This year, between October 5 - 9 Vertical Blue is proud to host the 'Master Class for Freediving,' a world first in elite freediving instruction.

The course will combine three world experts in the fields of yoga, mental coaching and deep freediving, and will be held over five days in the idyllic location of Dean's Blue Hole (site of the recent Vertical Blue competition, in which five new world records were set).

Principal instructors are:

William Trubridge, BSc, double world record holder (CNF & FIM)

Simon Borg Olivier, MSc BAppSc - founder of Yoga Synergy

Tim Carroll, ACMC, NLP trainer & meta-coach - director of Self Insight

The course fee is US$995 or €655.

For more information write to:

info@verticalblue.net

SIMON BORG-OLIVIER

Simon was introduced to yoga at age six, learning breath retention from his father George Borg-Olivier, who was also a freediver (George was awarded a medal from the queen for freediving into the Mediterranean sea on a cold winter night in 1954 to rescue an unconscious bus driver stuck in a school bus that had driven off a cliff).

Simon was later taught the main bandhas (which he practiced with empty lungs) from Basil Brown, an Olympic athlete.  The result was that Simon could swim a lap of an Olympic pool underwater before he could swim on top of the water.

At age 17, a Tibetan Lama introduced Simon to the philosophy of yoga. In 1980, Simon started the physical practice of hatha yoga, going on to learn from the great masters BKS Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois and TKV Desikachar.

Simon commenced teaching in 1982 and in 1988 he developed the unique Yoga Synergy system. Yoga Synergy style is designed in accordance with applied anatomy and physiology, but it can also be very dynamic and fluid. Simon developed much of his yoga by practicing complicated exercises whilst holding his breath underwater. Hence, the advanced form of Yoga Synergy includes a precise breathing system that uses powerful breath retentions whilst moving and in stillness, making it an ideal practice for freedivers.   In 1998 Simon trained the Australian freediving team sent to the World Championships in Sardinia.

Since 1995 Simon has been teaching courses throughout the world in the Applied Anatomy and Physiology of Yoga, and he is co-author of ‘Applied Anatomy and Physiology of Yoga’, the main text book for a course he developed and lectures at RMIT University in Melbourne.

TIM CARROLL

Tim is a former elite athlete and has represented New Zealand in Barefoot Waterskiing at 4 world championships. He is working today as a Leadership Coach and Trainer and is a mental coach for the Swedish Golf Team.

As an internationally certified Meta-Coach, NLP/Neuro Semantics trainer and speaker, Tim has worked as an expert in the field of cognitive behavioural sciences and self actualising technologies for the last 10 years.

Tim is the co-owner and Director of Self- Insight a rapidly growing cutting edge coaching and training company focused on actualising leaders, teams and organisations.  He has worked with CEO’s, entrepreneurs, leaders and athletes, including some of Scandinavia's most successful companies and elite sporting organisations such as the Malmo Football Club and the PGA of Sweden.

Tim's genuineness, experience, passion for growth and “down under” personality make him a natural and comfortable person to work with who supports athletes in creating outstanding results.

For the last 3 years I have been using Orca wetsuits exclusively for training and record attempts.  At first it was a personal choice to use the wetsuit that I considered most effective for constant weight freediving, now I am fortunate enough that Orca have also become my sponsor.

Although they are originally developed for New Zealand's world-beating triathlon team, Orca's suits are currently better than anything else on the market for freediving, especially for no-fins disciplines, where a high performance suit is critical.

The main reason is the minimal neoprene used in a one-piece suit.  With less neoprene, and therefore less buoyancy, the freediver can get away with less ballast weight, and will have a reduced buoyancy change during the dive.  Now most one-piece suits on the market are worthless to freediving due to the amount of water they let in, but Orca's exceptional neck seals and streamline zip cover mean that you stay completely dry inside the suit.  Also, leaving the neck and head exposed to the cold water will enhance the dive reflex (not to mention make it easier to hear your dive alarm!)

 past, present and future?

Orca's developments for triathlon seem to bring them closer to the perfect suit for freediving also.

The first Orca suit I bought was a Pflex, but this has since been replaced by the far superior Apex2, the suit used in my recent 86m CNF and 108m FIM world records.

Amongst its many advantages, the Apex2 has such an incredibly flexible underarm panel that there is almost zero resistance to arm extension in the recovery phase of the arms.  Other benefits include:

- tapered neck seal: this is not only watertight, but airtight too!  That's right, you have to lift the neck seal to let air bubbles out of the suit!

- SCS silicon coating: the surface of an Orca suit has the best hydrodynamic properties of any neoprene.  Wearing this suit I can complete a 25m length in 1.5 strokes (push-off, armstroke, legkick) - this may sound infeasible, but I assure you the Apex2 just keeps on gliding!

- foolproof stitching & seams: what other wetsuit manufacturer offers a warranty on their stitching and seam work?  In 3 years I have yet to have a seam open or split, and we are talking delicate panels of 1.5mm neoprene.

The Apex2 is a composite suit, made up of panels of 1.5mm, 3mm and 4mm neoprene, giving the benefit of weightless arms and legs but a warm core.

However if you are diving in very warm water (more than 27ºC or 78ºF) then I would recommend the RS1.

This is Orca's newest arrival, a suit made entirely out of 1mm neoprene.  With the RS1 you benefit from the hydrodynamic properties of the SCS coating, but with an almost zero buoyancy suit.  Water can enter to a certain extent through the stitched seams, but I find this prevents overheating in dynamics or in the excessively warm water of the Red Sea in the summer.

When I started doing Free Immersion dives shortly before Vertical Blue 2008 I knew I was going to need a deeper gauge to read below 100m.  Suunto stepped up to the plate, and altered one of their D4's - the new model that has replaced the D3 as specialised gauge for freediving.

There has already been talk about its sharp design and quality materials, but what impressed me most with the D4 was its functionality: accurate, intuitive programming, and attention to details, including:

- The buttons are easy to find, and, compared to most dive computers on the market, very easy to depress.

- To enter dive mode takes just a single button press, and to turn dive mode off (so necessary for when you are safetying and need the stopwatch, or spearing/playing in shallow water and don't want to clog up the dive log) is just two clicks.

- There is a 'depth notify' as well as an alarm, and both are very audible, so for those who need to mouthfill at exactly 38.5m, you won't miss it again!  A surface interval alarm makes it easy to set recovery times for training tables.

- The D4 comes with a clear plastic sticker which can be applied to the screen (like an ipod) to protect from scratches.  Big improvement on the D3's chunky plastic guard.

- When viewing the dive profile (which is displayed on the screen as a graph), you can stop or speed up the replay at any point.  The water temperature is graphed so that you can see how it changes with depth.

- The display can be backlit with green light: essential for when you are diving in murky water, or when doing naked statics in the pool at Long Island Breezes on the last night of Vertical Blue 2008...

It was with great pleasure that I accepted an invitation to run an introduction to freediving course aboard 'Indigo' a fully outfitted 91 foot (28m) liveaboard operated by Geoffrey Hanan of Dolphin Expeditions (http://www.dolphinexpeditions.com)

Geoffrey has been running these excursions for longer than anyone else in the Caribbean, and he knows where to find the dolphins and how to behave with them.

On Sunday night we left the dock in Bimini in search of the dolphin grounds, and we were rewarded almost straight away on Monday, with two very sociable Atlantic Spotted dolphins. 

You have to forget about the idea that these mammals might behave in a way similar to a domesticated animal, following on your heel.

They are wild animals, free to follow their fancy, and this could just as easily be eating, mating or playing amongst themselves as it could be indulging the awkward and gangly humans who bruise the surface of the water.

Dolphins like it when we fit in with them, so it is best to keep your arms by your sides and fins together.  They particularly like it if you dive straight down, turn and come quickly to the surface, and will meet you with a spiraling escort that opens around you on the surface.   

What surprised me the most was how close the dolphins came to me; we were like dancers who face off and move around each other as close as possible without touching.  The bubbles I let trickle from my mouth tickled up the belly of the nearest dolphin as we spiraled together.

Barracudas will often try and stare you down, or dog you around the reef, sharks and jacks will circle you, and cleaner fish will come and trim dead skin, but this is all the language of food: predator and prey; host and symbiont.  A dolphin approaches you for the same reason that a dog will fetch a stick, with the difference being that wild dogs don't fetch sticks...

How much of it is personification?  If a dolphin's mouth curved down instead of up would we see them as such cheerful creatures?  You can strip away all of that and I would still have the sensation that there was something more to the encounter.  Coming up off the sandy bottom, locked in a slow ascending spiral, the dolphin was studying me, following my movements, waiting for a cue...  What that cue might have been I still don't know, but I can't help thinking that it might be some kind of elaborate game, a game that shares similarities to the tease of a beautiful girl, who will move around you, ever closer, to the point where your bodies or lives are almost touching, but the moment you make an awkward move or initiate contact she will vanish with a flick of her skirts.

I could have easily caressed the dolphin's flank, or even taken hold of its dorsal fin, but in case dolphins have a memory - and I'm sure they do - I didn't want to spoil my chances.

Of course there was the course as well - and it is always exciting and rewarding to see people with no experience in freediving make their first steps and fall in love with the sensations.  At the end it's hard to get them out of the water!

All of the stunning photos shown above are courtesy of Mark Corcoran, and are copywrighted.

For more information on freediving courses run in cooperation with Dolphin Experiences write to info@verticalblue.net.

CONFIDENCE IN FREEDIVING

Every freediver will have experienced the day where, from the moment you wake up, each smallest thing that happens seems designed to throw you off, by means of frustration or distraction.

Whether it's your mood which throws a dark light on circumstances, or an actual sequence of negative events, the reaction is the same: that scared and lazy sluggard who is normally regulated to a soundproof corner of our minds, escapes to niggle and gnaw at our resolve.

These are all reasons that we sometimes give ourselves for aborting a dive, and the lazy/scared voice will be standing on a pulpit ready to take command.

At this point training and a long background of deep dives pays off: you must be able to turn off the conscious mind and operate completely on autopilot, confident in the actions and contingent decisions you have programmed into your unconscious.  If you cannot turn off the rational, analytical mind then neither will you be able to turn off the pestering, pessimistic voice that shadows it - he will follow you all the way down, 'blah-blah-blahing' until you either turn early or doom the dive through agitation and increased O2 consumption.

We do however need to be able to distinguish between trivial detail (you cut your finger and the salt water makes it sting) and conditions that actually impact on performance (you have a wry neck and can't relax at all in the breathe-up).

As I settled into the freefall on my way to 86m I felt the bad energy that had surrounded my preparation slip away - it was superficial and therefore stayed on the surface.  Beneath everything else I knew little had happened which would have impacted my physiological state.  Perhaps I breathed up slightly too much (making me a shade hypocapnic), but my blood pressure has been good recently, and I would still be capable of this depth. 

When I turned at the bottom I concentrated, as always, on counting my ascent strokes: 29 for this depth (2 extra because of the lanyard).

Thoughts, both negative - "you're not going to make it!" - and positive - "if you make it you'll have a new world record!" - try to clamber up into your attention, but the trick is to be bored with them before they even begin.

Whatever it is it doesn't matter now - the dive has already been decided long ago... 

The bonus is that I have never been so happy at the conclusion of a world record, precisely because I had to overcome adversary (the hardest kind - the internal adversary) in order to achieve it.

The next day's FIM attempt to 108m was very similar.  An athlete's bad blackout shortly before my dive unearthed the gloomy foreboding.  I told myself that the dive revolved around equalisation: if I was able to maintain relaxation while equalising to the plate it would reduce narcosis and promote the dive reflex.  As it happens I was so focussed on equalisation that I ended up with a mouthful of air at 108m.  When I turned to ascend I instinctively purged this air from my cheeks (about 75ml, which at that depth is almost 10% of my total lung volume), and this might have contributed to the dive being harder than the previous 107m.

If you are able to overcome bad initial circumstances and slip back into that passive and detached state that accompanies a perfect dive then the effect on your future dives is paramount: confidence blooms and your depth in competition rises to meet that reached in training.  The reverse is also true.  Every time you succumb to that despairing voice you will fuel your own fussiness and superstition.

Learn to distinguish between instinct and anxiety.  The more often you get it right the deeper you will bury the sluggard, until his complaining voice will be shut off for good.  Confidence comes from beating the inner adversary.

One last day, one last world record, and now we can all finally relax.

Vertical Blue 2008 saw a total of 23 national records, of which 5 were world records, in all 3 of the self-propelled depth disciplines.

I will be writing a more detailed reflection on this event and the last two world records in the coming days.  Tonight since it is the last night with many of the freedivers who have become, in the last 2 weeks, a supportive team and group of close friends, I am going to leave the computer and the blog at home and crack open a beer.

In brief: huge congratulations to Megumi Matsumoto who waited until the last day to claim the national CWT record for Japan with 64m in 2:12, and to Frank Pernett for his 47m FIM national record.  Ryuzo's oh-so-close dive to 104m was also an incredible effort from the Okinawa dragon after so many days of triple digit dives.

As for my dive, I probably wouldn't have attempted another deep one, especially after yesterday's CNF, if it wasn't for the problems with tags and carabiner in my last FIM record.  I don't particularly like gray areas in world records, even if at the end of the day the 107 did satisfy AIDA's existing requirements.  So, feeling a little burnt out, the dive was harder than it should have been, although I did have an almost full mouthfill at the plate, which is promising for future dives (I didn't know what to do with the air in my mouth so ended up squeezing it out of my cheeks before starting the ascent).  Back on the surface and I had to concentrate to keep it together and finished my surface protocol with only 1.5" left.

Top times for Day 11, the last of Vertical Blue 2008

One of the great fairy tales of Vertical Blue 2008 reached its happy ending today.  Over the last week Leo Muraoka, Japanese born but now a genuine Hawaiian, has been steadily climbing downhill towards the American record in Free Immersion.  Each dive looked difficult, but each day he came back for more, adding another 3m to his announced depth.  66... 69... 72 and a small samba (but a white card) left most people thinking he had reached the end of the road.  But Leo is persistent, he is one of those divers who, when he has run out of oxygen, will complete the dive on determination alone.

Huge contractions rocked his body when Natalia Avseenko, who was deep safety today, met him during the ascent.  Still Leo kept pulling, and he surfaced after an almost 3 minute dive to claim his third national record.

In the photo you can see (left to right): Natalia Avseenko (deep safety freediver), Peter Scott (safety freediver), Joy Hibbs (medic & platform supervisor), Fran Rose (AIDA judge), Leo Muraoka, Kerian Hibbs, Nic Rowan (surface camera), Grant Graves (AIDA judge), Megumi Matsumoto, Michael Trousdell (safety freediver).

Kathryn McPhee was also attempting a milestone today.  She has already established herself as the NZ champion, with national records in all the disciplines, but todays dive was a goal that she had set herself for this event: 50m no fins.  Today she finally made the depth, in a time of 2:17, and the fact that it looked easier than her recent 48m means that there's more in the tank.

Most of the rest of the dives were successful: Tomoko and Megumi inched out to 56 and 59 meters respectively in CWT, while Kerian had a 'super easy' dive to 64m.  Ryuzo was trying for 105m, but turned at 99m, while Dave Mullins cancelled his CWT WR attempt for today.