Well, you are gonna learn all of the necessary theory, you're gonna learn all of the necessary skills, you're gonna learn how to do all of these things safely. So, you're gonna learn things such as how to breathe before a dive, how to breathe after a dive. You're gonna learn how to move through the water, how to leave the surface of the water, how to move underneath the water and how to do this in a way that really helps you to expend your breath hold times and will allow you then to go deeper. You're going to learn how to perform rescues, so not only will you be able to do the skill safely yourself, you'll also be able to look after your buddy who you should be diving with. I mean our number one rule in freediving is to never dive alone, so because of this you need to learn how to respond to another diver that's in trouble. So, these are all very necessary things for you to learn and the best place to do it is at a freediving school.
What Differentiates Schools?
Schools are going to have freediving instructors of various levels, I would say that the better schools have the more experienced freediving instructors. Now, more experienced doesn't mean necessarily that they've been doing the sport for the longest. It could be that they've got more experience in a particular field, maybe you're interested in combining freediving with underwater photography or maybe you're interested in the combining freediving with underwater hunting, for example spearfishing, or maybe competitive freediving. So you may want to seek out a school that's got freediving instructors that have that specific type of experience and then because of that, you're gonna learn from the best in the field.
Should I Ever Stop Learning?
This is really a personal choice. Freediving is a sport or an activity that you can commit your entire life to. I've been in the sport for more than a decade, I've coached athletes to World Records, I've been to more than 100 meters myself and I still feel like on a regular basis I'm learning new things. A lot of the time it's from me help me problem solve with other people with their own problems and this helps me to learn new things myself. So I think freedivers should continue to pursue freediving and continue to try and learn freediving, for as long as they hold that interest.
