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Hey guys, my name is Lily Crespy, I'm an AIDA instructor trainer and I've been teaching freediving for about 10 years, I'm also an Alchemy ambassador. Today I want to give you a few tips on how to improve your mouthfill equalization.
The first tip I would say would be to really take care of how you do your charge, don't rush the charge, and make it really properly and really full in using all the different steps. So first of all you're going to pinch the nose or have the nose clip on, and then the first thing you're going to do is tilt your head, no need to tilt it way back just like about 45-degree tilt, and then you're going to do the m sound, making sure that you feel properly, all the oral cavity, nasal cavity, and then you're gonna drop the draw and also finally drop the tongue down.
When you finish your charge take a second to consciously check that you've relaxed your belly again because during your charge you create tension, you contract your abdominal muscles to push the air into the mouth and after the end of the charge, once you close your glottis, you have to check that you relax completely your belly again.
Another tip is to once you've done your charge don't bring the head down too fast again. Because just this movement if your mouth is really full it's already going to create pressure and it can possibly create some leaks through your glottis. So wait a little bit and basically just the first few meters after you're finishing your charge, the pressure in the mouth to keep your eustachian tubes open will be just maintained by doing this movement of bringing the head back into the neutral position. So don't bring the head back too quickly and too soon.
Another very important tip that was very useful for me is usually when we learn the mouthfill and we learn the different steps of the air management after the charge, we always learn that we have to first close the jaw, then use the cheeks and finally use the tongue in t k and h position. And if you're like me, the back of my tongue is naturally in the up position, so for me, it takes quite a bit of effort to bring the tongue down and I found that it was very useful to do actually the cheeks before the jaw, instead of doing the jaw before the cheeks. Because by doing the cheeks first, I keep my jaw down and it was helping me to keep my the back of my tongue down as well. It was much easier for me. So you can use that as well, you can try to do first the cheeks and then the jaw and at the end the tongue in tkh as usual.
One more tip was to push the air to the front of the mouth. So this is to prevent the pressure from pushing against the glottis and maybe causing some leaks or even swallowing completely the mouthfill. Try to push the air to the front of the oral cavity, as if you wanted to push it against like under the upper lip or under your eyes. so it looks something like this. It doesn't look very sexy but... So try to push the air under the upper lip or under your eyes.
Another tip which is more for the end of the mouthfill when you have very very little air left and you want to squeeze the last remaining bits of air to gain a few more meters of equalization is to do this kind of like old lady smile, like a kind of pout, which looks like this. So it's gonna squeeze the last remaining bits of air that you have in your mouth and you can gain a few more meters.
And finally the last tip I would give you which has been quite useful for many of my students is to forget about the mouthfill! Once you've done the exercises dry and in shallow water and you've you can do all the exercise properly with the balloon, with the auto vent, and all this, it means that you know what to do, your body has memorized the steps and you have the awareness of what's what you're supposed to do. So then during your dive, just trust your body that it knows what to do and just forget about it. Just think about something else think about relaxation, think about enjoying the sensations of the dive, and just trust that your equalization is gonna just repeat whatever you've been practicing hundreds of times on dry land. I hope this was useful, enjoy your dives, and take care.