

You Can Find Me At

Information about taking a freedive course from me in Taiwan

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Ki t

Transcripts

Hello future freedivers

And welcome to the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving.

The next few episodes we will address more practical aspects of freediving and that begins with a freedive course This is episode 7 where we discuss the prerequisites for taking a freedive course.

Lemme hear that jingle.

Hi, this is Ray, the Freedive Nomad and your host for today as usual.

So what are the prerequisites for a beginner freedive course?

To be honest there are not a lot of requirements for joining a freedive course. There are generally 3 explicit requirements for a freedive course - age, swimming ability and health. Note there are about a dozen international freedive agencies but most of them i believe will have more or less these prerequisites

Age - 16-18 is usually the minimum age . Some agencies like AIDA and PADI do have programs for children under 16.

Swimming ability - most agencies have swimming requirements of between 100m-300m, the longer distance is if you use a mask, snorkel and fins. This is really not a test you want to JUST pass as you do need a strong swimming ability to freedive.

Generally good health - when you sign up for the course you will be given a medical questionnaire listing out many health conditions like diabetes or asthma or any heart, sinus, ear, pulmonary or neurological conditions. if you answer yes to any of them you will need a sign off from your doctor. And seizures is the one condition I know of that will totally preclude you from a freedive course.

Now this is not an explicit prerequisite but definitely something to consider. You must be comfortable in the open water - despite being strong swimmers, there are still a lot of people who kinda freak out when they can’t see the bottom of the lake or ocean.

If you are not comfortable in the open water - I’d suggest an alternative: to learn in a deep pool that allow freediving. Deep pools are becoming more popular around the world and even right here in Taiwan we have one called Divecube. There’s also K26 in South Korea, Nemo 33 in Belgium, Y-40 in Italy, Deep Spot in Poland and I hear the deepest one in the world is launching soon in the UK. And if anyone out there is interested in building one in the US, may I suggest my hometown in the US, THE entertainment capital of the world - Las Vegas.

I’ve even heard some aquariums offer freedive courses. How cool would that be.

If that doesn’t work for you, you can try researching exposure therapy which is a method used by Cognitive Behaviriol Therapist use to help people overcome fears and anxiety.

So I recorded this episodes several weeks ago when I was in quarantine but just two weeks ago the deepest pool in the world opened in Dubai with a stunning depth of 60 meters. The Guinness Book of World Records already certified it as the deepest pool for diving as of June 27th and not only is it the deepest but has the most interesting interiors which you should really check out on their instagram called Deep Dive Dubai. And it's already attracting major celebrities like Will Smith.

As we talk more and more about taking a freedive course in the coming episodes, there is one piece of equipment I always suggest my students consider buying before a beginner course rather than renting and that’s a wetsuit.

It’s been said that there are two kinds of people, those who pee in their wetsuits and those who lie about peeing in their wetsuits. The physiological changes that happen in freediving causes a diver to want to pee A LOTmore, its called immersion diuresis. I have no issue with peeing in wetsuits, but for me, it’s kinda gross even with deep cleaning, but that’s just me, I don’t even like using hotel towels. So, if you’ve decided to buy a wetsuit consider one of our affiliate partners Waihana Wetsuits from the great state of Hawaii. Their wetsuits are comfy, stylish and eco-friendly. It ticks a lot of boxes for me. Head over to freedivepodcast.com/wetsuit to have a look at their awesome wetsuits.

And that’s it from me, dive safe, never dive alone, and really consider taking a freedive course.

Episode #6 - Wim Hof Breathing & Freediving

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:12:33 GMT

Wim Hof Breathing & Freediving

Show Notes

Wim Hof Breathing Method concludes with a breath hold that can last a few minutes or more which naturally gets people wondering, can I do this and freedive?

The quick answer is NO and it can be very dangerous to combine the two. Listen to this episode to find out why.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Show Notes

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

Show us some love by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

You Can Find Me At

Information about taking a freedive course from me in Taiwan

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Kit

Transcripts

Hello future freedivers

And welcome to the Total Beginner freediving podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving.

This is Episode 6 where we answer one of the most frequently asked questions in freediving which is can one apply the Wim Hof breathing technique to freediving?

Jingle please

Hello, my name is Ray the Freedive Nomad and the host of this show.

So in case you don’t know who Wim Hof is, he is a Dutch extreme athlete who’s most famous feats involve his ability to withstand extreme cold.

He has a number of world records which involve the freezing cold like the fastest half marathon barefoot on ice and snow, longest time with full contact with ice (over 2 hours) and longest distance swam under freezing water on a breath hold.

He markets a very popular program called the Wim Hof method which has 3 pillars: breathing, cold therapy and meditation which is suppose to have a number of mental and physical benefits and he has gained a huge following worldwide with this program.

We have Wim Hof to thank as one of the modern day personalities which has helped build awareness that breathwork could result in some positive benefits for practitioners.

In this episode we are only going to discuss the breathing pillar of the Wim Hof method.

The Wim Hof breathing method is a type of hyperventilation followed by a long breath hold. And its these long breath holds which have also gotten the attention of popular media, which gets people associating the Wim Hof method with freediving.

In his method you forcefully and quickly inhale and exhale 30 times and then hold your breath until you feel the urge to breath, then you repeat that cycle repeat 3-4 times. This hyperventilation allows the practitioner to easily hold their breath for minutes at a time without the urge to breathe.

Why’s this? One of the first things you will learn in a beginner freedive course is that the urge to breath does not come from your blood oxygen saturation declining. It’s actually due to increasing carbon dioxide levels in your blood.

Let me say that again, the urge to breath is not from the decline in oxygen, it's due to increasing carbon dioxide levels in your blood.

Why is this important? When you hyperventilate you are expelling more CO2 than you are producing and thus your CO2 levels are dramatically lower than homeostasis while getting a very negligible increase in oxygen saturation.

Thus, when you start your breathhold with artificially lower levels of CO2, you can delay your urge to breathe for much longer.

So, why is this dangerous for freediving.

While your urge to breathe is related to your CO2 level, your threshold for blackout is only related to you O2 saturation and that remains virtually unchanged whether you hyperventilate or not.

Thus your urge to breathe can go past your blackout point. Hyperventilating gives you a very false sense of safety where you can basically feel no discomfort or urge to breath before you blackout, which is very dangerous.

I’ve read a few Wim Hof practitioners deaths have been classified as drownings and its been suspected they blacked out from doing breath holds in the water, alone….remember what the first rule of freediving is? Never dive alone.

Thus, this is why Wim Hof breathing method or hyperventilation has NO PLACE WHEN FREEDIVING.

It's not to say that hyperventilation does not have its benefits.

Wim Hof claims that his method boost blood circulation and immune system.

LIght controlled hyperventilation can get your engines revving to begin the day or a workout.

Even freedivers can benefit from it as it strengthens the diaphragm.

So what happens physiologically when you hyperventilate - a lot of it is the opposite of mammalian dive reflex which we discussed in the last episode.

It raises your heart rate
It vasodialtes the vessels in your arms and legs
It constricts the carotid artery, the main blood vessel to the brain which is why you feel lightheaded when you hyperventilate and if taken to the extreme, you can pass out if it constricts too much.
It also makes it more difficult for your body to access oxygen because when your CO2 levels decline your blood will be more alkaline, the more alkaline your blood is the tighter the bond that oxygen has to hemoglobin making it more difficult to access, this is called the BOHR effect, B-O-H-R. The bond loosens as your blood becomes more acidic with rising CO2 and easier access to oxygen.

And a bit of a warning -

DO NOT hyperventilate if you are pregnant, have high blood pressure, are driving or near or in water.

This is why taking freediving course is essential to start your journey into freediving to prevent dangerous practices like hyperventilating before diving.

And that’s it for Wim Hof and freediving.

But before we go, I wanted to mention this free online safety course for freedivers and spearfishermen. I know I harp on about taking a freedive course all the time, but I also know a lot of people live in an area where they can’t find an instructor or for some, courses can be prohibitively expensive. If that’s the case Ted Harty, who is a former US national record holder, has a free online safety course. Even though I feel there is no substitute, this is a really informative course and you are much better off than if you never took it all, it’s only 45 minutes long . - he also has a bunch of other online courses freedivers on there, like for equalization or holding your breath longer. You can find that on freedivepodcast.com/safety

Dive safe and never dive alone and like take a freedive course.

Episode #5 - Mammalian Dive Reflex

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 10:06:14 GMT

Mammalian Dive Reflex

Show Notes

Affiliate Disclosure

Did you know the adaptive physiological response that allow whales to hold their breath for hours at a time and dive thousands of meters deep is also found in humans!

In this episode you'll learn about the Mammalian Dive Reflex and how it helps us in freediving!

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

Facebook Group

Free Beginner FAQ E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

Send episode topic ideas or questions to ray@freedivenomad.com

You can support this show by buying from our affiliates partners:

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

You Can Find Me At

My blog and where this podcast lives

Information about taking a freedive course from me in Taiwan

Freedive Nomad Instagram Account

Freedive Nomad Facebook Group

Freedive Nomad Youtube Channel

Podcast Media Kit

Transscript

Hello Future Freedivers,

Welcome to the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving which make some of the highest quality freediving equipment there is.

This is episode 5 where we talk about the Mammalian Dive Reflex and how it helps us freedive.

JINGLE

Hello, my name is Ray aka the freedive nomad and this show’s host.

This episode we go over a big reason we as humans are able to hold our breath a lot longer than we think and that is because of the mammalian dive reflex or MDR

MDR allows sea mammals like dolphins to hold their breaths for up to ten minutes and whales for up to 1 hour. With that breath-hold whales can descend to depths of 2,000-3,000 meters.

We as humans also can access MDR but it doesn’t come quite as naturally, though it can for infants under the age of 6 months and its the MDR that gives babies the innate ability to swim.

Have you ever seen the videos of babies being tossed around and holding their breath while swimming underwater? Check out the video in the show notes.

Anyhoo, the MDR is a set of physiological changes in a mammals body which helps them deal with the water pressure at depths and decreasing oxygen levels

MDR can be triggered by splashing cold water on your face, holding your breath or, as the name says, DIVING into water.

There are several things that happen when MDR is triggered in humans:

1) Spleen contraction- the spleen holds reserve red blood cells or (RBC). When MDR kicks in the spleen will contract and release up to 25% more oxygen-rich RBCs into your bloodstream so your tissues can access them.

The Bajau people, the sea tribe in indonesia and the subject of the Netflix documentary Jago, are famous for being able to dive for several minutes to great depths to fish. They have evolved to have on average spleen size 50% larger than nearby tribes which gives them their advantage in breath holds.

2) Brachycardia - this is the fancy term for the slowing of your heart rate, on a dive your heart rate can slow up to 30% and 50% for elite divers. This is helps conserve oxygen

3) Blood shift - Your body will experience peripheral vasoconstriction where your blood vessels in your legs and arm get narrower, thus causing a "blood shift" away from your extremities and towards your torso which protects your lungs from collapsing under the increasing water pressure. The blood shift helps prioritize the heart, lungs and brain for oxygen.

4) Carotid artery dilates - the main artery to your brain is dilated to allow greater blood flow and thus oxygen to your brain to prevent blackouts.

Isn’t the human body is so amazing. The MDR is evidence that we as humans are made to be in the water.

Regular training can lead to stronger MDR to lower your heart rate even more, your spleen squeezing out more red blood cells and stronger blood shift allowing you to dive deeper and deeper.

If you want to test out an MDR and if you have a heart rate monitor like a fit bit or apple watch, lie down, put a pack of ice over your eyes and watch your heart rate drop. This is also a good way to calm yourself down after a stressful day as it’ll activate your parasympathetic nervous system.

And that’s it for today.

But before we go, I wanted to talk to you about relaxation. Your ability to relax is the biggest needle mover in improving your freediving. And a meditation practice is not only integral to a freediver’s training, but life in general.

I found meditation on my own hard cuz I’m such a spaz brain sometimes but now I use the meditation app Synctuition every day by simply putting on my headphones and listening for 25 minutes. I’m not the only one who loves it as Synctuition was the largest grossing meditation app in europe in 2020. I saw improvement in my sleep right away and my naps were amazing. For a free trial go to freedivepodcast.com/meditate.

And as always please share and review this podcast so I can reach more people like you.

Dive safe and never dive alone and maybe take that freedive course you’ve always wanted to take.

Episode #4 Freedive Competition Primer

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:14:55 GMT

How to Watch a Freedive Competition

Show Notes

Affiliate Disclosure

With one of the premier freediving depth competitions around the corner, Vertical Blue, I moved up this episode to coincide with the competition.

In this freedive competition primer you will learn about each category of diving, open top, surface protocol etc.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

Vertical Blue 2021 Live Feed (from July 13)

Facebook Group

Free E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

You can support this show by buying from our affiliates partners:

Waihana Wetsuits the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link.

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Transcripts

Hello future freedivers,

Welcome to this very special episode of The Total Beginner Podcast brought to you by our friends at Octopus Freediving, the highest quality freediving accessories on the planet.

This week is a special episode as one of the premier freediving depth competitions, Vertical Blue, starts next week and this episode will be a primer on understanding freediving depth competitions.

And that’s D-E-P-T-H not D-E-A-T-H like dying - I realized it sounded like DEATH when I re-listened to this earlier recording.

Anyways, LET’S GET STARTED - Jingle please

JINGLE

Hello again, my name is Ray aka the Freedive Nomad and today we’ll get into learning about freediving depth competitions.

The competition is separated between male and female.

There are four categories for depth.

1) Free Immersion which is pulling on the rope to aid your descent or ascent

2) Constant weight which is using a monofin to descend and this is where you will see the deepest dives. A monofin looks like a whale's tail or a bigger more rigid mermaids tail and its a much more efficient movement which uses the entire body.

3) Constant weight bifins using two standard long fins you see all freedivers wear and finally

4) Constant no fins where you do not have the aid of a rope or fins while using a modified breaststroke for your descent or ascent. This is considered the purest form of freediving.

The day prior to a dive, the competitor registers their target depth for the next day and this remains confidential until competition day.

The diver’s scheduled time to dive is called an OPEN TOP

Prior to the open top the diver will have a few minutes to mentally and physically prepare by the competition line like relaxing and taking their final breath.

If you see a diver doing funny movements with their mouth they are lung packing which is when a diver has reached the physical limits of how much air they can inhale using their respiratory muscles and then suck or sip air into their mouths and push it into their lungs to pack more air in. Do not try this, this is a very advanced technique and risk severely injuring your lungs. It takes months and years of practice and adaptation to be able to do this safely.

The competitors have only 30 seconds past their open top time to start their dive otherwise they will be penalized.

They then start their dive propelling deeper.

At about 30 meters when they begin their free fall or sink phase which is like it sounds, where propulsion is no longer needed to go deeper and the negative buoyancy is strong enough to pull them deeper just like gravity above the surface, only a lot slower.

For freedivers this the favorite part of the dive where they can remain still, relax, zone out into a meditative state and enjoy the dive.

Once they reach the target depth they do their turn, grab a tag to prove they got the target depth and start propelling towards the surface.

Once they reach 30-40 meters in depth is where they will be met by the first safety diver and another 1-2 safety divers will meet the diver before reaching the surface.

Once they reach the surface they have to perform a “surface protocol” which is taking off any facial equipment like their nose clip, mask or goggles, give the ok sign with their thumb and index finger and say “I’m ok” within 15 seconds of surfacing.

No one is allowed to touch them before that’s why all the safety divers and people around the diver have their hands above the surface.

The competitors are allowed one coach nearby which is why sometimes you’ll hear them screaming “breathe” as a diver can sometimes be disoriented when they are extremely hypoxic.

Finally, the judge will issue either a white card which means a clean dive and 100% of the depth reached will count, a yellow card which means the dive counts with penalties or a red card meaning the dive doesn’t count at all and that’s generally when you black out.

Penalties can be starting your dive past the allotted time past open top, touching the rope where you aren’t allowed or not reaching your announced depth.

It was only a few years ago that we are able to watch the full dive with the invention of DiveEye which is an underwater drone camera which follows the diver throughout their whole dive. Previously, and I believe there still is, an official with sonar equipment which regularly announces the diver’s depth.

If you are watching on the internet like on Youtube, on the bottom left of the screen you’ll see the country and name of competitor, their announced depth, their current depth and time. The time is important for the viewer so you can see whether they are going slow or not, generally competitors aim for about 1 meter per second.

And that’s it.

END

That’s if for today’s podcast, and I hope you find this helpful when you watch freedive competitions from now on. I believe Vertical Blue should have a live feed on YouTube so you can enjoy watching it live for free.

Staying on the theme of Blue, I wanted to introduce a product called Blue Cannatine. Diving can be pretty tiring for me but I still need to work for hours on the computer after diving. That’s where I use Blue Cannatine, a supplement for the brain and it lights my mind on fire so I have intense focus and cognitive boost for hours to get my work done. To download a free ebook to find out more about the product to go freedivepodcast.com/blue.

If you find this useful, please like, share this podcast with your tribe which will help this podcast rank higher and reach more people like you.

Dive safe and never dive alone, and like, take a freedive course .

Episode #3 - My Octopus Teacher Sucked | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 02:18:17 GMT

My Octopus Teacher Sucked

Show Notes

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Yes, it won an Oscar, but from the perspective of a freedive instructor the main subject in the documentary was clearly an untrained freediver.

He had VERY poor technique, that not only risked his OWN life but the millions of people who watched it and try to emulate themselves.

It was irresponsible of Netflix to show this without some kind of warning that the subject was not a trained freediver and his technique should not be copied.

Resources

Facebook Group

Free E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

You can support this show by buying from our affiliates partners:

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link.

Transcript

Hello future freediver and welcome to the Total Beginner Freediving Podcast brought to you by Octopus Freediving which make the highest quality freediving accessories.

You are listening to episode #3 about why I thought the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher absolutely SUCKED

Hola, Ray here, aka the Freedive Nomad and I am the host of this show.

Now, My Octopus Teacher .

Ya, I know it won an Oscar for the best documentary . It was a great story, it was shot very well and it's a nice change to have a documentary about the ocean which didn’t make you feel super pessimistic or stop eating fish forever.

I understand why people loved it.

My main issue was the main character, Craig, was an untrained freediver. There is one article that says he was a “experienced freediver”.

Frankly experience doesn’t mean squat if you aren’t doing it correctly. And his technique was not only awful, but also dangerous.

Honestly, it was extremely irresponsible to show his dangerous technique on a huge platform like Netflix for people to emulate and potentially die. And I’m not joking, the way Craig was freediving could have cost him his life, and he’s lucky it didn’t.

I intentionally put this episode after the previous episode about whether freediving is dangerous or not, and remember the quick answer was it is very dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing and relatively safe if you know what you are doing.

And Craig here is a perfect example of someone who doesn’t know what they are doing freediving and the show gives us some very good examples of technique he was doing incorrectly and gives me the opportunity to explain to you why it's dangerous.

I identified 6 mistakes he’s made in the documentary:

#1 Diving Alone

This is the #1 rule in freediving and we learned that blackouts was the biggest risk in freediving in the last episode and when you blackout alone, you die. At the end of the documentary it mentioned that Craig no longer dives alone which is fantastic.

# 2 Not Wearing a Wetsuit

Craig was diving in really cold conditions, 8-9 degrees celsius or about 46 degrees Fahrenheit and you consume more oxygen when you are cold to warm up your body thus increasing risk of black out. Look, I’m all for cold immersion therapy, I do ice baths once or twice a week with other freedive instructors on the island, but there is a time and place for everything and freezing your ass off while freediving is not one of them.

#3 Wearing Too Much Weight

I don’t ever wear weights when I freedive without wetsuit because wetsuits are very buoyant and weights are mostly for counteracting the wetsuit's buoyancy. It looks like he was wearing 5kgs of weights which is more than I wear with a 3mm wetsuit on.

Why is this dangerous? Basically you are making the hardest part of the dive during the ascent even harder? Why’s this?

Because the last part of the dive is when you are most hypoxic, or low levels of oxygen and also experience the largest drop in partial pressure of oxygen that we discussed in the last episode.

Thus by wearing those weights you make the ascent much harder as you use more energy kicking - using up more oxygen and risking a black out. If he were weighted properly he’d just float up with zero effort for at least the last several meters.

Moreover if he is diving with a buddy and he blacks out on the surface. He will not be buoyant at the surface. It's much more difficult to rescue and revive a blacked out diver if they don’t float on the surface.

#4 No Duck Diving

This is related to #3 wearing too much weight. I am assuming here he is overweighted to make his descent easier because he can’t do a proper duck dive.

He just sticks his head underwater and starts sinking.

What is a duck dive? It’s an efficient movement to get you a few meters below the surface without exerting yourself too much gaining momentum to continue deeper. This will get you to about 2-3 meters below the surface with little effort, even without wearing weights.

#5 Snorkel in the Mouth While Underwater

A diver with the snorkel still in his mouth underwater serves NO PURPOSE.

The human body is an amazingly elegant piece of work. It literally knows when you black out in water and your body does something called a laryngospasm where your vocal folds folds over creating a seal to prevent water from flooding into your lungs, which will make saving a diver exponentially more difficult.

But that’s only if your mouth is shut and not sucking on a snorkel which would act as a funnel of water into your throat and breaking that seal.

#6 He Doesn’t Appear to do Recovery Breaths

I’m not 100% sure of this as they cut out shortly after he surfaces but proper recovery breaths facilitate replenishing your oxygen levels as quickly as possible as you can still blackout after you surface. You are not in the clear once you surface as many many blackouts occur at the surface. Recovery breaths can prevent blackouts.

And for those six reasons, that’s why I think my octopus teacher absolutely sucked.

In a freedive course you’ll learn to avoid all these mistakes.

Check out my YouTube video I did on this subject in the show notes.

That’s it for today.

But before we go, I wanted to talk to you about relaxation. The biggest needle mover in progressing in freediving is your ability to achieve higher levels of relaxation. And no better way to do that than meditation. I’ve spent $1000 on a meditation course that all the high performers have taken and swear by but I had trouble keeping at it and I’ve also tried a lot of apps which have helped to a certain degree but Synctution is on a whole another level.

I listen to it every day for 25 minutes and it's helped my sleep, my naps and with my breath holding. It’s changed my life for the better cuz when you’re relaxed and chilled, everything is easier. You can get a free trial by going to freedivepodcast.com/meditate

And finally, if you like what you heard so far, please leave a review on your favorite podcast directory so I can reach more people like you and help them start their freediving journey.

And if there are any topics you’d like me to cover please reach out to me on Instagram @freedivenomad.

DIVE SAFE AND NEVER DIVE ALONE and like maybe take a freedive course

Episode #2 - Is Freediving Dangerous? | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 05:58:12 GMT

Is Freediving Dangerous?

Show Notes

Affiliate Disclosure

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Is freediving dangerous? There's not a straightforward answer to that question.

The biggest risk in freediving is blacking out and learning how to avoid a black out and being prepared if it does happen is essential foundation of making freediving safe.

Resources

Facebook Group

Free E-book Sign Up

Free Online Freedive Safety Course

You can support this show by buying from our affiliates partners:

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link.

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Transcipts

Hello future freedivers and thank you for downloading this episode of the Total Beginner Freedive Podcast brought to you by our partners at Octopus Freediving which make super duper high quality freediving accessories

Welcome to episode #2 where we address the elephant in the room and answer the question that’s asked most often.

Is freediving dangerous?

But before we answer that, if you haven't done so already download your free FAQ e-book at freedivepodcast.com/ebook or follow the link in the show notes.

Hello again, I’m Ray, the Freedive Nomad and the host of this show.

So the quick answer to that question is freediving dangerous is

Freediving is very dangerous when you don’t know what you are doing and relatively safe when you do.

Recently, Alex Pullin, a snowboarder who represented Australia in the Olympics twice, died in July 2020 in the ocean while spearfishing. He was described as a seasoned “freediver” and “spear fisherman” and it was written in the media as a “freediver drowned”

He may have been well experienced in the water, but experience with no education can be dangerous.

Let me give you an example, I was taught how to ride a motorcycle from a friend, but it was not until I was required to take a safety course to get my motorcycle license in the US that I was aware of all the risks and dangers of riding a motorcycle and how to mitigate risks.

My friend’s only interest was to teach me HOW to ride a motorcycle, but he was not trained to teach me to reduce risks, like I learned in the class I took.

If you want to get into freediving, TAKE A FREEDIVING COURSE .

Most of the accidents or deaths during freediving have happened to those who were not formally trained and did not take any precautions to mitigate risks.

NEVER DIVE ALONE should be every freediver’s mantra yet a large large large majority of the deaths in freediving whether you are experienced or a total beginner happens when you dive alone, as in Alex Pullin’s case and in the case of a few professional freedive competitors.

And yes, there have been a few deaths in competition or in pursuit of breaking world records, but please don’t make judgement of risks based on the extreme side of the sport, it’s like, equating the risks of recreational skydiving to wing suit flyers or base jumpers.

Now, the greatest risk in freediving is blacking out. There are a few more risks which go beyond the scope of this podcast, but blacking out and dying is what you hear about most in the news.

Blacking out is the body’s response to dangerously low oxygen. If you dive and black out with a trained buddy, he will bring you to the surface and revive you as they will have been trained to do in a freedive course.

And did you know most blackouts, over 90%, happen between 10 meters or 33 feet deep and the surface?

This is because of the concept of partial pressure. You don’t necessarily blackout due to low percentage of oxygen saturation in your blood, it is because of the partial pressure of oxygen. The EASIEST way to think of this is the deeper you go, the increasing pressure causes a higher concentration of oxygen in your blood and thus easier access to oxygen by your body.

Between 10 meters to the surface your body experiences the greatest drop in partial pressure of oxygen, it HALVES, and that is because of the physics concept Boyle’s law which you will learn in a course which I won’t get into.

Thus it is this sharp drop in partial pressure of oxygen between 10 meters and the surface that causes the blackout.

And the scariest part is, everyone who blacks out, doesn't even know it’s coming, even very experienced freedivers. You actually feel euphoric before you black out.

That’s why taking a freedive course is vital where you’ll learn efficient technique and breathing to avoid blackout, recognize signs of a diver is about to black out and rescue.

Taking a freedive course is the safest and most enjoyable way to start your freediving journey.

So in closing, yes it is dangerous, but a lot of the risks can be mitigated with practice and education and dangers are mostly exaggerated.

I know everyone doesn’t have access to a freedive instructor whether it be geography or costs. If this is the case there is a free freediving safety course which I highly recommend, the link is in my show notes.

That’s it for today’s episode

If you haven’t done so already - join this podcast Facebook group which is a safe space to ask all your questions about freediving. You know how the internet can get these days. You can find it at freedivepodcast.com/fb or in the show notes.

And I can’t forget about our friends at Waihana which make the coolest eco-friendly wetsuits out there. Follow the link in the show notes where you can also get a 10% coupon code.

Finally, please rate this show on your favorite podcast network and share with your friends. All of them. Every single one. Por favor. Oneigaishimasu.

Dive safe and never dive alone

Episode #1 What is Freediving? | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 05:58:09 GMT

What is Freediving?

Show Notes

Affiliate Disclosure

What exactly is freediving? It often gets confused with scuba diving, skin diving and snorkelling.

What else is in this episode?

- Who this podcast is for exactly and the purpose of this podcast

- Learn the first rule of freediving

- Difference between line diving and fun diving

- Peak at future episode topics

- Brief introduction about the show's host, the Freedive Nomad.

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving

Resources

Facebook Group

Free E-book Sign Up

You can support this show by buying from our affiliates partners:

Waihana Wetsuits - the coolest looking wetsuits using eco-friendly neoprene. Use the coupon code 0OG0UZZBLP for 15% off

Blue Cannatine - the BEST nootropic to get my brain to function optimally after diving. 10% discount with that link.

Synctuition - my favorite meditation app and I've tried A LOT

Episode Transcripts

Hello future freedivers and thank you for downloading this very first episode of the Total Beginner Freediving Podcast brought to you by our partners at Octopus Freediving which make the highest quality freediving accessories.

Welcome to episode #1 where we get into the very basics and answer the question, what exactly is freediving?

Before we get started with the show I wanted to let you know some resources that I’ve created for the inexperienced freediver.

First is a free FAQ ebook I put together from the frequently asked questions you can find on Google, reddit and quora. You can find that at freedivepodcast.com/ebook

And also a Facebook group for this podcast which is a safe space to ask any questions you want on freediving without any judgment and the link to that is freedivepodcast.com/fb. Those links are also in the show notes.

Let’s get started

Hello again, this is Ray, aka the Freedive Nomad and I’ll be the host of this show.

And if you haven’t been able to guess by the title of this podcast, this is for brand spanking new freedivers, ie someone who hasn’t taken a course in freediving yet and thinking about starting their freediving journey but don’t know where to begin.

The goal for this podcast is to educate and inspire anyone and everyone interested in freediving, and for existing freedivers to share this podcast with their families and friends to help understand your obsession and not think that you are crazy.

Learning freediving has truly been a life changing experience for me and many of my fellow freedivers and it can be for you too.

In this episode, we’ll start with the basics. explain what freediving is, a little about myself, then go into a little more detail about some of the topics we’ll go over in future episodes.

Simply put, freediving is exploring the underwater world while holding your breath. Some people get confused between freediving, skin-diving, snorkeling, and sometimes even scuba.

Snorkeling is just floating on the surface with your mask and obviously snorkel as you enjoy the view below from the surface.

Skin diving is like snorkeling, but with some shallow dives. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus definition of what skin diving is, but that’s what it means to me.

Freediving is also known as “breath-hold diving”, “one-breath diving.” or “apnea diving”. Apnea you may know from the medical condition sleep apnea, with apnea derived from the Greek word to mean to deprive of breathing.

Freediving sets itself apart by diving deeper and on one breath.

Scuba Diving requires you to strap a heavy tank of air on your back, a buoyancy device and a regulator awkwardly in your mouth nearly the entire time. This allows the diver to remain underwater for around 45 minutes at a time during a beginner course.

There will always be a friendly debate about which sport is better, which is clearly freediving. But what all divers have in common is our love of the water, the feeling of freedom we experience, the desire to fight for the conservation of the beautiful oceans we have the privilege to dive in.

Now there are two categories of recreational freediving: Line Diving and Fun Diving.

Line diving is used for training purposes. On the water’s surface, there’s a buoy and a rope hanging from the bottom of it with a heavy weight at the end of the rope to pull the rope taut. The line is set at a predetermined depth and the freediver dives vertically using the line as a guide with the bottom as the goal.

This is the first and predominant method of freediving learned when taking a course. This is also more or less the setup used in competitive freediving to see who can dive the deepest on a single breath. Many recreational freedivers engage in this type of diving as a personal challenge as well as a way to enjoy the deeply meditative aspect of freediving.

With the skills acquired from a beginner freediving course, you can move on to fun diving, which as the name implies, is for FUN. When you fun dive, you can use your breath-holding skills to see the fishes and coral up close, explore deeper than snorkeling, or venture into the world of underwater photography or videography The skills learned from a freediving course will make it safer and more enjoyable to go deeper under the water and for longer.

That being said, it is super important that I stress you should never, ever dive alone. This is the first rule of freediving. Always dive with a trained and certified freediving buddy.

So quickly about me.

I am 48 years young and I have spent over 20 years chained to a trading desk at investment banks in Asia.

In early 2019, I was living in Taipei, Taiwan, and had already begun exploring the world of freediving by taking a beginner freediver course .

The difference between the monotonous calamity around me at work and the peaceful, harmonious and INCREDIBLY rich & diverse world below the water’s surface was shocking. I found absolute peace and serenity in my life possibly for the first time ever.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the experience dramatically changed the course of my life. Two months later, I continued with the advanced course. After just passing that course,, fate stepped in and I was laid off from my job. Three weeks later I was on a one way ticket to Indonesia to learn from some of the top freediving educators and competitors in the world to become a freedive instructor.

And now I have found a mission in life other than helping push money around the world like I did in my previous job - to introduce as many people as I can to the potentially life changing experience of freediving.

Originally, I wanted to use freediving as a vehicle for me to see the world and I was doing that, until the pandemic hit and am now based in Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan - where my freedive journey began.

So enough about me

The aim of this podcast is to put out 2 quick 5-10 minute episodes a week on Monday and Thursday on beginner topics like

Is freediving dangerous?

Intro to freediving equipment

How to find a freedive course and how to choose an instructor?

The mental and physical health benefits of freediving.

How to prepare for a freedive course?

Now if you are interested in starting your freedive journey

Then you’ve got to get in the water and take a class with a certified instructor. That is the safest and most enjoyable way to learn freediving. There is no substitute or short cut.

This podcast will help you decide if freediving is something you want to try and point you towards a course and I am not shy at all at saying this and you will hear me mention it many times in future episodes.

I do need to stress that freediving is considered an extreme sport and it can be dangerous so taking a course is the best way to learn to do it safely. We will go over this in the next episode.

And that is it for this first episode.

But before we cut out I wanted to give a quick shout out to Waihana Wetsuit which, in my opinion, make by far the coolest looking wetsuits out there, and made from eco-friendly neoprene.

If you are in the market for a new wetsuit checkout freedivepodcast.com/wetsuit and check out the show notes for a 10% coupon code. Your purchase will help pay to keep the lights on for this podcast.

If you are in Taiwan or can easily make it to Taiwan and want to learn freediving from yours truly, you can find me at freedivenomadtaiwan.com or my IG @freedivenomad.

Octopus Fluid Goggles Review

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:48:52 GMT

Octopus Fluid Goggles Review

Octopus Freediving makes some of the highest quality freediving accessories. All their products have a sleek design and perfect ergonomic shapre. They are also practically indestructible, you will know if you've ever used their lanyard or pulley system.

Like many of the products they make, they have revolutionized each product they make by making them higher quality, sleek design and more budget-friendly and the Octopus Fluid Goggles is no different. Octopus has made affordable fluid goggles providing of optimal quality and unparalleled comfort.

Previously, if you wanted fluid goggles, you'd either have to buy swim goggles and fix the correcting lenses inside the goggles which is a lot harder than it sounds as you must have perfect positioning of the lenses , or pay well over US$200 for a pair . Now, Octopus has made the first affordable fluid goggles on the market.

Disclosure - I was given many pairs of fluid goggles by Octopus for me to use and to help raise funds for the podcast about freediving I am launching which they are also the title sponsor.

What are Fluid Goggles For Freedivers?

Fluid goggles are goggles with lenses (looks like giant contact lenses) inserted inside each eye piece to correct the vision distortion caused by the water inside the fluid goggles, so you don't have to worry about equalizing it.

Thus you can see clearly underwater without having to worry about about pinching your nose with your hand without any depth limit.

Another reason to use them is when using a monofin, I have not experienced this before but because of the fast speed of the monofin it can cause your eye lids to flap and thus fluid goggles will prevent that.

Why Do You Need Fluid Goggles for Freediving?

Most freedivers will never need fluid goggles. But as you advanced deeper and deeper, you may start considering it.

80/20 Rule

I'm a big believer in the applying 80/20 rule in improving at things. It applies to so many aspects in life.

What are the 20% of the actions that will yield me 80% of the results underwater, or with freediving, depth, distance or minutes.

When you start out as a beginner freediver the 20% is your work on your technique for the biggest needle mover in results. Your finning technique, your head position, your breathe up, or one full breath and your relaxation technique. Having US$600 carbon fins is useless as a beginner.

Game of Inches

Once you pass level one and level 2 freediving course or around 30 meters in depth, you'll start needing to concentrate on that 80% that will give you 20% of the results and this is where you transition from a proficient freediver to an advanced level freediver.

That 20% could be fine-tuning your finning technique, regularly doing Uddiyana bandha, specific freedive stretches and upgrading your equipment.

Equipment Upgrade

Upgrading to carbon fins from plastic or fiberglass is a natural choice and one that many advancing freedivers make.

But another choice many advancing freedivers make is saying bye-bye to the mask and hello to the nose clip.

Problems with a Mask

Wasting Air

Inside the mask is an enclosed air space, and that space needs to be equalized by taking exhaling through our nose air from our lungs into the mask. A bit of a waste when you are diving with one breath, but it won't matter much if you are just diving to levels where you aren't challenging the outer edges of hypoxia. With the fluid goggles you won't need to worry about equalizing a mask

Equalization

With a mask you need a hand to equalize by pinching your nose unless you are blessed to be able to do hands-free. Once you get rid of the mask and move to a nose clip, it's once less thing you have to worry about.

With the fluid goggles you won't need to worry about equalizing a mask

Mammalian Dive Reflex

I'm not 100% sure about this but the more surface area your face is exposed to the water the stronger the MDR. More of your face is exposed to the water with fluid goggles.

Clearer Vision

The fluid goggles is a great tool to add on top of the nose clip as it will bring safety to training. Clear vision is not important for most dives, but if there is an emergency like. your lanyard getting tangled, you can tend to it without having to worry about seeing clearly.

At the recent Verticle Blue competition, the eventual overall winner Alessia Zecchini blacked out at one of her dives in CTW. Before that you can see her struggling to orient herself to the line. Not wearing goggles as she usually does contributed to her not being able to see the line.. Check out her dive here .

Or for some divers, it could contribute to some anxiety if they cannot see clearly underwater.

About the Octopus Fluid Goggles

Each pair of Octopus fluid goggles have a polycarbonate structure, skirt and head strap made from top-quality silicone, and high-quality 20mm planoconvex lens.

The width of the goggles is adjustable with 4 different sized nose bridges to fit your specific face dimension.

The Octopus Fluid Goggles come in a choice of three colors: blue, clear and grey.

Being able to see above the water with the fluid goggles on is a significant bonus and what it sets itself apart from other fluid goggles. Octopus says this will make for a more relaxed pre-dive preparation and surface protocol.

How is Octopus Fluid Goggle So Affordable?

Octopus often launches products via crowdfunding on Indiegogo , and the Octopus Fluid Goggles were no different.

With the cash infusion from the campaign they are able to the big investment into the molding for the goggles from their design, buy the lenses in bulk thus getting discount pricing and utilizing a pin system to fix the lens in place rather the expensive and time-consuming process of drilling holes into the structure.

PRO TIP - if Octopus ever launches a product by crowdfunding, get it. Their products are already affordable, but with the launch discount, it becomes a NO BRAINER.

Octopus says that other fluid goggle manufacturers just buy swim goggles and piercing holes into the in the goggles to fix the lens is a time-consuming and expensive process.

My Experience With Octopus Fluid Goggles

Back in 2020 when I was living and Las Vegas and diving in Lake Mead which has practically no depth limit as a large area of the lake exceeds 100m, even with the drought. We were drift diving and I was doing a dive to 35m. When I hit the bottom and turned, something hit my back. And to this day I could not see clearly exactly what is was but I think it was a rock. If I had the Octopus Fluid Goggles on, I could have seen clearly underwater and check out the topography of the bottom of the lake.

Now that I've moved to Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan, we only dive attached to a mooring line so I won't have to worry about running into anything drift diving and with the new Octopus Safety Stopper I don't have to worry too much about my lanyard getting stuck, but there are always ghost nets to worry about.

Holding the Octopus Fluid Goggles in my hand, you can tell the silicone used for the skirt and head strap and skirt will last a long time. The pin system to fix the lenses into the eye pieces is quite clever.

To be honest, the first time I put it on, it was weird. You don't have the field of vision you would with a mask, it's quite narrow with the Octopus Fluid Goggles and sometimes depth is hard to judge above water, not so much an issue underwater. But after a few sessions using it, I got use to it and I absolutely love being able to see the line clearer when I am doing CWT or CNF.

I would not use it for buddying though because of the field of vision but maybe someday I might use it for fun dives.

If you are in Taiwan and want to see clearly underwater with. nose clip, try a pair of Octopus Fluid Goggles, you can buy it on from me on Shopee or you can contact me at ray@freedivenomad.com or DM me on Instagram @freedivenomad

Total Beginner Podcast Trailer | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 05:59:33 GMT

Freedive Podcast Trailer

Show Notes

This podcast is brought to you by Octopus Freediving which make some of the highest quality freediving accessories on the planet.

To sign up for free Beginner Freediving FAQ ebook click here

Transcripts

Do you want to start freediving and don't know where to begin? Or maybe you just want to learn more about freediving before making an investment into a freedive course. If so, I made this podcast for you. Freediving is the fastest growing

Ocean Prana - Freedive School Review

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 07:50:58 GMT

OCEAN PRANA - School Review

“THIS PLACE IS AMAZING”

This was my first I thought when I walked into Ocean Prana’s facilities located in Amed , a sleepy fishing village located on the northeast corner of the island of Bali, Indonesia.

To be honest, I was a little nervous when I first got there. I had just completed all the requirements for my instructor certification days earlier and would be renting the facilities to teach an old friend a beginner freediving course (who serendipitously was in the area climbing Mt. Agung and volunteered to be my first victim/student). All the staff and Yoram made me feel very welcomed and comfortable and asked if I needed some help whenever I was looking a bit lost.

Now back to the facilities. This place is BEAUTIFUL integrating Balinese flavor into the school with their bamboo structures and beautiful garden with an iconic stone statue as a backdrop.

If you are the kind to want to stay close by, Ocean Prana does provide accommodations in the back with a mix of hostel type beds to private rooms.

The school has a cafe serving salads, smoothie bowls, sandwiches, and pastas but my favorite was the tuna tartare. Perfect place for a light meal before training or a big lunch after a dive session then take a nap on one of the hammocks.

Ocean Prana is run by elite freediver Yoram Zekri who holds multiple records, an elite level competitor and one of the few AIDA instructor trainers in the world. Ocean Prana is an AIDA school, which is the largest and more reputable freediving organization on the planet.

The beach/shore is a short walk to Jemeluk Bay where a short swim one can reach depths appropriate for beginner and intermediate levels. A swim 200m out you’ll get 40-50m of depth for the more advanced. The advantage of having depth diving at the school’s doorstep is there is little time wasted getting to the dive site and you can also fit in two open water sessions in one day, which is what we did, whereas schools which uses boats to reach the dive site typically only go out once a day.

The pool was specially made for freediving as there is a shallow area for static and one lane for dynamic training.

The equipment room was large, amply stocked with rental equipment, plenty of buoy and line setups. There are cubby holes off to one side to store your belongings.

If you are tired of the hustle and bustle of south Bali, I highly recommend a trip to the sleepy town of Amed and enjoy the freshly caught fish (usually mahi mahi, barracuda or tuna was on the menu). A plate of grilled fish of your choice with rice and some veggies would cost about US$2 and don’t forget to try the sambal matah sauce on the fish, or everything. Sambal matah is my new favorite sauce with shallots, lemon, chilis, salt, garlic and shrimp paste in it. Trust me, it goes well with ANYTHING, veggies, any piece of meat, omelettes!

And finally, if you do make it Amed and fancy learning some freediving, I highly recommend heading over to Ocean Prana to take a course.

Guide to Freediving in Las Vegas (2021) | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 07:41:52 GMT

Guide To Freedive In Las Vegas (2021)

Freediving in the middle of a desert? In Las Vegas? That's the comment I get THE MOST when I tell people I'm teaching freediving in Las Vegas.

QUICK PLUG - FREEDIVE COURSE

UPDATE: I've moved to Taiwan in November 2020 and thus I am no longer teaching in Las Vegas, you can check out my Taiwan site here . If you are interested in learning freediving please check out my fabulous mermaid friend Rachel here

Click here to read about my blog post about taking a beginner freediving course in Vegas

HOW DID I END UP IN LAS VEGAS?

Ever since my parents moved to Las Vegas four years ago, I’ve been thrilled to come visit, and even stay awhile.

I hope this guide can assist those teaching freediving in the US to consider Las Vegas as a place to teach their courses as it’s relatively easy to get to here from most places in the US. If you have any questions about freediving in Vegas, please feel free to contact me.

After completing my freedive instructor certification course on Gili Air, Indonesia, I traveled around Asia for a bit before coming to Vegas for a friend’s wedding and my daughter’s first visit to her grandparents in Vegas after graduating from high school in Japan.

We had loose plans to go to Mexico to freedive and then onto Europe in the spring and summer but those plans never materialized as we got here just weeks before the city, state and country shut down due to COVID-19.

I came here with a goal of starting a community of freedivers as I will probably be spending a few months a year in Vegas with my folks and I wanted to build a community I could tap to train with when I’m in Vegas. Even before we got here, I started doing some research on freediving in Vegas. I found a few things on Reddit and some people spearfishing in the lakes around here, but not much else. So looks like I’d have to start things from the ground up.

The last year in Asia, free diving has been easy: the waters were warm, access to free diving spots from shore or boat have been easy. And now I face a serious challenge in trying to start a freedive community in Las Vegas. But I think unless you live in Florida or Hawaii, freediving is going to be a challenge anywhere you go in the US.

THE CHALLENGES WERE:

- FINDING A POOL - the pools that I contacted for Clark Country, City of Las Vegas and YMCA did not allow “breath-hold training”. Although YMCA said I could rent a lane for $200 an hour for a minimum 2 hours for breath-hold training.

- COLD - I’m used to diving in tropical weather where water temperatures are 25-31° C and a 3mm lined wetsuit was plenty fine. The Lakes around Vegas is much colder, EVEN IN THE SUMMER!

- FINDING SUITABLE OPEN WATER - Lake Mead is a wonderfully large lake with serious depth but there are visibility issues especially in the summer when the algae blooms.

MERMAIDS OF VEGAS

Before going over the solutions, I just want to acknowledge two mermaids that helped me get to where we are now.

First is Rachel Novak, otherwise known as the Sailing Siren on Youtube and Instagram. Rachel is a pharmacist by day and absolute badass by night (freedive instructor, divemaster, skydiver, rock climber, sails boats, fire performer, fight stunt performer, and of course A MERMAID). I happened upon her YouTube channel and connected with her on Instagram. At that time, she was a fire performer at one of the shows on the Strip, taking a break from her day job. She helped me in terms of getting the lay of the land in Vegas before I even got there.

Second is Blake Martinez, resident MERMAID at Silverton Casino. It was pure serendipity how I met Blake. I was scrolling through Facebook, as I always do, when I saw an ad for 3rd Reef Divers advertising for a Scuba Advanced Open Water course. I was PADI certified 20 years ago for just basic open water, but I’ve been meaning to take an Advanced Open Water course just in case some dives require it. I FB messaged them about a question about pricing.

I then facetiously asked “do you guys give discounts to freedive instructors?”

3rd Reef “No, but you are a freedive instructor?”

Me “Yes, are you hiring,”

3rd Reef “Yes, but we are also training someone up to be a freedive instructor, why don’t you come in tomorrow and meet her,”

And that’s how I met Blake, who at the time, had no formal freedive training, but a lot of natural skills and has accompanied me on every training and course since.

TWO LEGIT MERMAID IN VEGAS

ANYHOO, OVER TO SOLUTIONS:

- FINDING A POOL - through 3rd Reef I found out the Heritage Pool in Henderson does allow breath-hold training. But it’s been closed since Covid hit and won’t be open until Phase 3 opening. The governor in Nevada had extended Phase 2 until the end of July. However, we’ve found at Cabinsite Cove a rocky shore which is sufficient to run at least the first two levels of freedive courses. We did dynamic at Cottonwood before which is ok, there is some grassy part there so the first doesn’t kick up as much sand effecting visibility but it’s still an issue.

- COLD - I did some diving in San Diego in March and the waters there were the same as Lake Mead, I had rented a 5mm lined spearfishing wetsuit from a spearfishing shop. It was a bit cold, especially after about 1.5 hours in the water. I thus ordered a custom 5.5mm open cell wetsuit from Polo Sub . The temperatures in the waters of Lake Mead and Lake Mohave vary between 16° C ( 62° F) to 26° C (79° F) depending where you are in the lake, time of the year, or how deep you are. I recently have gone diving in various parts of Lake Mohave and the closer you are to the dam, the colder it is. For example, close to the dam at Willow Beach is 19° C (66°F) on the surface and further down at Cabinsite is 26° C (79°F) on the surface. Near Nelson’s Landing (between Willow Beach and Cabinsite), we were scavenging for lost GoPros or Apple Watches as that is the only place accessible by car you can cliff dive and many people lose their possessions when they hit the water. On the surface it was quite comfortable with no wetsuit, however, hitting 7m on a fun dive I managed to go through 2 thermoclines.

- OPEN WATER - Without a boat, Cabinsite is the preferred spot for open water dives. It has shown good visibility consistently and there are four boat warning buoys there to secure your freedive buoy onto (we did have a ranger boat come up to make sure we weren’t spearfishing which is not allowed within a certain distance of a public area so I don’t think it’s illegal). 3 of the buoys have about 10-20m but the fourth, the furthest buoy (on the right-hand side if you are staring straight at the Nevada side) had at least 26 meters which is good enough for a second level free diving course of which I have conducted one there. That further buoy is a bit far; I estimate to be about a 300m swim. I wouldn’t recommend drift diving here as Lake Mohave is basically a big river and the water constantly flowing along with a myriad of jet skis and boats to avoid.

If you are conducting a course at Cabinsite, I’d recommend staying at Laughlin , I’ve never stayed there or gone in any of the casinos, but it does look affordable and only a 20 minute drive from Laughlin. Cabinsite is about a 1.5-2 hour drive from Vegas.

BEAUTIFUL CALM WATERS OF LAKE MOHAVE

DEEP POOLS IN VEGAS?

Diving pools seem to be the trend now. I’ve seen a 40m pool in Italy, a 26m one in South Korea and Divecube in Taichung, Taiwan which has 21m. If I had endless mounds of cash, I’d invest in an at least 61m diving pool in Vegas. If there is one city in America deserving of the deepest pool in the world, I think that’s Vegas as they seem to do everything bigger here. If anyone reading this is interested in investing in a deep pool in Vegas, hit me up, I’d love to be involved in a project like that. I did check the depths of the pools at the O and La Reve shows, but they are not deep enough to conduct even the first level course.

TRADITIONS

Lastly, I’d like to mention our tradition - a group truly becomes a community when we have traditions and ours is EATING In-n-Out Burger after every dive. If you dive at Cabinesite its easy, there is an In-n-out in Laughlin which is on the way back to Vegas. So if you do dive in Vegas, please keep this tradition alive and hashtag #vegasfreediving.

TRADITION: POST DIVE MEAL

If you are interested in freediving in Vegas, join the Vegas Freedive Community on Facebook here . Hope to see you out at Cabinsite!

Learning Freediving in Vegas - Beginner Course Explained

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 07:30:50 GMT

LEARNING FREEDIVING IN VEGAS - BEGINNER COURSE EXPLAINED

BEGINNER FREEDIVE COURSE IN LAS VEGAS

This is a blog post I wish someone would’ve written about what a beginner freedive course looks like.

UPDATE : I've moved to Taiwan in November 2020 and thus I am no longer teaching in Las Vegas, but you can find my Taiwan site here. If you are interested in learning freediving in Vegas please check out my fabulous mermaid friend Rachel here.

DM me on IG @freedivenomad or e-mail freedivenomad@gmail.com

“Scuba divers look outside, freedivers look inside.” – Unknown

BEGINNER FREEDIVE COURSE REQUIREMENTS

The requirements for a freedive course are quite basic. You need to be able to swim non-stop for 200m or 8 lengths of a 25m pool.

A medical questionnaire and release form will need to be filled out and signed, if you answer “YES” to any of the questions on the medical questionnaire, you will need the form signed off by your physician clearing you medically for freediving.

Lastly, you need to be comfortable in the open water and be comfortable wading in the water while not being able to see the bottom (this is a reason a lot of my friends don’t want to learn freediving) Click here to read my blog about how freediving help me get over some of the fears of the ocean. If you are afraid of the open water, you can take the first two components of a freedive course below and then either 1) Go somewhere like in a Mexican cenote where you can see the bottom to finish your course or 2) not continue on satisfied to learn the skills to hold your breath underwater safely.

COMPONENTS OF A BEGINNER FREEDIVE COURSE

There are three components to a beginner freediving course

1. THEORY & DRY TRAINING - you will be sent a manual electronically and study that manual at home, this will be about 2-3 hours of studying. After you are done we will go onto an online video class (1-1.5 hours long) either through Zoom or some other platform where we will do a knowledge review of the concepts and theories learned in the manual. In the manual you will learn about the physics and physiology of freediving, relaxation and breathing techniques, safety measures and freediving equipment.

After the knowledge review, you will then be taught relaxation method before a breathhold, one full breath (how to take the biggest breath before a breath hold), equalization for freediving (its different than scuba) and recovery breathing (technique to quickly recover your O2 levels).

2. CONFINED WATER SESSION - this is held either at a pool or on the lake in calm waters about chest high. You will perform a static breath hold in water (the longest you can hold your breath while remaining still face first in the water) for 1.5 to 2 minutes (depending on agency, but more of that later). You will then be taught proper finning technique and do a Dynamic Breathold where you fin 25-40 meters horizontally through the water on a breathold. You will also learn how to safety and rescue a diver (really important). This will typically take about 3-4 hours depending on how many students (maximum four students per course).

During the COVID times its been a challenge securing pools to do this so we either go to Cottonwood or Nelsons’ Landing on Lake Mohave to do this.

3. OPEN WATER SESSION - During the first open water session we will work on your equalization and your duck dive, which is a technique for efficient entry into the water for depth. During the second open water session you will be taught to dive for depth and required to reach 12-16 meters (40-52 feet) in depth. You'll also learn how to safety and rescue a diver. We bring out with us a freediver buoy which has a rope and bottom weight attached (see photo below) which is an important safety mechanism. This is known as line diving. These two sessions will also take about 3-4 hours depending on how many students.

We hold the open water sessions either at Nelson’s Landing or Cabinsite on Lake Mohave.

FREEDIVE CERTIFYING AGENCIES

There are about a dozen freedive agencies in the world. The three most popular in the United States are Performance Freediving International (PFI), Freedive Instructors International (FII) and Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI).

I have instructor certifications for three agencies: Molchanovs, PADI and AIDA

AIDA is a non-profit freediving agency, which is also the largest and most recognized agency in the world. They are also one of two agencies which officiates competition.

PADI is the most popular and recognized scuba diving agency in the world and provides a solid foundational freediving program

Molchanovs newest kid on the block started by a mother-son team who also were the top freedivers of their time. The agency is advised by a group of some of the top minds and athletes in freediving. They also provide continuing education and training program, something which sets itself apart from other programs.

Whether you choose AIDA, PADI or Molchanovs, I teach them virtually same (90%) but the performance requirements are slightly different.

I can talk you through which agency fits your needs best. If you would like to learn through FII there is an FII instructor in Vegas who I can refer you to.

FREEDIVING LEVELS

Across the dozen agencies, most of their recreational freediving programs can be split up into three levels

Level 1 - Beginner level

Level 2 - Advanced level

Level 3 - Master level

Level 1 and level 2 can theoretically be taken back to back depending how comfortable you are in the water and how you performed on the Level 1 course while level 3 would require some level of preparation.

The first two levels are all about bringing out your innate ability to freedive. Level 3 will require some level of training and adaptation.

As you progress, you will learn more advanced technique that will allow you to hold your breath longer and dive deeper.

As you move through each level you will be requi red to do deeper dives, longer static breatholds and longer dynamic breatholds in order to be certified.

WHAT ABOUT FREEDIVING EQUIPMENT FOR BEGINNERS?

I don’t advise beginner freediving students to buy any freediving equipment before their first course. I did not buy any freedive equipment until after my first course and I am still using much of that equipment to this day. Once you take the first course then you’ll get a better idea of how much you love it or not and can determine your budget from that assessment.

I prefer students to either rent and/or use existing equipment from other sports. For example do you have a wetsuit from surfing? Do you have mask and snorkel from scuba? Do you have fins laying (closed foot pocket best) around from your snorkelling trip to Hawaii?

You could also head to 3rd Reef in Henderson ( https://www.3rdreefdivers.com/ ) to rent most of the equipment as well.

What equipment is required for a freedive course?

Mask, snorkel, weight belt, closed foot pocket fins and wetsuit. Even during the summer, a wetsuit is highly recommended in the lakes near Vegas as though the surface temperature (80-90° F) is comfortable there is a thermocline around 8-10 meters that can be as low as 60° F. Burrrrrrr……..

If you really want to buy some budget equipment, Amazon and Decathlon have some great bargains, drop me a line and I can help you decide on what’s best for you.

I hope that was helpful for you to help visualize what a freediving course will look like. To read more about freediving in Las Vegas check out my previous blog here

If you have any further questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them, please direct them to the contacts below:

E-mail - freedivenomad@gmail.com

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/freedivenomad/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/freedivenomad

Dive safe and NEVER DIVE ALONE!

Best Xiaoliuqiu Taiwan Freedive Guide (2021) | Freedive Nomad

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 07:12:04 GMT

Best Xiaoliuqiu Taiwan Freedive Guide (2021)

HOW TO FREEDIVE IN XIAOLIUQIU TAIWAN

UPDATE - I AM NOW TEACHING FREEDIVING IN TAIPEI AND XIAOLIUQIU IN TAIWAN, CHECK OUT MY FREEDIVE NOMAD TAIWAN HOMEPAGE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

To me, freediving and Xiaoliuqiu as concepts are inseparable. It was one of the first places I dove when I started to take up scuba diving again (I got PADI certified in 2000 and didn’t scuba again until 2016 on Xiaoliuqiu). It was also where I took my level 1 (AIDA 2) and level 2 (AIDA 3) freediving courses, got my freedive certification and instrumental in the path I am on today where I am now a Molchanovs, AIDA and PADI certified freediving instructor and about to launch my freediving courses on Xiaoliuqiu.

And because of that, it is a very special place to me and a place I take pleasure in introducing to you.

And if you are from outside of Taiwan and want to figure out a way to get into Taiwan so you can freedive, check out my blog on how to get into Taiwan on a gold card visa.

XIAOLIUQIU BASICS

Xiaoliuqiu is an island located off the southeast coast of Taiwan covering 6.8 square kilometers with 13,000 residents. Primary mode of transport is by scooter and can ride around the entire island in 15-20 minutes.

FUN FACT - a large majority of the island only share 10 surnames

DIVING IN XIAOLIUQIU

A Google search reveals 12 freedive results and around 30 for scuba. There is A LOT of diving going on here.

Google Map Search of diving centers on the island

Probably the more interesting looking school is Deep Soul as they are the only shop on the island that has their own pool, albeit one with very narrow single lane, though I’m not sure if they offer freediving instruction in English.

The English instructors or schools on Xiaoliuqiu that I am aware of are:

VD FREEDIVING run by Anthony and Jiayin, a French-Taiwanese couple who started their school in Taiwan in 2018. They offer the most flexibility as they can teach in English, Chinese and French and teach both in Taipei and Xiaoliuqiu. I had the pleasure of doing some pool training with them last year and I really like their positive energy and the fun they bring to their classes

KRIS ZVARITCH is a staff writer for Molchanovs and Deeperblue.com she’s certified to teach AIDA and Molchanovs and occasionally spends time in front of the camera as an underwater model (check out her Instagram ) I’ve spent some time on the buoy with her in GIli Air, Indonesia and she has been a wealth of knowledge in freediving for me.

FREEDIVE TAIWAN - Where I took my first two courses. Donny Mac is also the host and creator of the ONLY freedive podcast The Freedive Cafe . One advantage of his courses is tuition includes accommodation. Donny gave me a solid foundation of skills that led me to my instructor certification.

And finally MEEEEEEEE! After spending the summer in Las Vegas teaching freediving and then making the move to Taiwan in November 2020, I’ve decided to make Xiaoliuqiu my permanent home in December 2020 and will start teaching courses in February 2021.

For more on taking an English freediving course in Taiwan check out my blog article here.

FREEDIVING IN TAIWAN AND XIAOLIUQIU

Freediving took off in Taiwan around 2016, which some crediting Instagram for that explosion and there is an estimated 50+ freedive instructors on the island with only about half a dozen or so English-speaking instructors

5 Reasons Xiaoliuqiu is the number one destination for Taiwan freedivers:

Year round diving (most of Taiwan is tough to dive during the winter) as it has a mountain range protecting it from winds
Short scooter rides from everywhere on the island to dive to shore to reach mooring lines with depths of 10m to 50m (Or a lot of places to dive down to around 18m to tie down your rope
Good variety of fun diving
Relatively easy access from whenever you are in Taiwan compared to other options like Orchid Island or Green Island.
Water temperatures year round are suitable for 3mm wetsuit

There are other places to freedive in Taiwan, but each as their own issues. In the north near Taipei you can’t dive during the winter as it gets too cold/choppy and visibility is not as good as down south. Penghu has an abundance of fish but you can’t dive in the winter and not good for depth diving. Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Green Island lies on the Southeast coast of Taiwan and winter conditions are rough. Kenting is still possible temperature wise, but the cold front from the north mixing with the warm air from the south can make for some strong winds and unstable diving conditions.

LINE DIVING/TRAINING IN XIAOLIUQIU

Xiaoliuqiu is blessed with two mains spots on the island that are opposite of each ofter on the East/West plain. Meirendong （美人洞, meaning beauty cave), lies on the Northwest corner of Xiaoliuqiu. Dafu is located on the southeast part of the island. So if one spot is choppy and rough, the other side likely won’t be. Xiaoliuqiu also gets amazing visibility of 30m on most days.

MEIRENDONG (BEAUTY CAVE)

Access to the dive spots are a little harder on Meirendong as you have to take the stairs to access the beach (you get there on scooter with plenty of parking) and its quite rocky with moderate waves making things a little precarious. To the right is a reef to go fun diving where you can see plenty of their famous sea turtles, sometimes you can see up to 10 of them just sleeping on the reef.

To the left is line diving with the fishing nets as a sort of signpost to swim towards. A few hundred meter swim you can access depth enough to hold a beginner freediving course with instructor diving down to the bottom to tie their line to. Further beyond the fish nets, or about a 500m swim from shore, you can get 45-50m of depth depending on the current and high/low tide and you can tie onto a series of buoys surrounding the fish nets.

PRO TIP - I would bring aqua socks to this area as the beach is not sandy, its rocky and entry into the water is the same so bring them and then chuck them into the buoy when you got your fins on.

Below you can see my video of the steps down into Meirendong.

DAFU (BIG FORTUNE)

The other area for line diving is Dafu (大福) which lies on the Southeast corner of the island.

Here you will have to find a mooring line to tie a freedive buoy onto. Obviously, the further you go out, the more depth you’ll get. This is where you will require some local knowledge to get the GPS co-ordinates of where the mooring lines are. There is also a mooring line on the surface called “the Cupcake” cause it's shaped like one when its floating on the surface. But it is for boats so you will need to detach if a boat moors here. Of course you can also dive and tie down to a rock, but less feasible if you are deep diver.

Video of Dafu below

XIAOLIUQIU: AN ISLAND OF MANY NAMES

Xiaoliuqiu has been known by many different names throughout its history.

Liqiu was the name of both the island and Okinawa. Little Liqiu or Xiaoliuqiu was given as a nickname to distinguish it from Okinawa which was known as Big Liuqiu for a similar reason.

Xiaoliuqiu means, little Liqiu, Liqiu was the Chinese name of nearby Okinawa before the Japanese took it over and renamed it Okinawa. In Japanese, Liuqiu, is pronounced RyuKyu. Which is why sometimes when you use Google Translate it’ll say Small Ryuku or something or Xiao Ryukyu for Xiaoliuqiu

The island is also known as Lambai Island (also Lamay), but that’s more from the English and other European languages as it was a transcription from the aboriginal name for the island.

And A long time ago it was also known as The Golden Lion which was borrowed from its Dutch name Gouden Leeuw which was in honor of the slaughtered crew of the Gouden Leeuw, but we’ll get into what that ship means in terms of the island below.

So in summary, Xiaoliuqiu can be known as XLQ (my favorite preference), Lambai Island, Lamay, Little Liuqiu, Small Ryukyu or The Golden Lion.

Confusing, right? Let's just call it XLQ!

HOW TO GET TO XIAOLIUQIU - TRANSPORT

If you are coming from outside of Taiwan, you’ll want to fly into Kaohsiung International Airport (Code KHH). With COVID-19, there are very limited flights to Kaohsiung and thus it may be necessary to fly to the capital of Taiwan, Taipei.

From the Kaohsiung airport you’ll take a taxi or Uber (cost about NT$1000 or US$30) to Dong Gang Ferry Terminal (東港碼頭）(Dong Gang means eastern harbor in Chinese).

An alternative and cheaper way is to go to the Main Station in Kaohsiung. (Train station) and in the front there are a array of bus companies. There is one company that has schedule 7 seater van leaving once an hour at least. That costs NT$150 or about US$5 and should take about 45 minutes or 30 minutes if the driver is crazy, which usually seems to be the case. Below is the business card of the company.

Company Sign Van to Dong Gang from Kaohsiung Main Station

There is a private and public ferry to Xiaoliuqiu. I’ve never taken the public one and I’m told its not ideal as 1) its a little more expensive 2) less frequent and 3) it docks the other side of the island where there is no resources like renting scooters.

The public fer ry costs NT$430 roundtrip or about US$15 and takes about 20 minutes to make the 8km journey each way. If you came on your own scooter cause you are gangsta like that, then you can also bring it on the ferry,

Below is the ferry schedule :

Once you exit the ferry you’ll be greeted by a number of people offering to rent you a scooter, this will be the primary mode of transport around the island. If you don’t know how to ride a scooter, this island will be inconvenient for you. You can rent a car and driver to take you to various spots, but it’s not worth it. My only advice for renting a scooter is to BARGAIN BARGAIN AND BARGAIN HARD. NT$400 a day is standard but you can get a serious discount if you rent multiple days.

UPDATE: Someone told me that after I published this blog that it was untrue that Xialiuqiu is inconvenient if you don't know how to ride a scooter. You can rent e-bikes which don't require a license. You can find their facebook page for Jgogo here . Below you can see the e-bike in action,

XIAOLIUQIU - AN INTERESTING PART OF TAIWAN HISTORY

In 1622, two years before the Dutch East Indies Company established a post in Taiwan, the ship Gouden Leeuw (Gold Lion) shipwrecked on Xiaoliuqiu and the crew was all murdered by the aboriginals.

In 1631 another Dutch yacht, wrecked on the island and suffered a similar fate to the Gouden Leeuw, all fifty aboard were murdered.

The Dutch, determined to seek punishment and revenge for these two incidents, sent 500 men to attack the island in 1633, which was a mix of Dutch, Han Chinese and Taiwan aboriginals soldiers. They realized that they were under-manned but made an important strategic discovery of a cave the island inhabitants retreat to during times of trouble.

Three years later a much larger force was sent to the island, cornering the inhabitants into their safety cave, blocking the entrances and exits, leaving small holes to pans of burning pitch and sulfur suffocating the inhabitants. In all, over 300 men, women and children were pulled out dead from suffocating while amongst the over 300 other inhabitants, the men were sent to work as slaves on plantations in Taiwan and Indonesia while the women were sent to Dutch homes as servants or wives.

Colonization wasn’t pretty back then.

Formosa Dutch Colonial Flag

There were some skirmishes until 1645 when Han Chinese leased the island from the Dutch in 1645 and removed the remaining 13 indigenous people, and the island has been occupied by Han Chinese until present day.

Since then Xiaoliuqiu was a fishing village until the early 21st century where it transitioned into the tourist industry which now brings hundreds of thousands of tourist a year which Brough its own problems. Because of unchecked growth of tourism, the island lost 90% of its corals before conservation helped to reverse this trend.

So, pretty interesting history to say the least.

CLIMATE AND WATER TEMPERATURE IN XIAOLIUQIU

Xiaoliuqiu average highs range form 25°C (December and January) to 32° C in the summer months. Dry season is November through March while rainy and monsoon season is from April to October with the island also vulnerable to typhoons.

Water temperature ranges from 25° C in December to 29° in the summer months. Winter months a 3mm is just good enough and mostly likely start feeling cold at the end of a session. I brought my 5.5mm just in case.

CAFES ON XIAOLIUQIU

When I first arrived for my first stint in Taiwan in 1998, Starbucks was the only place you can get reliably decent coffee. Since then, coffee culture has literally exploded with many cute cafes cropping up everywhere and Taiwanese baristas regularly winning international barista competitions .

If you seed some space to get some work done, there are two cafes on the island with decent coffee (and also one secret spot outdoors with a view of the ocean)

Islet Lemonade - Located near one of the line diving sites Dafu and run by two sweet Taiwanese chicas who used to study in the US who speak perfect English. The cafe is very cute with clean bright design with plenty of natural light and outdoor area and the coffee is BOMB.

The counter is downstairs and there are several tables upstairs all having access to power plug so you can charge up here. There is also a some chairs and tables on the outside where you can enjoy a book while caffeinating.

Coral Cafe - free divers will love this cafe with its giant sized poster of Le Grande Bleu. This is located near the ferry terminal and the one drawback is that there is only one table with access to power plugs. And judging by their website they appear to have a guest house there with some cool views of the harbor.

AND FINALLY A XIAOLIUQIU FACEBOOK GROUP

English resources are lacking for Xiaoliuqiu and most of it is blogs like this one. That’s why I started the “ XIAOLIUQIU FOR FOREIGNERS ” Facebook group as an English-language resource for people who want help planning their trip to XLQ and get recommendations. I hope it will become a resource where those providing English-language services can promote there and for visitors to ask questions they may have.

You may also be interested in the Taiwan Freediver's Syndicate Facebook group as well.

So please join if you are interested in visiting XLQ and ask any questions you may have.

For my Google Map list of places to eat check this out

Taiwan Move for Freediving - Do You Qualify for Gold Card? (2021)

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 06:51:10 GMT

Taiwan Move for Freediving - Do You Qualify for Gold Card? (2021)

JAN 2021 UPDATE - I am teaching freediving in Taipei and Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan, please click here to find out more.

I’m moving to Taiwan. To freedive.

Actually, WE are moving to Taiwan (me and my wife, Sheila)

That was not the original plan when this year started which was mostly centered around freediving.

Nor was getting married, but we thought "what the hell, let's do this".

Super romantic, ya, I know.

Sheila and I got married on May 28. 2020 in Las Vegas. She made a Youtube video about getting married in Vegas during COVID-19 lockdown here .

When I first started this journey into freediving and being a freedive instructor, I gave myself the moniker of Freedive Nomad to hopefully be a self-fulfilling prophecy of traveling the world with freediving as the medium.

I love traveling, I especially love slow traveling (read Rolf Potts book Vagabonding) and discovered this shortly after moving to Asia just after I graduated from university.

However, I got going in my career and making a family pretty quickly and that kinda got put on the back burner.

Not anymore, right?

Errrrr, wrong. For now anyway.

The original plan was to come to Vegas (for a wedding, not ours), where me and my wife have been staying with my parents since February 2020, then go to Mexico and roam around for a bit and check out the Xibalba competition in April and then make our way over to Croatia for Deep Week at the end of summer. And maybe Kalamata? We even had our plane tickets booked.

Y’all know how those plans got screwed.

I then shifted to building a freedive community in the middle of the desert in Las Vegas and try to teach as many people as possible and bring together existing freedivers in Sin City.

As we entered summer we decided to move to Taiwan, which is where we met, where I’ve lived for over ten years over 3 different stints from 1998-2019 and where I took my first freediving course.

WHY DID WE DECIDE TO MOVE TO TAIWAN?

Lots

And

Lots of reasons……

- SAFE-ISH FROM COVID-19 - You may have seen it in the news that despite being predicted to be one of the worst to be hit by COVID-19 due to its proximity to China and the number of people moving between the countries (hundreds of thousand of people travel from China to Taiwan during Chinese New Year which is usually around January and February).

Despite that, Taiwan's been recognized as one of the top countries in terms of response to the virus. The country enacted 124 distinct measures to prevent the spread of the virus including early screening of people from China (they started in December 2019) and tracking individual cases. At the time of this writing Taiwan has only had 7 deaths from the virus and a few hundred cases, only.

Thus having a semblance of a normal life would be AWESOME. For the most part, life in Taiwan resembles life before COVID. More than any country out there anyway.

- CITIZENSHIP - Even though I’ve lived in Taiwan a long time and qualified for permanent residency in my first stint, I never got permanent residency. Major oversight by me.

No worries though, as I am eligible for citizenship through my father. Despite that, there are still a lot of hoops I need to jump through which can’t be resolved right away, so I applied for and got approved for a GOLD CARD which I will get into later.

Why would I want another citizenship? Suffice it to say there were some emotional reasons and some very pragmatic reasons like health care (next section). Not to mention, options are always good.

But perhaps I am still scarred by the plane hijacking movies in the 80’s where they rounded up all those with American passports to be executed first.

Once I’ve jumped through all the hoops I need to I will then need to reside in Taiwan for a continuous 365 days.

Honestly, not a bad place to live for a year during these times.

My Taiwan passport, but I can't use it yet for travel

- HEALTHCARE - on top of having an amazing response to COVID-19, Taiwan has a good reputation in their healthcare system.

Take this case in January 2019 when an American overseas student , who was not enrolled in the National Health Insurance program yet, went to the ER of one of Taiwan’s top hospitals with a stomach flu.

Within 20 minutes, he was checked in by an English-speaking nurse and was receiving IV fluids and anti-emetic medication (for nausea and vomiting). After several hours there receiving IV fluids, a sonogram and blood test he was discharged with some medication and guess what the bill came to.

US$80

Not bad for paying out of pocket.

This is not some one-off either. My experiences have been very similar.

When you are enrolled in the National Healthcare system a small percentage of your earnings go into the program and that’s most of the cost. When I see a doctor or go to the dentist for teeth cleaning the co-pay is only US$5.

Before I moved out of Taiwan I bought 6 months of my prescription meds out of pocket, total cost US$150, that would have been one month of my meds in the US. And as the world knows, health care and health insurance are ridiculous in the US and having Taiwan citizenship insures that I can have my medical problems taken care of should any arise and that’s comforting to know, especially as I advance in age.

I still have 17 years until I am eligible for Medicare in the US (which is the US form of national healthcare). So, good to be prepared

- FREEDIVING - It’s not the best in Asia, but its pretty damn good! I took my first two courses on a little island called Xiaoliuqiu which is a stone's throw from the second largest city in Taiwan. There are lots of shore diving with depths of 45 meters. Warm waters, killer viz and lots of turtles. At the southern most tip of Taiwan is a beach resort community called Kenting. They have shore diving and boat diving to 60m+. There is fun diving on other islands like Green Island and Orchid Island and one of the handful of deep pools in the world, Divecube which gets 21 meters of depth.

I know this is far from a comprehensive write up about freediving in Taiwan but keep a watch out as I will start writing more about freediving in Taiwan once I am there.

But if you want to go to Taiwan and learn freediving in English I suggest you look up those below who I know and trust.

TOP ENGLISH-SPEAKING FREEDIVE SCHOOLS

Photo during my first freedive course on Xiaoliuqiu Photo credit - Donny Mac of the Freedive Cafe

- COST - Taiwan is CHEAP for a fairly developed nation. Rent is a few hundred dollars a month. Food is GOOD AND CHEAP (you could get away with US$10 a day for food) and buying a used scooter will cost you US$300-500. Scooter is the main source of transport if you don’t live in major cities like Taipei or Kaohsiung which both have incredilbe public transport systems. This country is perfect for digital nomads I reckon. You can get away with US$1000 a month budget for living.

WHY IS TAIWAN SO AWESOME?

First and foremost, Taiwanese are more alike to Southeast Asians than the stereo-typical colder North Asians. They are so warm, friendly and kind. Lots of countries in Asia have problems with xenophobia, not Taiwan, in fact, THEY ARE XENO-FRIENDLY. They LOVE FOREIGNERS IN TAIWAN.

Take for example, when I first moved to Taiwan in 1998. There are A LOT OF scooters in Taiwan and a taxi driver was dropping me off at my apartment which is on a small alley. When you get out of a car you are suppose to look behind you before opening the door to make sure there aren’t any scooters zooming through. I didn’t and opened it onto a scooter zooming by. He was pissed. My taxi driver pleaded with the scooter dude not to be pissed as I was a foreigner. Surprisingly, scooter dude chilled out and left without incident.

For being a small island nation, it's got A LOT going for it especially if you are an outdoorsy type. During my time there I have hiked, scuba dived, surfed, river traced, wakeboarded and of course FREEDIVING.

I haven’t done it yet but there are some decently big peaks in Taiwan are Jade Mountain and Snow Mountain which I hope to conquer on my fourth stint there.

Surfing is amazing in Kenting and Taitung City, I am told. Some of the best in Asia.

I’m hoping to go scuba diving on Green Island for hammerhead sharks February of next year.

Food is my other passion and I love eating in Taiwan. If you don’t know the history of Taiwan, the island was occupied by the KMT after being defeated by the communist in China during the civil war and retreated to the island.

With them, they brought chefs from all over China and thus the quality and variety of Chinese food is something to seriosuly brag about. Moreover, the quality of their chicken, pork, eggs, vegetables and fruit has impressed me. Even the eggs you buy at the 7-11 has an amazingly healthy orange yolk, a sign that the chicken has had a more natural diet. It also has a Free Trade Agreement with New Zealand so you can get a great deal on healthier grass-fed beef and lamb.

Check out this CNN article on the top 40 food and drink in Taiwan.

Taiwan night markets and street food is legendary.

And did you know one Taiwanese restaurant was rated as one of the top 10 restaurants in the world by The NY Times in 1983. That restaurants, Ding Tai Fung, now has branches in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and there are still more to come. If you have never heard of it or never eaten there, put it on your bucket list. It also makes a good case study on a near perfectly operated restaurant. Read this Huff Post article about it

Ding Tai Fung - world's most famous dumplings

Hot springs that almost rivals Japan.

Sheila's photo of me the first time we went to a hot spring in Taipei

Best tea in the world.

And amazing landscape that'll take you years to photograph it all.

To understand the beauty of Taiwan - check out this award-winning documentary Beyond Beauty - Taiwan from Above

Now, if I’ve convinced you Taiwan is an awesome place to be and you wanna go, here’s how you get in now that the borders are shut due to COVID 19 - > get the Gold Card

WHAT IS THE TAIWAN EMPLOYMENT GOLD CARD?

It is part of a government effort to bring highly skilled foreign professionals into Taiwan, which started in early 2018. So if you are highly skilled at something, HOORAY! Maybe?

You qualify under one of eight categories: Science and Technology, Economy, Finance, Education, Culture and Arts, Sports, Law and Architectural Design.

Click here to see what the qualifications are under each category

The category that has the most approvals is under the Economy category while no one has been approved in the field of law or sports. To qualify under sports, you must finish in top 3 at the Olympics, or gold at the Asian games, or served as a national team coach with excellent results. So I guess we are shit out of luck as freedivers.

Each category has its own requirements. For example, I applied under finance given my 20 years in the biz. Their primary requirement was your previous salary was over a certain threshold, and they only required scanned documents as evidence.

My wife applied under Cultures and Arts as she is a film school grad and their requirement was winning an international award and/or professional certifications, which she had both but still got rejected. Weird.

They call it a 4-in-1 card as you get 1) legal right to live in Taiwan 2) an ARC card which proves your legal right to stay in Taiwan 3) multiple entry visa and 4) open work permit which allows you to work for whichever company you want without having to re-apply for visas when you change jobs as you’ve had to in the past. I believe this will also allow freelancers and digital nomads to legally work in Taiwan.

You can apply for it while in Taiwan or outside of Taiwan. My provisional approval took less than 30 days and then I sent my passport to the Taiwan consulate in US for them to send to Taiwan to get the proper stamps in my passport. That took around 6 weeks. However, it took my wife almost two months to get her rejection.

This information I am providing I understand is far from exhaustive - but check out the resources below for more information.

I hope this helps you in your considerations of where you could move to and freedive during these COVID-19 times and if you have any questions regarding this topic, please reach out to me, I’ll do my best at answering your questions or referring you some place you can find the answers.

UPDATE - for those who are not eligible for the Gold Card, consider the Entrepreneur Visa. Though most of their requirement are pretty tough, most should be able to get in through being sponsored by a government sponsored co-working space. Check this blog out for more info.

TOP RESOURCES FOR TAIWAN GOLD CARD

TWO WEBSITES STARTED SINCE BLOG PUBLISHED

How I Decided to Become a Freedive Instructor - Intuition

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 06:32:20 GMT

How I Decided To Become A Freedive Instructor - A Lesson In Intuition

Going from a lucrative career in finance to becoming a freedive instructor at the ripe age of 46 doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Unlike many of my major decisions of my life, I would invariably use logic to analyze the hell out of the pros and cons. This time was different though.

QUICK PLUG AND UPDATE - I am now teaching in Taiwan, check out my Freedive Nomad Taiwan site for more course information or contact me directly at ray@freedivenomad.com

In much the same way I came to study to become a freedive instructor was the story of how I got into freediving. Like 99% of freedivers out there, the movie The Big Blue, even though I watched it three decades ago as a young teenager, never left my mind. It was always something I’d try if given the opportunity but I didn’t even know that freediving was a thing you could learn until 2017 when I was close to securing a job that would require me to move to Singapore. Doing some research on living in Singapore led me to the website of Zen Freediving, a freediving school in Singapore ( https://zenfreediving.org/ ) and discovered that learning freediving was very accessible. Unfortunately that job opportunity did not materialize, and I ended up in land-locked Vegas for the next year and a half.

Fast forward to January 2, 2019, my previous employer Deutsche Bank offered me to return to Taipei, a wonderful city where I spent 10 years of my career. After a few weeks of settling in, I started to do some research and was surprised to find so many choiced for freediving schools in Taiwan.

This would be a good time to let you know something about myself. Sometimes I am a procrastinator, not professionally, but when it comes to personal affairs, tomorrow is always the best time to finish doing something. It’s something I’ve dealt with my whole life and have gotten better as I’ve aged. However, learning freediving was one of those things I would have thought “Why start now when I can just do it later”. I had a four day weekend coming up in the first weekend in April and something just told me I HAD TO DO THIS, I HAD TO GO AND LEARN FREEDIVING THAT WEEKEND. I did my research and looked at who was available to teach a course during this time, in English. Those were my only two criterias.

Freedive Taiwan ( http://freedivetaiwan.com/ ) was the only school that fit those two criteria and I booked immediatly and paid the full amount right away (instead of just the deposit per norm) certain nothing was going to get in the way of this long weekend. To be frank, I got really lucky. Very very lucky. Little did I know that 1) Donny, the instructor there, was an awesome and professional teacher 2) I was the only student that weekend and 3) he also introduced me to the podcast he hosts, the only freedive podcast in existence ( http://freedivecafe.com/ ) which has been a great source for a lot of my freedive knowledge. The tuition fee also includes a place to sleep, which is a big plus. Donny’s school is located at Xiaoliuqiu, which is a small island off the Southwest coast of Taiwan near the largest city in the south of Taiwan, Kaohsiung or about 3-4 hours door to door from Taipei.

Two months later Donny asked me if I was ready for the next level, AIDA 3, I was like “hell yes, sign me up”!

I have spent nearly the last 3 decades of my life in a city/urban environment. The last 20 years sitting behind a trading desk blasted by radiation from 8 LCD monitors. Working in the city and in an office is a health hazard not appreciated enough which is a topic I will address in a future blog post but suffice it to say that my energy levels were sapped and I was in a constant state of pain management (10-12 hours a day looking at your monitor sure does a number on your neck and shoulders). I was most likely chronically in a low-level fight-or-flight mode.

On the course with me was Donny, a fit 36 year old and Eileen, a 26-year-ol bad-ass surfer and soon-to-be yoga teacher who smashed a 4.5-minute breath hold without much training. But this 46-year-old bag of bones managed to keep up and to put it simply I DID NOT FEEL LIKE I WAS 46 YEARS OLD, but much much much much much younger. “This was it” I thought “this is what I was meant to do in life”. Not for a lack of trying, there are A LOT of things I love to do like Brazilian Jiujitsu, cooking, traveling, powerlifting, yoga, golf etc but nothing rejuvenated my mind, body, and soul as freediving has.

I have simply never felt this way. It was powerful. Compelling. Something brought me to that island of Xiaoliuqiu. A powerful force. Was it intuition? Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking ( https://tinyurl.com/yxde6fqr ) is a deep examination and scientific justification of intuition or “gut feel” and went into concepts like thin slicing and the gut-brain connection. In summary, gut feel is for real and now I think I just experienced it.

One month after completing my AIDA 3 course I was laid off from my job at Deutsche Bank after just 6 months on the job and I knew exactly what I was going to do and put plans in place to pursue a freedive instructor certification and 3 weeks later I was on Gili Air, Indonesia ready for the next chapter of my life.

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” - Steve Jobs

I’ve always admired this quote, but it was much later in my career when I first saw it and jumping into something new on a gut feel was something I thought I’d never experience. Now here I am. In a future blog post I’ll explain how everything made sense connecting the dots looking backwards.

Freediving's Explosive Growth Potential - Avatar 2 Launch

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 06:24:35 GMT

Freediving's Explosive Growth Potential - Avatar 2 Launch

Freediving's Explosive Growth Potential

QUICK NOTE - I now offer freediving courses in Taiwan, please check out Freedive Nomad Taiwan for more information.

"It feels like the sport is one breath-hold-obsessed billionaire away from a fully funded tour of Grands Prix, one luxury-car title sponsor away from a 10-event season in the Mediterranean, one viral Netflix documentary away from becoming the world's fastest-growing sport." - GQ Magazine

HOW DID YOU DISCOVER FREEDIVING?

Was it an obscure documentary? Maybe you stumbled upon freediving while scrolling the internet. For me, I happened upon an Instagram post by a freediver. How lucky I was!

For those of us who are deep into the freediving scene, we know that the beauty and thrill of freediving is an amazing marketing tool all by itself. Instructors and companies offering courses and gear have stunning visuals and life-changing stories to share on social media.

Despite its history as one of the oldest forms of diving, we have seen the popularity of the sport increase thanks to a growing social media presence. Now, with the much-anticipated release of Avatar 2 on the horizon, I believe the exposure and practice of freediving are poised to go absolutely NUCLEAR.

THE BIG BLUE - THE ORIGINAL?

Many freediving enthusiasts can recall their first exposure by way of Luc Besson’s film Big Blue. Released in 1988 and loosely based on a true story, it was the first introduction many had to freediving and remains a significant part of the freediver culture.

The film, originally released under the French title Le Grande Bleu, is the reason many freedivers became freedivers! Many share that they were unaware that freediving was something you could learn through courses and instructors. Now, thanks to social media, the internet, and films like Avatar 2, I expect the practice to grow exponentially.

ALENKA ARTNIK AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA

I was pleasantly surprised by the positive mainstream media coverage when Alena Artnik broke the (women’s) world record for constant weight (apnea) freedive in November 2020 with a depth of -114 meters in 3m 41s. That’s 374 feet!

Since I began freediving, there have been many world records broken but none receiving the attention of this freediving world record. They featured this feat in the New York Times and Washington Post ; two of the largest publications in the US with worldwide influence. Usually, and unfortunately, freediving makes it into the news only when someone dies.

Could this be evidence of changing sentiment within popular media? Is it finally primed to shout about freediving when Avatar 2 premieres? I hope so.

Alenka Artnik ascends from her record-setting dive with her support team. (Nanna Kreutzmann)

ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP - A COMPARISON

The Ultimate Fighting Championship ( UFC ) is an example of how an unconventional sport could go unnoticed, despite the backing of billionaires, and then take off following a catalyst.

At the brand’s inception in 1993, “ultimate fighting” was a super niche sport. You might’ve only heard about it if you were involved in martial arts at the time. If you were not involved in martial arts, you’ may have heard it in passing as politicians denounced it as a “blood sport”.

In 2001 it was purchased by Zuffa, LLC which was backed by billionaire casino tycoons Fertita brothers. Even with their backing and charismatic high school friend Dana White leading the charge, they were still bleeding money for four full years.

The reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) began in 2005 as their last-ditch effort to save the organization. Up-and-coming fighters were locked in a house and gym for 3 months to compete in a single-elimination tournament while viewers followed along. The season culminated in The Ultimate Fighter Finale for a grand prize of a six-figure contract for the winner.

UFC.com

Before this, all UFC events were Pay-Per-View. This was the first opportunity for an audience to watch matches for free. Due to the popularity of the show and the spectacular fight between finalist Stephan Bonnar and Forest Griffin (pictured above), interest in the UFC skyrocketed in 2005 and never looked back. Now, names like Ronda Rousey and Connor McGregor are not only familiar but wildly popular.

So what does this have to do with freediving? Well, they have a few things in common.

Both sports fulfill primal desires.
Both have/had a strong niche following but have gone unnoticed by mainstream media for a long time.
Both sometimes have poor optics. Freediving often involves blackouts and squeezes. UFC obviously involves violence and blood.
Both just need/needed a strong catalyst for explosive growth.

UFC found it with The Ultimate Fighter and I believe freediving will erupt with Avatar 2.

THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT

The Netflix show Queen’s Gambit premiered on October 23, 2020. The main character, Beth, is a chess prodigy. Why is that special? Because she’s a female, it’s the 1960s, and chess is ( still ) a male-dominated field.

Seemingly overnight, the show sparked huge interest in the game.

eBay reports a 273% increase in searches for chess sets in the 10 days after the show’s release.
Google search queries for “how to play chess” are near all-time highs.
Searches for the keyword “chess” is at a 9-year high, worldwide.
The number of players on chess.com has gone up fivefold.
62 million households have watched the show.

Those are some big numbers.

PHIL BRAY/NETFLIX

While freediving and chess ar e quite different, I think the influence of Avatar 2 on the freediving movement will be similar to what The Queen’s Gambit has done for chess.

AVATAR 2 - FREEDIVING CATALYST?

James Cameron’s Avatar 2, starring Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Vin Diesel, Zoe Saldana, and more is in the midst of production with an anticipated release date of December 22, 2022. (Thanks, COVID.)

James Cameron is changing the game with motion-capture technology, but the real, unrecognized star of the film is freediving. Winslet and Weaver have been sharing their experiences learning to free dive in the media. They proudly boast of being able to hold their breath for over six minutes. (Winslet’s record is 7m 14s .) The cast and crew were trained by Kirk Krack of Performance Freediving International.

Kate Winslet - Deeper Blue

According to Box Office Mojo , Avatar is the 2nd highest-grossing film of all time, worldwide. As of January 2021, it’s just US $8M behind Avengers: Endgame. With both films grossing close to a massive US$2.8B, it’s basically a tie.

Hollywood executives adore sequels as they love familiar franchises and formulas. Nevertheless, that doesn’t guarantee success as there have been some sequels that have absolutely flopped; did you know Dumb and Dumber had a sequel? Exactly!

WHAT'S NEXT?

If I were a betting man, I’d bet it all on Avatar’s sequel being a monster triumph given the first film’s record-setting performance. Director James Cameron’s achievements as a director are legendary. He’s enjoyed phenomenal success with the Terminator and Alien franchises. It’s no wonder that he has plans to take Avatar even farther with 3 more Avatar films planned. You read that right; we could be looking at an Avatar 5 one day.

Although this film will not exactly be spotlighting freediving as the focus of the movie’s plot, we are going to see stars like Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver all over mainstream media advertising the film. They will certainly be discussing their experiences learning to free dive. In fact, they already are.

Hopefully, Avatar 2 will act as an inspiration for more people to take up the sport through offerings ranging from beginner’s classes to instructor certification courses.

Are you running a freediving business? How are you preparing for the increased exposure?

Since publishing this 3 months ago, I've seen more mainstream media coverage:

Alexey breaking the sub-ice depth record

Article profiling Alexey Molchanov by Men's Health , the largest men's magazine in the world.

Another article profiling Alexey Molchanovs in GQ Magazine in September 2021. The articles also makes a similar conclusion to this blog post in the quote in the intro to this blog post.
Are you interested in learning how to freedive? Let me teach you.

Are you ready to see freediving in the mainstream? I am!

Tips For Holding Breath For Longer - Keep Mind Occupied

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 06:07:42 GMT

Tips For Holding Breath For Longer - Keep Mind Occupied

UPDATE - I now live in Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan and teach freediving courses here. Click on Learn Freediving Taipei to learn more.

TOP FIVE THINGS TO THINK OF DURING STATIC BREATH-HOLD

Meditation
Visualization
ABCs
Math/Counting
Songs

YAY IT’S FRIDAY!!!!!

When I was working a Monday to Friday office job I would play this song in my head or on Youtube whenever Friday hit. If you’ve never heard of it, this song debut in the early 90’s from a band called the Cure. The lead singer Robert Smith called this a “dumb pop song” and the cheerful nature of the song was a sharp departure from his usual miserable outlook on life. Speaking of miserable, I actually saw the Cure in Hong Kong about 10 years ago and Robert Smith was about the size of a shopping mall Santa Claus and it was a MISERABLE performance.

Anyways……..WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS SONG HAVE TO DO WITH FREEDIVING!

RELAXATION!

Mastering relaxation is one of the most important components of freediving.

Whether you are doing statics, dynamic or diving for depth, mastering your relaxation method is key, though until very recently I would use the below methods only on statics.

Static breath-hold is by far my worst discipline in freediving.I couldn’t even reach the 2-minute requirement on my first course and I nearly was not able to go onto my instructor course if I didn’t complete a 3.5-minute static just two days before the course was to begin. Thus, I’ve tried a fair amount of relaxation methods in order to improve my static.

Being around a few freedivers I’ve heard many many many methods of what to do with your mind to stay relaxed and remove your mind from the static breath-hold. The trick is to balance your mind to keep it a bit active to keep your mind off the static, but not so much where it requires great thought. Here’s a list:

Meditation - I’ve been off and on doing transcendental meditation for 3 years and I’ve tried chanting my mantra in my head during my static. This didn’t work, as my meditation practice, well, needs more practice.

Visualizing going into a home from your childhood - go into great detail, notice the smell of the place, certain corners, the carpet, the tiles in the kitchen, driving in through the driveway. This required way too much thinking for me and didn’t work.

ABC - I’ve heard people play around with the alphabet in various ways. One version was very slowly tracing the alphabet with their finger. My first freedive instructor suggested going through the alphabet and naming movies. I found that too difficult so I went with either people’s names or vegetables or fruit as you go through the alphabet. This got me through AIDA 2 and 3 statics.

Math/counting - Counting up is too easy, so I heard that counting down from 100 is perhaps a better method. I found that too easy so I would randomly pick a number between 500 and 995 and countdown slowly by increments of 5. This got me through AIDA 4 3:30 static.

Songs - about a week ago I was doing some pool training with my dive buddy Gabie (IG = gabrielle.lui) - she was going for an 80m bifin dynamic but stopped at 40m. Something was bothering her, her mind wasn’t right. During the same session, she tries again and was going to try for 60-80m. GUESS WHAT SHE DID!?!?! She hit 100m - which is the requirement for Molchanovs instructor certification. The only thing she changed was singing some silly song in her head.

After I saw what Gabie did, I started to integrate that into my training. I chose “Friday I’m in Love” precisely because it’s a “dumb pop song” and the lyrics are pretty easy to remember. With that I was able to hit 60m dynamic no fins. Hit a PB 80m dynamic bi-fins twice (Hopefully will hit 100m tomorrow) and I started to use it during my free falls.

I made a pretty stupid mistake. Before I got to Gili Air, free immersion (FIM) just seemed like a necessary evil for warm-ups or whatever. I much preferred constant weight (CWT). Once I got to Gili Air and started hitting depths of 30+ meters, I found doing FIM was much easier as it requires much less energy thus for a long time I concentrated a lot more on FIM than CWT in trying to extend my depth. I assumed if I could hit a depth in FIM I should be able to easily hit it in CWT.

BOY WAS I WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

After hitting 38m in FIM and in striking distance of the 40m requirement for instructor certification, I started to work on my CWT. I tried a 32m dive and after the turn, I was contracting so hard I used the line to pull myself up. On another day I did a 35m dive and my buddy said I had cyanosis after the dive. OH SH*T!

Today was the first session I 100% concentrated on CWT and it was FANTASTIC. WHY? I was singing “Friday I’m In Love” on my free fall helping me to relax. I did 32m, 34m and 36m dives in a very relaxed and controlled manner. 40m should be no problem now, knock on wood!

And I will be using this for my 4 minutes static! Wish me luck! (UPDATE NOV 2019 - I did it!)

Dive safe everyone and never dive a lone!

NEVER STOP AT THE WALL - DYN TIP

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sun, 16 May 2021 06:03:27 GMT

Never Stop At The Wall - DYN Tips

This is a very simple lesson I’ve learnt recently.

Dynamic is a freediving discipline in the pool or a confined water space requiring you to swim a horizontal distance on one breathe either using your bifins or no fins. AIDA 2-4 requirements are only with bifins and the requirements are 40m for AIDA 2, 55m for AIDA 3 and 70m for AIDA 4.

If we feel like we’ve had enough, i.e. the urge to breath is too strong , we have a tendency to stop at the wall and often times one lap short. For example, if you are AIDA 2 candidate, you are in a 25m pool and are going for 40m. If you feel like we are stretching our limits, there is a natural tendency to just stop at the wall at 25m.

Very simple lesson - DON’T STOP AT THE WALL, AT LEAST MAKE THE TURN.

WHY?

After you make the turn, somehow magically you will find the will to get you further than the wall, much further. The goal is visible and your ability to persevere improves dramatically. If you are in a 25m pool, don’t go for 25m, 50m or 75m, go for 27m, 52m and 77m. You’d be surprised how much further you can get.

Recently I had to hit 60m for no fins and 100m for bifins dynamic. I was stopping at 40m and 80m respectively. I generally did not have issues hitting my requirements from AIDA2 to AIDA4

Then my instructor told me “NEVER STOP AT THE WALL! MAKE THE TURN AT LEAST”

And then inexplicably, I was able to dig deep and finish the requirements.

I hit 60m a few days ago for no fins (a little bit easier for me as I can clear 10m on the kick off from the wall) and I hit my 100m requirement yesterday when my aim was to just hit 82m that day, may have to sometime play these little tricks on our mind (AiDA instructor requirements are 50m for no fins and 90m for bifins. The 60/100m was for my Molchanovs certification)

AND REMEMBER - NEVER EVER DIVE ALONE, EVEN POOL SESSIONS.

(Featured photo is my last turn at 80m before hitting my 100m requirement)

FREEDIVING SAVED ME FROM JAWS

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sat, 15 May 2021 15:54:55 GMT

Freediving Saved Me From Jaws

In 1974 Peter Benchley wrote the book Jaws and Steven Spielberg made it into a movie a year later. I was just a wee little toddler at the time and I probably didn’t watch it in the movie theatre but I have very specific memories of watching it on TV over and over again.

This movie scarred me FOR LIFE. It instilled a primal fear of being in water where I couldn’t even see the bottom - EVEN WHEN IT WAS A FREAKING LAKE. This is despite me being quite comfortable in the water.

Media has a powerful influence on our psyche and because of that I have irrational fears of men wearing hockey masks, getting held hostage on a plane and being first in line to get executed cuz I’m American and swimming ANYWHERE I can’t see the bottom.

My first two freediving courses were in Xiaoliuqiu, Taiwan where the waters are crystal clear with 30m visibility which is enough to see the bottom. So no problem there.

My first time out on the boat on Gili Air for my instructor certification we were what seemed to me dumped in the middle of the ocean, vulnerably floating around waiting to be eaten with no bottom to be seen. UGH!

I don’t know what it is about freediving, but all my fears just went away as soon as I got in the water. Freediving has an incredible way of melting away your negative energies and emotions. It's helped with my anxiety and doubts and now my utter fear of sharks.

Now, I kinda look forward to encountering these majestic beasts of the ocean one day. And I will write about it here and let y’all know how it went!

What fears have freediving helped you conquer?

My Octopus Teacher 2021: Lessons in Freedive Safety (中英版本）

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sat, 15 May 2021 15:54:55 GMT

My Octopus Teacher 2021: Lessons in Freediving Safely For the Beginner (中英版本)

QUICK PLUG - if you are a total beginner freediver please follow my socials (below) as I will be putting out content for the TOTAL BEGINNER FREEDIVER in the coming months.

中文版在下方 (CHINESE VERSION BELOW)

Netflix has done it again, more great content with the new documentary My Octopus Teacher. (It's also just been nominated for an Oscar)

My Octopus Teacher - A Story about Love, Violence, Tragedy, Life, Revitalization and Mother Nature

And I’m a total sucker for stories about people deepening their connection with the ocean leading to caring more about the ocean and everything in it. The ocean needs more ambassadors advocating for it, that’s for sure.

But I’m just going to go out and say it: Craig (main character) seemed to be an untrained freediver and what I saw in the documentary put himself in grave risk of dying, risks that could be EASILY mitigated with the knowledge and the skills you learn from a freedive course.

You never hear about freediving in mainstream media, until someone dies from freediving and that’s unfortunate as it can be a relatively safe activity when safety precautions are observed.

And those dying from freediving or breath-holding underwater are often like people like Craig. Very comfortable in the water, fit, athletic etc etc. What could happen, right?

I am reluctant to put out any content out there which deals with freediving safety as I don’t want anyone to consume the content and think they know everything about freediving safely and start doing it without any formal training. Do not take any of the content below as advice on freediving, let it serve as a WARNING and my ONLY advice is to take a freedive course.

Learning freediving cannot done through random Youtube videos and blog posts as what you need to learn all connects in a very deliberate order and as you progress, you build upon skills and knowledge, all whilst being checked and corrected by a trained instructor.

The bottom line is what he is doing is risky. It's one thing to go into freediving and doing things outside of safety protocols and knowing and accepting that risk, its another thing to NOT know the risks you are taking at all.

FREEDIVING ALONE - NEVER DIVE ALONE

This is the number one rule of freediving and Craig was often breaking this rule. The potential risks on extended breath-hold underwater are dramatically higher than just snorkeling on the surface and not doing any breath-holding.

The biggest risk in freediving is a blackout, which is when your oxygen levels get so low that you lose consciousness.

If you experience a blackout and don’t have a partner there to help you, there is an almost 100% chance you will die. The only tiny chance of survival is if you float back to the surface and miraculously end up floating on your back, but only if you are properly weighted and your snorkel is in the proper position, but more on that below.

As beautiful as the ocean is, there is always danger lurking below whether it's the animal life, powerful waves and currents or any acute medical occurrences.

You need a trained buddy to revive you, and also to recognize the signs of hypoxia or oncoming blackout.

SNORKEL IN THE MOUTH

Snorkel in Your Mouth - As useless as the "G" in lasagna and as dangerous as a space shuttle launch with corrosive O-rings.

Craig would often leave his snorkel in his mouth while diving. It serves absolutely no one to have the snorkel in their mouth while breath-hold diving.

The human body is a wonderfully elegant piece of work. Your body knows when it's in the water, and when it blacks out in water, it closes off your airway so that water does not flood your lungs, which makes reviving the diver more of a challenge. What your body does is involuntary spasms of your vocal fold when you are blacked out to prevent flooding of water into your lungs. This is called laryngospasm, and the snorkel in your mouth leaves your mouth open, preventing this life-saving maneuver from happening.

WEAR A WETSUIT

A wetsuit protects you from the elements and makes me look like Barney

Craig went diving with no wetsuit in what he said was 7-8° C. Human bodies consume more oxygen in the cold and one of the skills taught in a freediving course is how to consume less oxygen. This only accelerates the diver into a possible state of hypoxia, and closer to a blackout, which is the least ideal situation in freediving.

Not to mention being in ice-cold waters increases risk of pulling soft tissue, whether that be a pulling his hamstring, or experiencing barotrauma (squeeze) which is the tearing of soft tissue under hydrostatic pressure which can be either the lungs, trachea or sinuses.

I can feel his desire to have as little of a barrier between him and the environment for a deeper connection. However, divers need to understand that not wearing a wetsuit increases your risks and should act accordingly.

RECOVERY BREATHS

In a freedive course, you learn recovery breathing for when you re-surface from a dive or a breath-hold. This helps replenish oxygen in your blood as quickly as possible as you fight hypoxia. Recovery breaths prevent blackouts; its that simple.

In the documentary, I did not see much of recovery breaths. And that only increases the chance of a blackout. You can still blackout several seconds after surfacing. And being not properly weighted (see below) he’ll just sink from the surface to the bottom.

NOT PROPERLY WEIGHTED - IN FACT OVERWEIGHTED

From a visual check on their weight belts, it looked like Craig was wearing about 5kgs of weights and his son even more, 7-8 kgs. That is way too much. I wear 2kgs in a 3mm wetsuit (you need more weight with a wetsuit as the neoprene is quite buoyant). I don't wear any weight while diving without a wetsuit.

You can tell they were overweighted as they would start sinking as soon as they dipped their head below the surface. What goes down also needs to come back up (of course you could always drop the weight). Thus getting that easy drop below the surface will require one to expend more energy on the way up at a point when you are most hypoxic, and that only increases your chance of a disastrous outcome.

A large majority of blackouts occur at 0 to 10 meters below the surface because of the drastic change in hydrostatic pressure causing the largest drop in oxygen available to the body inducing a blackout. Because of this, you want to be weighted so that you will float up from 10m and above.

Being overweighted and blacking out makes a rescue more difficult with a buddy, trained or untrained.

Just to remain on the surface with that much weight would require a lot of effort. If you are properly weighted you should easily stay afloat on the surface without exerting much energy.

There are some legitimate reasons to be overweight, however, for someone who is untrained at freediving, it's just too dangerous.

DUCK DIVE: NEEDS TO BE LEARNED

Duck diving is not just for surfers or ducks

I remember when I used to snorkel, and before learning freediving, just getting a few meters below the surface was a serious struggle as fighting positive buoyancy at the surface can be quite hard for the untrained. That’s where the duck dive comes in.

I am only guessing here, but I believe the reason why Craig was overweighted is to make it easier to fight the positive buoyancy on the surface. With an efficient duck dive, one can get to 2-3 meters pretty easily without exerting much effort just from an efficient duck dive. Then Craig would not need to wear so much weight.

CONCLUSION

The point I’d really like to get across to those who are not trained divers, no matter how comfortable and proficient you are in the water, like Craig, unless you are a trained freediver, you will make errors which will increase that could result in death.

The only advice I will give is to take a freedive course, not because I am a freedive instructor, but because I want to prevent unnecessary deaths and for freediving to continue to be the fastest growing water sport in the world and not hampered by mainstream media of people dying “freediving”.

Buuuuuuuuuut, if you are in the Las Vegas area, I teach freediving courses here until October/November 2020 and then I will be moving to Southern Taiwan and teaching from there. To read more about what a freedive course from me looks like, read here

And if you are a total beginner freediver, then please follow my socials below, I will be putting out extensive content tailored for THE TOTAL BEGINNER FREEDIVER who knows almost nothing about the sport.

如果你從來沒有學過自由潛水的話，請追縱我以下的社交網站，我很快就會把「完全新手自潛手冊」發佈出來囉。

NETFLIX再次做的很好，把更多的好東西放在平台上，新的紀錄片《我的章魚老師》新鮮出爐。

我很喜歡那種關於人類與海洋建立關係，然後更關注海洋和其中的生物。美麗的海洋需要更多的使者守護她，這個是肯定的。

但是我準備要說，克雷格（主角）顯然是沒有經過訓練的自潛者，我在紀錄片中看到他面臨致命的危機，而這些危險可以透過從自由潛水課中學到的知識和技能輕鬆減輕。

您不常會在主流媒體上聽說自由潛水這個活動，直到有人死亡，這個不幸，因為如果遵守安全，做好預防措施，這個算是非常安全的活動。

那些因為自由潛水或者是水底憋氣而死亡的人經常像克雷格一樣。在水中非常自信，健康，身體強壯等，這樣可以發生什麼事情呢？

我不願意發佈任何涉及自由潛水安全的內容，因為我不希望任何人讀完這篇文章，就認為他們已經完全的理解自由潛水的所有安全知識，並且在沒有任何正式訓練以下就進行自由潛水。請勿將以下任何內容作為關於自由潛水的建議，而是應該把以下看為一種警告，我唯一給大家的建議是參加自由潛水課程。

要學好自由潛水，絕不能只看YOUTUBE影片，或是只看部落客的文章。因為您所需要學習的所有技巧，它們都非常精密的順序進行，並且隨著您的進步，您的技能和知識的增長，而所有這些都需要經過受訓的教練進行檢查跟糾正。

安全底線在於他在螢幕前做的充滿風險。在安全規程以外進行自由潛水並接受這種風險是一回事，但完全不知道自己正在承擔的風險又是另一回事。

獨自潛水－絕不獨潛

這是自由潛水的第一法則，克雷格經常違反這個。長時間在水下憋氣的潛在風險遠遠高於僅浮潛在水面而不進行任何憋氣的風險。

自潛的最高風險是昏迷，就是因缺氧而發生的意識喪失。

如果你遇到昏迷的情況也沒有潛伴協助你，你有十成機會喪命，唯一超微生存的機會是，如果您浮到水面並奇蹟般漂浮在您的背上，但前提是你適當地配重並且呼吸管在適當的位置，下面會有更詳細的解說。

雖然海洋美麗，在水底下必有一定的危險，不論是海洋生物、強大的海浪或是暗流，還有緊急的醫療事故。

您需要訓練有素的伙伴來恢復你，並認識到缺氧或即將發生的昏迷跡象。

呼吸管在口裡

在您的口中的呼吸管-像千層麵中的「G」沒用，像在太空穿梭機發射時O形環壞掉一樣危險。

克雷格經常在潛水的時候，把呼吸管留在口裡。其實在憋氣的時候，把它放在口中是完全沒有功用的。

人體是一個美妙的作為，你的身體知道什麼時候在水底下，什麼時候在水底下昏迷，它會把你的氣管關掉，不讓水進入你的肺部，否則要復甦一個潛者需要更大的力氣。當你在水底下昏迷的時候，你的身體會不自主地抽動你的聲帶來防止水湧入你的肺部。

這個叫喉痙攣，如果呼吸管還在你口裡而讓你的口腔呈打開的狀態，這個會讓復甦的過程更難進行。

穿上防寒衣

防寒衣可以保溫及保護身體，也讓我像恐龍仔班尼

在攝氏7-8度，克雷格在沒有穿防寒衣的情況下進行自由潛水。人體在寒冷的溫度下會消耗更多氧氣，而在自潛課中，教授學生其中必需的技巧是，如何少消耗氧氣。否則，這個情況只會讓潛者加快進入缺氧狀態，加快昏迷，是自潛最壞的情況。

更不用說在冰冷的水中，軟組織的損傷機會提高，拉傷膕旁肌群或是壓力性損傷，這是在水壓下軟組織的撕裂，可以發生在肺部，氣管或鼻竇。

我感覺到他渴望與大自然之間以最少的隔膜連繫。但是，潛者需要理解沒有穿上防寒衣會增加風險，務必好好的準備每次的自由潛水活動。

恢復呼吸

在自潛課中，當你回升到水面，或者是完成一個憋氣後，學習用到恢復呼吸。它會幫助潛者盡快補充血液裡的氧氣，以免缺氧發生。恢復呼吸可以預防昏迷，道理很簡單。

在紀錄片中，我沒有看到他做恢復呼吸。這個只會增加昏迷的機會。你回升到水面以後，還有可能會昏迷。而且，沒有好好的配重（看下部分），他也會從水面沉到底部。

沒有適當配重－其實，過分配重

只是用看的，克雷格他的配重帶大概有5公斤，他的兒子大概7-8公斤。這個真的太多了，我一般穿3毫米的防寒衣的時候，會帶2公斤（因為防寒衣物料帶浮力，一般需要多一點重量）。如果不穿防寒衣的話，我是不會配任何重量的。

你可以看得出來，當他們的頭在水面下，身體開始沉下去，表示說他們已經過份配重了。沉得下去也要浮上來。（當然你可以把重量摔掉）輕易下沉到水底下也就是說潛者要花更多的力氣回升到水面，當你差不多缺氧的時候，這種情況更會讓你遇到災難性的結果。

大部分的昏迷會發生在水底下0到10米之間，因為明顯的水壓改變，讓體內氧氣大量下降造成昏迷。因為這個原因，你需要被適當地配重，讓你可以從10米下浮到水面。

當發生過份配重和昏迷，無論你的潛伴是已受訓練或是沒受過訓練，也會讓拯救更困難。

在過份配重的情況下，僅僅停留在水面上就需要大量的力氣。如果適當地配重，您應該輕鬆地漂浮在表面上而不會消耗太多的力氣。

雖然有一些合理的原因而過份配重，但是，對於沒有經過自由潛水訓練的人來說，這樣做太危險了。

鴨式下潛：需要好好學習

不只有沖浪者或鴨子才做鴨式下潛

我記得我做浮潛的時候，還有在學習自由潛水之前，只是要下潛到水底幾米已經是一個非常困難的事情，因為對於沒有受訓的潛者，從水面要克服正浮力也蠻困難的。所以，鴨式下潛成為必要學習的項目。

我只是猜測，但是我相信克雷格過份配重的原因是要克服水面的正浮力。如果加上有效的鴨式潛水，他可以輕易地、不費力氣的下潛到2-3米。克雷格就不用配帶那麼多重量了。

總結

我很希望跟從沒受過訓練的潛者說，無論你在水裡有多舒適或自信，如克雷格一樣，除非你是個受過訓練的潛者，你也會犯一些可以致命的錯誤。

我唯一的忠告是，去上自由潛水課，不是因為我是個自潛教練，而是因為我想阻止不必要的生命危險，還有希望自由潛水繼續成為全球最快速增長的水上活動，不受主流媒體渲染成致命的「自由潛水」。

不過，如果你在美國拉斯維加斯地區，我會在這邊教授自潛課程到2020年的10/11月，然後我會搬到南台灣並在那邊繼續教學。想了解我的自潛課程初班，請按這裡：

還有，如果你是完全新手自潛者，可以追縱下面，我會把更多全面的文章，為完全初學自潛者發放出來，幫助那些從零開始的學生。

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Freedive Equipment - Octopus XL Pulley System Review

rk@blueminddigital.com (Raymond Ko) — Sat, 15 May 2021 15:54:55 GMT

Freedive Equipment - Octopus XL Pulley System Review

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