I just heard about the freediving course that @Matt_Brown is taking next weekend, May 30, put on by Single Breath.
There’s no references to surfing on the Single Breath website.
Justin- You asked about freediving with respect to breath hold while surfing. As freediving is a sport entirely about holding ones breath under exertion it is (in my opinion) the ultimate cross training activity for surfing. I don’t mention surfing specifically on my web site because I am currently promoting freediving as its own sport activity. I may branch out and begin promoting it more as a cross training tool.
Additionally FII offers “waterman survival” classes which is a tailored curriculum that focuses specifically on apnea for surfing / other challenging ocean sports. http://freedivinginstructors.com/en/waterman
It is the same curriculum FII uses to train the Seal teams.
I am looking at offering these classes through my dive school. If there is enough interest on Maui I will bring a qualified instructor out to guest teach this material.
There is also the “waterman extended” course which is both the survival training and Level 1 freediver curriculum as a single class.
Students completing this class receive their freedive certification.
Mark Lozano typically teaches the waterman classes / extended out of Oahu but I see that he doesn’t have anything on the calendar right now. You can contact him directly here:
Or if there is enough interest I will fly him here to Maui out from San Diego.
My next Level 1 class is this weekend. It is focused on the sport of freediving.
I have had feedback from several Piahi regulars that my FII level 1 freediver class has been extremely helpful for them. I wish my former students that surf the big kine would train with the “Maui Freedive” group more often as it is important to keep body/mind conditioned for long breath holds.
Note: The “Maui freedive” group is a recreational group of certified freedivers (any accredited organization) that meet to train and dive on weekends. It is not officially part of my instructorship or the singlebreath freedive school.
The classes are challenging but reasonably safe- especially at the entry level. Equalization is the most difficult aspect of the classes for most students. The breath hold comes naturally. Besides surfing you might just fall in love with another sport, which is a good reason to learn. It also provides proper safety for spearfishing and general snorkeling activities which a lot of surfers engage in.
Hope this is helpful.
See you in the blue.
– Jon
Here’s a review from the course I took at the end of May, 2014.
The Level 1 Freediving course is a great intro to recreational freediving. In our class we had a wide range of students from nervous snorkelers who had never spent more than an hour in the ocean at any one time to a bad habit filled surfer/self taught freediver.
First we had a classroom session, which started with all the scary stuff and really important tips like NEVER HYPERVENTILATE! And most importantly how to rescue each other, which combined with proper breathing are some of the keys to safer freediving.
Day two was confined water basics, again most importantly how to rescue each other. Culminating in static breath holding. Everyone held their breath for a long time, the goal was a three minute breath hold and several of us got there. Then we learned that a good rule of thumb is that you can actively dive about half as long as you can hold your breath when keeping still.
Day three was amazing! We took the Hina, a sailing canoe out about a mile into the deep blue water off Polo Beach South Maui. We started with rescues so that we’d be ready if anyone had problems, the buddy system is the difference between safe and dead. We made a series of deeper and deeper dives with the goal being 20 meters (66 ft.). Several of us made the goal. It was incredible dropping down into the deep blue and gliding back up, relaxed, safe and comfortable.
I’d recommend this class to anyone, and if you freedive at all, then this class could save your life.
@Matt_Brown, There’s an article on Wikipedia for Hyperventilation as well as Shallow water blackout.
Otherwise unexplained blackouts underwater have been associated with the practice of hyperventilation.1[3][5] Survivors of shallow water blackouts often report using hyperventilation as a technique to increase the time they can spend underwater. Hyperventilation, or over-breathing, involves breathing faster and/or deeper than the body naturally demands and is often used by divers in the mistaken belief that this will increase oxygen (O2) saturation. Although this appears true intuitively, under normal circumstances the breathing rate dictated by the body alone already leads to 98-99% oxygen saturation of the arterial blood and the effect of over-breathing on the oxygen intake is minor. What is really happening differs from divers’ understanding; these divers are extending their dive by closing down the body’s natural breathing mechanism, not by increasing oxygen load. The mechanism is as follows:
The primary urge to breathe is triggered by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the bloodstream.[5] CO2 builds up in the bloodstream when O2 is metabolized and it needs to be expelled as a waste product. The body detects CO2 levels very accurately and relies on this to control breathing.[5] Hyperventilation artificially depletes this (CO2) causing a low blood carbon dioxide condition called hypocapnia. Hypocapnia reduces the reflexive respiratory drive, allows the delay of breathing and leaves the diver susceptible to loss of consciousness from hypoxia. For most healthy people the first sign of low O2 is a greyout or unconsciousness: there is no bodily sensation that warns a diver of an impending blackout.
Significantly, victims drown quietly underwater without alerting anyone to the fact that there is a problem and are typically found on the bottom as shown in the staged image at the right. Pool lifesavers are trained to scan the bottom for the situation shown.
Breath-hold divers who hyperventilate before a dive are at risk of drowning. Many drownings unattributed to any other cause result from shallow water blackout and could be avoided if this mechanism was properly understood and the practice eliminated.