A Philosophy towards individual development in Freediving
Freedivers have always aimed at the highest possible quality of education in freediving and have been the first to understand that the best freedive instructor is actually a keen observer and good communicator, whose function is to help discover each student’s personal freedive objectives, to formulate together with him a plan, and to leave the student with the ability to progress systematically and safely on his/her own. We do not encourage certificate ‘hunting’ per se although if a student requires we can arrange certification according to AIDA national and/ or international standards or give proof of competence to any other chosen international freedive body of that student’s choice. (FREE, APNEA ACADEMY, IAFD,)
Freediving is for us a passion that we share with all who come to us and is an exchange of knowledge in the Socratic sense of the word. You very quickly learn to think, train and freedive for yourselves..
The approach which has made us unique, is a combination of the following points:
Safety Rules and Procedures
We were the first to formulate the 20 Safety Rules and Procedures for Freediving and to teach them as a separate subject so that each student would be able to understand them and assess the risk involved in disregarding them.
Personalised Training for better results “ASSESS, PLAN, ACT”
Individual: We work with small groups. If you have felt lost in a group before, in this program YOU will be one of only 2, 3 or 4 students with 2 instructors observing every one of your dives. In addition to this we also specialize in individual training clinics over a time scale that suits you. In this equation our interest is in your personal development.
Within our course structures we do NOT restrict a students development to fixed depths, e.g. a beginner entry student is not limited to a ‘10m beginner’ course level, if the potential is there to safely and comfortably go beyond that.
You are given every encouragement to develop at your own pace in whichever discipline you choose.
You are NOT required to have attended previous structured levels set by a course in order to move on.
After the initial assessment we construct together an individual plan of objectives to be achieved during and after the course.
Specialist: ‘Freedivers’ approach allows you to have a greater choice over the discipline you choose or over particular techniques, which you determine need special attention; a conversion to monofinning, for instance, correction of style, or tactics and pacing etc.
Diagnosis and Problem Solving “What is holding YOU back?”
Diagnostic -We look very hard at the details of every student’s performance; ventilation, pre-dive preparation, style and hydrodynamics, and equalization, for example, to determine his instructional needs and to formulate specific tactics for achieving his/her desired objective.
For instance, one of the most important things we do BEFORE YOU EVEN GET INTO THE WATER is to examine your equalization technique on dry land.
For many people equalization failure in freediving is the 5m-7m ‘wall’ that, in the context of a larger group, in other freedive courses is often ignored or mis-diagnosed and left uncorrected. In a situation like this a student may leave that course feeling that he/she has the information for achieving a depth that his breath-hold potential may allow, BUT is incapable of doing so, or told that further progress is limited due to a medical or physiological problem and very often the student leaves with the conviction that there is no solution to their problem or that there is no possible progress beyond that point.
A problem where a student believes he has an equalization block due to poor technique might actually translate as a problem of adaptation to pressure. We can diagnose that.
We have become experts in diagnosing and treating all the main problems that comprise equalization blockages.
We apply an analytical approach in the same way to problems of style and hydro-dynamicism and to problems of tactics and pacing.