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I think being part of the freediving community is about connection and connecting with different people. Not just through travel, but also through the sport and this shared passion that we have. For me, this is one of the most beautiful aspects of the sport in general. Part of the reason why I love traveling, competing and training is meeting different people from different parts of the world. So, in a way, there are different perspectives on society and life. But at the same time, we're like down to the root of it, we're all very similar and you know it's something really cool. Everyone in the community is pretty supportive as well, regardless of what level you are as an athlete. No matter how deep you are diving, someone's always nice enough to offer advice.
You develop strong friendships because of the very nature of the sport itself. There are not many sports where you have this incredibly quick and rapid connection with people, because it has to be based on trust. It has to be based on just knowing someone's there for you. You develop strong friendships but then there are also emotions.
If you think about freediving as a sport, especially during competition, it's such an extreme emotional sport. The emotions that you experience within a short period of time go from complete opposite extremes. For example, let's say you are training and you're preparing for a dive. You have this anxiety, you're trying to relax, but you're also nervous. And if you don't make the dive that you wanted to do or something happens, then there are feelings of either anger or sadness. But then when you do make this dive that you've been training so hard for, especially during competition, you are faced with a natural freaking high!
The people that you're with, you're going on this journey with them but everyone is also on their own individual journey. You're still sharing these emotions but in a different way. And you have to connect with these people, because freediving, unlike a lot of other sports, is very dependent on the people that you're diving with because your life is basically dependent on them.
So there is this kind of bond that you form with that person, whether you've never dove with them before, you just met them the day before, but it's like, “okay, I'm trusting you with my life”. And it's quite beautiful. It can also be really scary. And I think you can also see it in the way that people dive with each other and the energies can change depending on who you're diving with as well. That's also something really interesting. With some people, you feel really relaxed and comfortable, but it doesn’t happen with everyone, as you don't know how they are as a diver or their capabilities as safety. That also determines whether or not you wanna push yourself or not.