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 of which are freediving related and some others arent).
Without digging into my personal life grievances, all you need to know is how I sabotaged my training and made it miserable and horrible, simply because I couldn’t cope with the fact that I wasn’t where I wanted to be, or where I thought I should be with my training progression, despite showing up regularly and training harder than last year, but things kept not falling into place, and I kept regressing rather than progressing, so I tried to keep up by training harder and more often, which eventually broke me and viciously murdered my newfound love for dynamic and pool training in general.
I also had some health issues which combined with stress and my stubbornness brought me to experience several weeks of a disturbing arrhythmia that just wouldn’t leave me alone. So I finally threw the towel and declared defeat, and I told my coach Bub (short of Belzeebub) to scrap my pool comp dates from my training plan and that I was calling off “real” training in favour of some gym and easy depth since my heart seemed to be happy with those 2 things.
I actually went through this whole arrhythmia thing once before, I know where it comes from and that it’s just the way my body is trying to tell me to slow the fuck down both physically and mentally before I push myself to the point of self destruction. And it’s actually working, even though it’s maddening.
After that I went to the pool a couple of times, and I did nothing whatsoever other than harassing my buddies/students with my camera and my judgement (especially the latter), because as soon as I even thought about the possibility of doing a dive I instantly got anxiety and my heart would start acting up again.
Having more time and no goals made me enjoy diving in the sea again, so I did a couple of sessions to play with FRC and RV dives to see at what depth I would implode (because no matter what, I can’t never not-challenge myself – but it was fun, so it doesnt count as pushing, nor training).
And then I went to the pool again, after a serious visualisation session during which I forced myself to remove any set distance or amount of effort and where my only goal was to observe and fully immerse into that feeling of discomfort that you get after contractions, where you usually try to ignore them or scream at them to go away, or want to crawl into a ball and cry with passion.
Instead I wanted to really taste that, for as short as I felt like it, even if it was just 25m.
In fact I brainwashed myself so well that when I felt the first little sign of discomfort in my diaphragm at just 60m I was happy (trust me, no one is ever happy to get contractions that early, in fact it’s a soul-crushing feeling, especially when you are used to get them much later) and I welcomed that moment and I stayed with it for a while and I kind of lost myself, because after my 8th turn I realised that I just needed to do a bunch of kicks to do a PB and that I will kick myself in the butt if I don’t. And so I did, and my poor buddy whom I told I would probably just do 100m must have wanted to strangle me but she didn’t and so I survived to tell the tale.
Whats the point to all this? To reveal what a weirdo I am? No (I am a weirdo, but if you like freediving so are you).
The point is that I got it all wrong: I wanted to be the freediver I was last year, but better, I wanted contractions later, I wanted to swim further with less effort, I wanted I wanted I wanted, and what did I get? I didnt get SHIT. Until I stopped wanting, and accepted that I am where I am and that is what I need to work with. And that’s when I finally got what I not-wanted.
If there’s one thing that freediving never fails to do is to humble you. Motherfucker.
