Freediving is breath-hold diving, freedivers use inward control, self-discipline, and understanding of body limitations to descend into the ocean while holding their breath until they resurface. Today, most people associate freediving with ideas of superhumans plunging to the darkest depths of the sea with only the air in their lungs, the power of their bodies and the will of their minds to keep them alive and bring them back. However, every time you slip into the water and hold your breath, you are a freediver, exploring our world of water from the shallows too, occasionally the depths. Humans first started freediving through necessity, for food, trade-able items or items lost overboard, however, in the most recent time, freediving has evolved into a recreational pastime, a way to take photos, catch food, and as a sport.

Below are the reasons why you should consider learning freediving.

1️⃣ Overcome your self-limiting mindsets 🧠✨

You may firmly think a lot of things that hold you back. Like one of the most common beliefs that most people have:

"I'm not ready, and I can't hold my breath for long."

Guess what? Beliefs are not facts! 🙅🏽‍♂️

Most people think that holding their breath for 45 seconds or so are the maximum they could achieve before their freediving lesson. However, after a breath-holding workshop with freediving instructor, they'll quickly find themselves being able to hold their breath for 2-4 mins long. What they once thought they were capable of a mere hour ago. Very much exceeds their expectation. Imagine what other boundaries you can overcome within a short training time or restructured mindset. That's a powerful lesson you'll learn in day 1 of your freediving course.

Nothing is more limiting than the mindset you put on yourself. During your freediving training, you may have thought that you can't dive too deep because of your ear pain, yet with the guidance of the experts, you can conquer those equalising difficulties with methods and courage.

2️⃣ Focus on yourself, listen to your body 🧘🏻‍♂️

In freediving, a lot of time you have to work on yourself since it's only you who know what your heart rate is underwater or how much oxygen you have left within you. All the meditative and relaxation practices inevitably lead to a lot of self-reflection; it's kind of like working on yourself first rather than focusing on the goal. Eventually, it's the process that leads you to the target.

3️⃣ Gain more insights into yourself 👤👀

We are living in a world full of distraction and information. It's challenging to know what's going on inside our body and mind. You must have heard of the 'world's most quiet room' built by the scientists. It's so quiet that you can listen to and observe your heartbeat. When you're freediving, you have no distractions or information outside of yourself. You'll feel your heartbeat, the air in your lungs, the nervous system, and your mind go between the states of calm and chaos.

Being underwater, by having yourself feeling on the pressure, fear, breathing, lung capacity, and mindfulness. Moreover, you experience yourself alone on a highway straight to self-awareness. You'll experience all kind of sensations. For instances, you'll learn that if you move slower, you can go deeper. If you close your eyes, you might get less nervous, and if you look where you're going, you'll probably get excited and waste your precious energy.

4️⃣ Learning how to relieve and relax in stressful situations using the breathing techniques 💆🏽✨

In a freediving course, you'll learn about breathing techniques. It teaches you to relieve yourself from stress, think about nothing, focus on your breathing and find your peacefulness.

Apart from freediving, you may apply this technique in your daily life, in the office, home or a commute, whenever you feel like you need a break from the stressful situation. Within 5 minutes or so, you will find yourself more relaxed.

5️⃣ Freediving provides you health benefits 💪🏼

Unlike any other land-based sports, activities that take place in the water can relieve joint pressure, reduce swelling, and increase the range of motion. It also increased your rib cage and diaphragm flexibility to help with taking a bigger breath and avoid lung injuries when diving deep in the ocean. Moreover, freediving in increased capacity and efficiency of your respiratory system, benefiting your body to consume oxygen more efficiently.

Furthermore, freediving requires a lot of movement: swimming out to the dive site, performing safety, setting up the line, various depth and dynamic disciplines, etc. Apart from all these physical movements, freedivers often train at the gym and practising yoga outside of the water to strengthen their cardiovascular fitness.

6️⃣ It requires little to no gear to buy or bring 🤿

Freediving gears are not like scuba diving gears. Especially for people who travel often, it requires no heavy equipment or clothes. Minimal freediving set up (mask, snorkel & a pair of fins) is ideal for carry-on luggage.

7️⃣ Get closer to marine life 🐠🦑🐬

Though scuba diving let you stay underwater longer, the bubbles sometimes frighten marine life, and the cost of renting or transporting gear can restrict the destinations that you’re able to see. With freediving, you are often seen as a fellow marine mammal and are less threatening to underwater sea life. It’s a much more intimate experience than any other type of diving or snorkelling. Since all you need is your body, a mask, and fins, the places you can explore through freediving are nearly limitless.

8️⃣ It's one of the safest sports 😉 🤿 👌🏻

There have been more than 50,000 competitive freediving worldwide, and there has only ever been one recorded death in a competition. Now, 1 out of 50,000 dives is an incredibly low number. So how is this possible? How is the competitive freediving death rate so low?

Interestingly enough, the Australian Freediving Organisation noted that sports such as running, cycling, and scuba diving have a higher death rate than competitive freediving. Taking a proper freediving course, obeying the rules, never diving alone, and staying within your limits makes freediving one of the safest sports, primarily when appropriately practised recreationally.

An organisation like Molchanovs even included the 'Buddy system' in their course syllabus. Ensuring you always dive with a buddy, making sure your buddy is okay when they resurface from the underwater and able to do safety to you when either of you is in any critical situations. However, when not done correctly, recreational freediving can be extremely dangerous. The death rate in competitive freediving is roughly one death in every 50,000 competitive dives. As for recreational freediving, the number is much higher, sitting at about 1 in 500. It usually happens when someone is poorly trained, alone, and venturing into underwater caves, reefs, or dangerous situations. Always remember not to dive alone; it'd be safer to dive with a buddy.

9️⃣ Gives you a fantastic reason to travel 🏝 😎

After unlocking your freediving ability, you're now available to plan trips that revolve around good freediving locations. There are many popular freediving locations in Malaysia, such as Perhentian Islands, Tioman Island, Redang Island and Semporna.

Apart from Malaysia, Islands like Panglao, Bali, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan, Taiwan, San Diego, Cenote etc. are fantastic locations to plan your next freediving trip.

One of the most fantastic freediving places you need to put into your bucket is – Tonga is one of the few places in the world where you can still swim with the whales. Isn't it amazing?!

🔟 Meeting new friends, widen your social circle 🌎 👩🏼‍🤝‍👨🏽👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏻👨🏾‍🤝‍👨🏼 💙

Freediving brings people together. Most people preferably to learn their freediving course on the island. First is you get to enjoy the beach, second, you get to feel the good summer vibes, third is always excellent to have your freediving training in the open water (ocean) rather than doing in the pool. That's why a lot of people coming from the city, tourists from around the world would travel to the tropical island to sign up for a freediving course.

In the course, you'll meet interesting people coming from different backgrounds with inspiring life and stories to share. Everyone's sharing the same goal, train together, learn together and support each other.

Do you freedive? If you don't freedive, are you considering it now? 😉 Interested to know how to choose the right freediving course? 👉🏼 Read this!

Sign up now and get a FREE yoga session, t-shirt and underwater photos of yourself!

👉🏼 Book now! 👈🏼

Sources

thecouplesummit.org deepblue.com

thesaltsirens.com