Preface: Some time ago I announced a Ask Me Anything on Instagram and that I would answer in my stories, but who am I kidding…theres no way I can answer a question in one short sentence. SO I told myself that I’d answer on a regular post, and would you know it, not even 2200…
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…
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…
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…
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…
It was my intention to write a long comprehensive epilogue of the WC 2023 series, but as always the IG word police cut me short and then I was so busy with work, training, home and attending to the many needs of my dog from hell. Since I got so tired of writing long Instagram…
EPILOGUE The most relevant thing of this whole trip for me was the amount of things I learned. Things that I learned about my own diving, competition mistakes I made and that I will never repeat (well, never say never), but especially things I learned about myself, my motivation and what drives me (and what…
When I went home from my no-fins dive, I had less than 1 hour to announce for the bifins dive. I had previously decided to go with 98m, but after my little incident I didnt know if it was such a good idea. Despite telling myself that I wouldn’t base my announcement on other freedivers…
After realising why I wasn’t happy with my medal dive I put on the big boy pants and announced to my team captain that I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice and that I would announce 98 m on the bifins day. I easily did close to that in training and my bifins depths have…
After completing my 96 FIM dive that won me a nice fat silver medal at the CMAS world championship, I went home and cried for 24 hours straight. I was so upset with myself for not having announced more and losing the highest place on the podium. I wanted to be on the safe side…