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 idea of fun is to push things to the limits just to see how far he can take it. I like these people: they never break, but given the choice, they’d rather break than bend. And they make no fuss about it. “You just do it” he always says, as if it was easy, as if there is a block of concrete instead of feelings and emotions in his brain. I envy that so much, I want concrete too, a lot of it.
The thought of concrete and the concept of not feeling is what I focus on every time I’m on the edge of tears during my hardest DYN sets; most of the times I make it to the end just by telling (or rather shouting to) myself “HEY!! Just get to the end of this rep and then you are allowed to stop!” (as opposed to “You can stop right now”- because there is a HUGE difference).
And then when I surface and take a few breaths and I can think again, things seem better very quickly and by the 5th recovery breath I’ve already decided that I’ll do the next rep. And then the desire to quit comes back in the middle of that, but again I tell myself to stay in the moment and finish just that rep and then stop, and then the cycle starts again and I almost always make it to the end of my workout without neither crying or quitting.
I learn so much from these sessions, about myself, about my reactions (and over-reactions) to things, and how my feelings take over logic when I feel challenged. And I especially learn that even though it is hard, it is possible to stay in the moment and regain control over my thoughts. I think you could call it resilience. While some people learn this in their therapist office, I learned that from Bub and his Goggings-style pool workouts. Only to forget again as soon as I’m out of the pool and then I have to re-learn it all over again on the next pool session, twice per week, every week during the winter months. Clearly I’m not a very fast learner and I need hundreds of repetitions before I can retain the info (if you ever tred to train a french bulldog or a dog of a similarly thick and stubborn breed, you will know exactly what I’m talking about). Many people never learn it though, because GIVING UP IS SO MUCH EASIER.
One of Bub favourite quotes is “pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever”, and even though it sounds like a macho-man thing to say, it is actually deeper than you would think at first sight. Next time you feel challenged and want to quit, tell yourself to STAY IN THE MOMENT (and mean it). You may be surprised by the strength you might find in that thought.
How will that help your depth progression, you will ask? O-M-G, dont get me started with that because I dont have time now, but I’m sure I’ll ramble uncontrollably about that in the near future.
And if you dont know who Goggins is, check him out HERE (and either get totally inspired, or hate his guts – there are no middle ways)
Fun fact:
Whenever I say the word “therapist” my mind goes here:
