The importance of having a correct buoyancy is crucial for dynamic. It’s shocking to see how few people get this right; of course I expect beginners and relatively new freedivers to get it wrong, but I see too many competition level freedivers who do max dynamics having the wrong buoyancy. Wrong weighting means that you…
VISUALISATION VS THINKALISATION Every time I talk about visualisation with a student we get trapped into a cycle of misunderstandings. I realised that is because visualisation is totally the wrong word to use for what I’m trying to teach them. The word visualisation involves images above all. But that bears almost no relevance to what…
A couple of days ago I came to the realisation that I have to accept that I am WHERE I AM, which is not necessarily WHERE I SHOULD BE, or WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO BE. In fact I’ve been struggling with training for about 2 months now, due to a combination of factors (some…
How to Mess Up Your Competition Plan Step by Step My biggest revelation of 2024: Having a plan doesn’t help you if you don’t follow it. So I just recently come back from Poland, where I went to take part to the Deepspot Challenge. They should call it “This challenge is a bitch” so that…
I was asked to give a lecture at Deepspot (the deep pool in Poland), about a subject of my choosing and as I was flying there I opened a blank powerpoint file and tried to write down a presentation. I have a deep love for this subject and I taught it several times during my…
Why You Should Keep a Journal (and why you won’t) The most underrated (and invariably ignored) tip (or 3) I give people: 1- keep a training journal, 2- always update it in details and 3- go back to it especially when you feel your performance is plummeting and training feels harder than it should. You…
A few days ago I posted a video of a slow-mo DNF dynamic turn, which prompted some people to ask questions about different turn-styles and which one is the best for bifins, so I posted another video of the same turn done with bifins, just to illustrate its efficiency, since many think that this turn…
I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject of doping in freediving ever since the bubble burst last July, and I often get entangled in sometimes constructive and some other times absurd conversations with different people about the subject. The most common (and dumb) argument I encountered is “Who is to say what’s doping and…
Competition strategy for dummies Since I got back into competing 2 years ago I have had the same conversation many times over, so I’m making this little post so I can direct freedivers there next time I get asked! Many freedivers who are not so experienced and are quite new in the competition world, don’t…
Yes, you will suck at your first competition. And that’s totally ok. Preamble: If I could have 1 euro for every time I heard a first timer saying “I will only start competing when I can dive to X meters/break that record”, I would be equally poor but less triggered. I used to try talking…
Once I told my coach Bub (short of Beelzebub) that he is the Goggings of freediving. Bub took offence, because he doesnt like Goggings, maybe because they have such different styles, but if you go beyond the surface and how they present, they have so much in common. Bub is the kind of person whose…
Finally competition season is over and I can get my life back! (Meaning straight back to the pool !) Why did I go to yet another comp just to do 80ish meters dives? I’m not sure I have a real answer to that, but I can try. But first: ⚠TRIGGER WARNING ⚠ If you are…
Not only Covid ruined my World Championship in Roatan last august, it also left me with crippled ears. In fact, I became completely unable to do hands-free for a long time after that. Note that while I was sick, I just had fever and throat ache, but zero congestion and I was never unable to…
I have been using neckweights since I started freediving, which is looong time ago. I have always made my own neckweights and I had a system to shape them the way I wanted so that there is no weight or pressure on my throat, and I assumed that is what I was always going to…
Whenever I do a poopy dive (which usually means I turned earlier due to an equalisation SNAFU) I go home and then ignore my coach Bub messages all day, which is very hard because he won’t leave me alone until I talk to him. Since he knows me well enough, at this point he will…