I am aspiring to be a better free diver. I love the sport.

But the truth is, like so many philosophies and religions, aspiring to and doing, often look very different.

Freediving isn’t about the depths a human can reach or the time a person can hold their breath underwater.

It’s about learning to be incredibly relaxed and at the same time developing impeccable form to move through the water with the least amount of resistance.

By mastering both of these disciplines, a person will, by default go deeper and for longer.

Another way of saying that to a newbies like me is the continual – ‘Head in, don’t look around, relax your legs, activate your core and numerous other instructions that I’m currently violating.

Much of the time I’ll be descending under water like some sort of rigid neoprene aquatic banana as my coach dives down after me trying to manipulate my bow shaped torso and inquisitive head that just won’t quit looking around rather than tucked in and stream line, or he will be jabbing my stiff legs that, unbeknown to me, clearly are not ‘zen relaxed’ enough.

And then there’s the safety etiquette of – do what you say you are going to do and no more. If you say ‘I’m going to go 10 metres, go 10 metres and come back.

Simple.

Well yes and no. It’s simple for a newbie like me until……until you realise ‘ohhh I massively underestimated this, I think I’m actually good to reach the bottom, how cool will that be?! Weeeeeeee!’.

Well it turns out, with the exception of how I feel, it’s not cool at all and it’s actually bad form and unsafe for my safety diver – ‘Bad sea banana’.

I’m lucky in the club I’m in.

I’m in good hands and have quality coaching. When I fuck up there’s always been someone clocking it. When I’ve thought to myself, ‘I’ve fucked that up a bit, but I think I got away with it’…I haven’t – someone’s always clocked me and ready to feed it back. When I’ve done well its been noted and when I need exercising, they stick me out with the big boys and girls to kick my ass up and down the pool.

I’d be less lucky if I was in some of the clubs we’ve watched this weekend whose attention to detail and safety was severely lacking. Basically they all looked and behaved like me….and that was just the instructors. So a recipe for disaster all round.

Its human nature to want to be doing to the cool stuff. The slick stuff that attracts us initially to so many things that interest us. Freediving is no exception.

The problem is with anything in life, we enjoy instant gratification.

We want to do the exciting stuff that we see people doing. We want to do this week at the latest, what we seem to forget (or don’t want to recognise), has actually taken someone years of hard work and dedication to achieve.

And when we are new we are like kids in a candy store. It’s the famous ‘marsh mellow test’ all over again! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment)

I love having a look around when I swimming about. Not only do I like seeing where I’m going, I also hate tucking my head in as it feels like I’m missing the ride.  It can appear like the difference between racing or walking a scenic coastline. When you are racing, you hardly notice the scenery. Its head down until the end. But when you walk the same route, you experience so much more of the surroundings.

Also learning good form is time consuming and repetitive. Its like being kept in for detention doing lines while your mates are kicking the ball outside the classroom window.

I can only speak for myself, but as a Newbie diver, I want to be down the deep end where the fun is.

It’s just a grown up version of choosing whether you want to spend your school swimming lessons diving for the brick back or doing lengths. It’s got to be the brick!

But it’s not a sustainable mind set for progression in freediving or, in many cases, life in general.

We can only go so far with a kamikaze attitude. Sooner or later we will crash and burn.

So what can we do to change this?

One idea is to create ‘association’.

Association to something better than we currently have or away from something more painful than we currently feel.

To use the same example. I like seeing where I’m going. I like looking around at what’s going on under the water. Not only is it less likely that ill knocked into something or someone, but it’s just more interesting.

But it’s also holding me back. I’m in the marshmallow trap.

So I need to marry these two opposing ideas – looking around vs getting better –  if I want to progress.

Something one of my coaches said this weekend that amalgamated these two opposing needs is very much like setting any goal and works as a nice metaphor external to freediving.

He said you have to get clear about what you want to see and where it is location wise before you get on the rope.

Once you’ve decided, until that destination point, you’ve got to ignore anything else around you. The only thing you should be paying attention to is how you feel internally and what you form is like.
The time for looking around – the only time –  is when you arrive at the destination – whether that’s the bottom of the pool or sea, a wreck, or any other interesting point you’ve agreed to get to.

All the way down that rope there’s going to be distractions – the instant gratifications of this world.

There’s going to be lots of things to disrupt my concentration and my form.

But in order to get to where the really cool stuff is – (whatever that is for each of us) –  I must spend the time learning to be more zen like, totally zoned out and only concentrating on how I feel internally on the decent rather than ‘hey look at that fish….. and that one…..oh and that one…..am I there yet?……oh fuck I’m out of air!’

The bottom line is, form needs to be worked on because it’s going to get us to the fun stuff. It will even make the boring stuff seem cool because it will just become easier the more we do.

It may be dull in and of itself, just practicing leg strokes up and down the pool, but it will be perceived differently and easier to sustain the training when there’s the idea of say-  ‘do this and you will be able to dive and stay down with a Whale one day’ waiting for us at the end for us.

Our ability to achieve things isn’t about will power, it’s about incentive. It’s about incentives that connect to our values and our beliefs.

If we align these properly, will power is very rarely required, but if it is, it’s only needed to light the spark of motivation rather than to fuel the entire objective, which will power can never sustain.

It’s also remembering neither way is wrong or right. It’s simply about what we want and more importantly ‘why’.

If I’m happy where I am, I need to acknowledge that and say, ‘that’s cool’.

Sometimes we are striving for things we already have, but are so focused on what we think we are missing, we actually miss what we already have that really makes us happy.

That being said, if we do want to achieve something different, we can’t stay where we are.

I’m probably at the limit of progression in my diving if I don’t work on the areas I’m critiqued on.

Again, who cares if I look like an inquisitive banana in the water if I’m having fun? I for one don’t.

Crack on and enjoy yourself.

If you can recognise it you’ll be miles ahead of a lot of people who are striving but never finding.

But what I do care about and what I want, is what comes with getting better. I’m not bothered about being a sea banana, but I am bothered where the limits of being an aquatic banana tethers me to.

I’m under no illusion. I’m going to be world class, if for no other reason than because I don’t put either the time or dedication in that’s needed.

That’s never been my objective. I just want to stay under water for longer and see fish and explore wrecks that are predominately fairly deep underwater……and dive with a maaa-hu-sive whale one day.

Goals are about knowing ‘why’ and ‘what’ we want and using that as our incentive.

But once we have our beacon of ‘why’, where we need to get busy at is, is at the process point. The ‘how to’. The ‘Everything along the rope’

If we get the work needed on the rope right – the process – The pre dive prep, the technique and form needed for smooth decent, the relaxation required to preserve oxygen levels and all the other stuff I’ve probably missed – the destination will be a bi product of those efforts.

But that’s all Dandy. It’s true but it’s also a lot of theory.

By knowing this will I be a model student? Will I be laser guided every session? Will my form suddenly become flawless and never to be corrected again through this freediving evolution? Will I never again thug my way past where I’m comfortable just to reach the marshmallow, – aka the bottom or the end of the pool? Will I be more pissed than Zen when it’s not going as I want or being told what to do rather than what I’d rather do?

Of course not. I’ll do all those things. But hopefully not as much. And it’s not just about being new at something. It’s simply about growing. And if we are growing not even the pros are immune to this stuff. They just getting better at acknowledging and resolving it.

Each time we get a new perspective we can never think the same way again.

Each time our values are attached to an objective it’s much harder to violate the process.

When we are aligned to something we intrinsically believe in, we find it much easier to resist instant gratification.

When we have no direction, we seek distraction. When we have an innate mission, we shun distraction.

Success is not about who we are. It’s about where we are.

Because where we are dictates what we see, what we hear and what we feel.

For us to make changes, we don’t have to change who we are, we just have to metaphorically change the position we stand in. By doing this we won’t have biologically changed, but the way we perceive things and how we respond will be totally different.

Edward de Bono said ‘Everyone is always right. No one is ever right.’
It’s just a matter of perspective.

But I heard something about ‘influencing others ’today which really resonated with me and how I work with people – or don’t -depending on how they receive what I believe is right. I’ve always struggled with the majority of the personal development/self help industry and have never really attached myself to any one methodology because I think much of what keeps the industry and individuals in the business is largely padding or just BS theory to keep people locked in.

Tonight’s stint in the ice bucket on a frosty evening, got me thinking about the idea in NLP of modelling excellence in individuals who excel and then with said blueprint we can reproduce similar results by simply following the instructions.

Tonight’s Freediving drill is about becoming comfortable being uncomfortable.

It’s about learning to relax when the body and the mind want to freak out.

Marco a very experienced freediving instructor is our coach for this evening and it’s all about building up C02 in the body and learning to relax into it when the body is screaming for us to breath.

The desire to breath isn’t as much about needing oxygen as it is realising Co2.

In states of apnea, such as freediving, the body is unable to regulate the increase of CO2 by moderating the intensity and frequency of the breathing cycle. Thus, the body signals the brain that there are increased levels of CO2 in the bloodstream (hypercapnia), creating the urge to breathe.

For freedivers, the urge to breathe often manifests itself as a burning sensation in upper portions of the chest or in the form of contractions/convulsions of the diaphragm directly under the ribcage.

Despite these feelings, which can be overwhelming and unnerving for untrained divers, there is no need to panic as these are only signs that the levels of CO2 in the bloodstream are increasing and there is still plenty of usable oxygen remaining in the system.

The ability to recognize your personal limits and tolerance to increased carbon dioxide levels is something that will be developed over time and with practice. Ultimately dive times can be increased by training the body to tolerate higher levels of CO2. ( Explanation was taken from https://www.theinertia.com/health/understanding-your-physiological-urge-to-breathe-when-youre-underwater/)

As I mentioned in one of my other post https://younglobal.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/id-rather-not-who-cares-what-youd-rather-not/ the desire to do well, or more accurately not fail is a strong driver. Wanting to succeed brings with it, the temptation to find ways to ‘go easy’ so we don’t find ourselves falling short of a perceived outcome and feeling crappy about ourselves.

Especially in the case of a novice free diver like myself, it’s hard to override the desire to make every apnea length rather than the thought of over exerting myself too much and not being able to complete the length, which gives the impression of success. Getting to the end feels good. Popping up half way feel like failure.

In freediving terms it’s not, but in real life, default hardwired thinking it does! That’s what we are conditioning. To override the default.

Because freediving, especially in my club, is about contradictions.

We are often succeeding when we believe we are failing.

When we have to surface early its better than fighting through, purely as a feedback mechanism. We are training our brain to be in the moment and to relax not reach a destination that causes both anxiety but also barriers to growth.

Because it’s not about completing one length, is about comfortably doing 4,5,6 or 8, who knows. But it’s about training the brain to be comfortable and relaxed in the moment and not about trying to make a distance. The distance will come as a bi product of being relaxed. By striving for the distance we are rarely relaxed and therefore fail to get as far as we could do.

And then to contradict point, we then want to train ourselves to be stressed and very uncomfortable but then learn to become comfortable in that state.

To force our body to crave a release but to deny it by learning to acknowledge and accept and control those sensations and emotions.

One exercise Marco had us doing this particular night that demonstrates this, was one in which we want to learn to control the natural desire to breath mentioned earlier from CO2 build up rather than need for oxygen.

We swim 50 metres with no fins as quick as we can and then on the count of 20, which isn’t enough for full recovery, we lay face down in the water and attempt to hold for 1 minute.

Instantly you put your head down your heart beating in your chest lets you know you are not ready. Then your mind kicks in. Everything is saying I’m not going to make this. Then the thoughts of not wanting to fail or to quit kick in. The desire not to be beaten or to be the first to break is adding to the sense of panic.

And despite this, this is where I want to be. This is the simulator. This is where we go to work on ourselves. This is where we grow.

By noticing your physiology and releasing the tension, slowing the internal dialogue down and changing it, by taking your mind somewhere else and way form the pain. It’s leaning to accept it and change the perception of the pain, instead of trying to escape the discomfort.

And like all things everything’s about training and conditioning. What I’ve just written is true for me, but it’s just theory to you if you don’t do this. It’s an ideal.

The only way to really understand it is to do it. To practice. To feel it and to know your protocols for failure and for success.

And even knowing what I know, it’s not an infallible system and I regularly break before time..

In this example I came up 5 seconds before the time for the first attempt. I was annoyed because if I knew I could have made it….well once I knew it was just 5 seconds more!

But it’s the ‘not knowing’ thats the head fuck and where part of the training and learning lies. To have no end goal, no time frame and still be able to hold in there.

And it’s also about acknowledging that when you think you are done, as Ex Navy Seal and super human David Goggins says ‘when you think you are done, you are really only 40% done’.

Once I realised I’d come up short I dug a little deeper next time and made the rest of the sets.

It hurt like hell but it was within my capability.

And it’s also about understanding that the Human default is to getting away from pain and towards pleasure. And because of this we often move away from the very things that will, in the long term, make us much happier.

My mantra when I get to my pool sessions is ‘I’m here to train not feel good’.

And what I mean by that is that I want to get better.

And if I want to get better I’ve got to get uncomfortable.

I’ve got to be prepared to meet myself out there both mentally and physically.

To recognise when I’m trying to run away or coast along just so I can remain inside the bullshit persona we all concoct about ourselves in an attempt give the illusion of being better than we really are and essentially feel good.

To listen to my internal dialogue when it’s getting rattled or angry and to look at what’s really going on. It’s about accepting all of that and also recognising my outcome and why I want it.

I imagine a rope tethered to an end point. And when all the other shit is going on I just concentrate on pulling myself along the rope and try to ignore the barrage of other crap that coming in on me.

Getting comfortable about being uncomfortable isn’t about being unbreakable or being indifferent to our emotions. It’s not about learning to be an automaton or a psychopath.

Learning to be uncomfortable and accepting the discomfort is about self-recognition. Of seeing where the cracks are. Of being present to who we are and all our vulnerabilities and short comings.

But even more importantly it’s about recognising, using and developing our strengths.

Those parts of us that are our values, our principles and our underlying character that we rarely get to see when we play it safe or never feel pain.

Like the contradictions in freediving, being able to embrace who we are and who we want to be is equally about being willing to step into the parts of us that we don’t want to be reminded of and the parts that show us we are not perfect by any means.

It’s inside of these spaces and overcoming weakness with strength do we become the person we can respect.

For most people, they have areas in their lives that they are discontent.

We all look at other people and think the grass is greener.

We have regrets and idealistic notions that if we had done it another way, things would have worked out for us where we feel they are currently failing.

We all get frustrated in the areas of our lives where we know ‘what we don’t want’ or where we are not particularly happy.

Areas that frustratingly we don’t know what we would rather be doing and therefore stay stuck.

In many cases this can lead individuals to eventually spiral into one form or another of mental health issues. Whether that’s depression or anxiety related or physical abuse and self-medication with things like alcohol or drugs.

Even for the most driven of people, things are rarely black and white.

When we scratch the surface, life is not perfect for anyone.

None of us have got it totally right regardless of how we portray it on social media.

And I’m certainly no acceptation. In fact I’m probably a poster boy for this human condition! The sense that I should be doing something more, be more, have achieved more by now, but all the time not knowing what that more ‘looks like’ so I can at least go and get it.

For driven people without a direction it can be mental turmoil. Knowing what we don’t want but not exactly what we want can be a real head banger.

It creates a sense of detachment, a feeling of waiting for the bus that may never come and a general a recognition of our real lack of control.

As though life is slipping by and we are still not on the right track. One that we can truly lock into and feel connected to a cause that resonates with us – like that person on ‘the greener grass’, who seems to have found their vocation in life and is really content despite often being run ragged at times.

The reality is that many of us – in fact, if the statisticians are to be believed – ‘the majority of us’ feel this way.

Most people are not overly happy how their lives have turned out and many may never find or feel they found their vocation.

Life for many feels like it’s on auto pilot and the best we can do is just keeping busy and get on with it.

Sad though that is, that’s reality.

But whilst we are sitting in this space where we don’t know what we want in terms of the ‘big picture’ of where we want to go in life, we can manufacture building blocks that may help get us there or at least leave clues where we should be heading.

We can create situations for ourselves that do combine that ‘sense’ of how we want to feel that we may currently be lacking and can really kick the ass out of our self-esteem if we let it.

We can find things to do, that give us that sense of self-respect.  Things that aligns us with our sense of self, the one that we just can’t find ‘out there’ in day to day life.

There’s lots of these little things I do to get this sense of alignment with who I am.

Things that continue to exercise my values and beliefs in Commitment, dedication, being trustworthy and reliable, of having grit and determination when things get shitty and to continue to prove the belief that I want everyone I engage with to have who has a dream, especially me, which is as my Tonk strap line says (taken from the poem Ulysses) – ‘To strive, to seek, to find and never to yield’ and that ‘there is always a way’.

Things that test me and trip me up and show me where I’m vulnerable so I can find ways to overcome them and grow by just being committed. Things that in time will help me become more of ‘who I am capable of being’ once all the bullshit and false indoctrination’s have been stripped away.

One of those things which still tests me, even having done it regularly for a couple of years now is cold water immersion training.

Ironically it has the acronym C.W.I.T  – which it often makes me want to do. There’s rarely a time I relish getting into the cold water.

But what I do relish is overcoming my fear.

Of breaking past the doubt, my fear and inertia. Of knowing that if I just follow protocol and what I’ve learnt so far, I will be ok.

Of knowing that each time I do it I’ve got a bit stronger mentally.

These things become distilled moments of how we want to feel like in our day to day lives, but rarely are afforded.

By doing lots of these things we can at least continue build our sense of self-worth one block at a time. By doing those things that challenge us, those things that attract us and at the same time scare us.

Those things that we know deep down resemble who we are – who we are at our core – who we are meant to be – but who life has taught us to doubt or to believe we were not capable of doing.

No one has all the answers. Many people are living quiet lives of desperation. And I don’t know whether there’s a way out for the majority.

But that’s no reason to quit.

No one knows what’s round the corner – so that means there’s a chance.

But that chance won’t happen if we are not sharpening who we are in preparation.

We won’t even recognise it, never mind the right mind and the balls to grab it as it passes by if we’ve allowed ourselves to give up.

If we haven’t trained in our ‘metaphorical ice baths’ whatever that is for you, ‘it’ – ‘the life you want’ will pass by because we either won’t have the perception to recognise it or the courage and commitment to tackle it.

By doing something each day, or at least sometime in the week that aligns us with who means we get the strengths to handle what’s currently not floating our boat, and at the same time offers us the possibility that when and if opportunity comes our way we do not hesitate to grab it with both hands regardless of the fear.

My first Free diving Competition 18m.