This is a post by Sanne.

Since I made a good comeback last month in the Wiesbaden competition, I have been training with a few different things. Yesterday – Sunday 25th of october – I competed in the competition in Liège, Belgium, amongst a whole bunch of fellow Dutch freedivers. It was nice to meet up with all dutch freedivers again, met a few freshly trained freedivers as well. Good to know the dutch competition interest is still around!

It was the perfect time and place to give my change of training methods a better test, as in Wiesbaden I was more focussed on proving myself I was able to do solid performances.

Dynamic with Monofin

Getting ready for the turn

The major change in dynamic with fins for me was to go for monofin. I have been training with it, but never did a competition with it. In training, my technique has been far from good and that might have been a reason as well to never show it to anyone else in a competition . But as we’re trying to change some things over time, It was a “What the heck” moment which made me decide to just do it!

Preparing myself for a push off in a 1m 25cm deep pool at one side (2m 15cm at the other end), I was surprised to see that the push off was fairly good. I had trouble finding the rythm and balance, but after lane one I was up for a turn. I remembered Pim pointing out in the briefing that there was a ledge of 10cm’s, so reminded myself last minute “Ow yeah, touch above the ledge!”. So I swam up a bit and made proper turn, trying to find balance and rythm yet again. On to the ‘harder’ turn at the shallow part of the pool, all the way there I visualized how I would try and make a flat turn, which I managed to do fairly well. But after the push-off the wall, I drifted sideways and my balance was kinda not there anymore. On my way to the 75m, I decided to call it a day as my technique is still failing me to make it a relaxed and easy run. Although I wasn’t out of breath, I think it was a good thing to make 75 meter my first monofin personal best

Dynamic without fins: 2 strokes or …
My mission for DNF was to try and make it across the pool in 2 strokes, which I had been training in the Tongelreep last Thursday. After the start I felt that the somewhat shallow pool made it harder to be properly balanced and I felt my legs drifting upwards. At the 2 strokes mark, I did not make it far enough to just glide the last bit so had to make an arm stroke to get there. The way back to 50m’s was no different and after the turn at 50 it became more vital to pay attention to technique. Because I had been focussing on that quite a lot lately, I found that holding my hands flat on my legs after the arm stroke did help in gliding further. So on my way to 75m’s I usually feel myself getting a bit sloppy on technique, so I put in the extra effort to keep the technique on a good level. All the way to 75m’s my technique was proper and it all felt good. I decided to make a turn and push off the wall and resurface. Immediately after I surfaced, the safety guy gave me the resting board and I made a clean surface protocol. A training in a training to be honest, as the line wasn’t strong enough to support a freediver hanging on it, I decided to try the board for a change at the deeper part of the pool.

Concluding
All in all this was a super training session, I learned a lot from my efforts that day. Dynamic with monofin was far from perfect, but did taste like I could do more. Also on DNF I made progress, but need to have more neckweights to be able to work with different pools.

Another lesson I learned and put to practice really well was the fact I was happy with a 4 minute 20 seconds static. With most people whom I explain this to it’s an eye-brow raiser, but this is where I am at for the moment. I need to have fun in freediving and anything more the 3 minute 30 seconds was good for today, so I’m happy with it!

At the end of the day I borrowed Daan’s monofin for a quick test. Did 50 meters with it on my normal style, which already felt so much better than my own monofin. After that Daan and Jorg asked me to try the kick-kick-glide technique and that went surprisingly well. Made to the 25m’s in 3 kick-kick-glide’s which Daan explained was a good tempo. So to get back on a comment I got from Eric van Riet Paap on facebook, yes I will be switching to monofin for now and really would like to get a glide monofin.

This all sure taste’s like more and gives me some new opbjectives and new energy to train hard! Most importantly I had a lot of fun at a freediving competition.

This is a post by Jorg.

Our Training Pool

Thursday was pool freediving again. Now that we have joined the Scubacity Diving team to make use of their training facilities, we can now start with some good trainings again. Just real freediving training.

Like mentioned previously we now also have the hot tub to our disposal. So we started the first 30 minutes with some statics in the pool. I was up first and did 3 easy statics. All around 2 minutes to test which setup I should be using the coming time. First one was with my swimming goggles and while it felt pretty okay and relaxed, the pressure on the eyes was not very relaxing.

Second static was with my favorite diving mask, my cressi-sub  superocchio. But I noticed a real difference with having much less of a diving reflex, because my face is much more covered in the mask. So for sure this option is gone now.

So back to the swimming goggles. I decided to set the timer of my watch to 30 seconds and repeat itself every cycle, so that I wouldn’t have to look. Tried it, and it felt pretty good. So good that I have  decided to leave the swimming goggles away altogether for the coming  months during statics. The only reason I want goggles is so I can see how far I am at time, and that’s exactly what I shouldn’t be doing at the moment. Will be interesting though, because it’s clear I’m still not very comfortable with spectators and my failure to deliver great statics.

Training with the Monofin

Of course Sanne made it look easy again by doing a 5:12 minute static without any problems and without a warm-up. Although I guess he was pretty warm when he was done with the static in the 37 degrees hot tub.

Second half was for dynamics. Really focusing on monofin technique and relaxation. After trying my own monofin it’s now a fact that it’s a shitty one and that I will never use it anymore. And while Sanne his monofin is much better it’s just a masochistic thing to have on your feet. The footpockets are not from this world, so we should be looking into buying a new one some time soon.

I did some 25 meter laps in a fairly easy style of around 20 seconds without getting tired. Very small amplitude at the moment to keep the upper-body as still as possible and to avoid making a snake movement. It’s still hard but in the coming weeks it should be possible to make some good progress.

This is a post by Jorg.

Good news! We found our dedicated training place. A place where they respect freedivers and where we get room to train and play. Even better, it’s in the same pool as we used to train between the recreational swimmers, our beloved 5 meter deep, 25 meter pool.

We joined the Scubacity diving-team, which consists mostly out of scubadivers. And now that I think of it, probably only of scuba-divers, and Sanne and I are the first freedivers over there.

The owner of Scubacity, Thomas Koppelmans, is actually the guy that gave me my scuba open water course in ‘97, so it’s fun to return to my diving roots.

The great thing about this all, that we not only have a dedicated part of pool for ourselves every Thursday between 21:00 and 22:00, but now we also have the hot tub available again for some statics. We tried it yesterday and it was much warmer than usual with a 37 degrees temperature, but the fact that we are very happy with this solution made us do some easy statics.

And as an added bonus, we now also have training time available on Wednesday at Uden and Tuesday in Almere. So if there are any freedivers in that region, let us  know!

Back to some static, technique and monofin training sessions! Inspiration is sky high!

This is a post by Sanne.

The 4th and final section of the number 23 project, was the competition day. Although my enjoyment was already good after a successful training project, the thought of competing again and meeting up with other freedivers is the bonus to the project.

After arriving and getting myself inscribed at the competition, I walked away from the stand with the number 35 on my hand. After settling for a nice spot in the pool, the sun made us decide to relocate to a spot without direct sunlight. Jorg and I met up with Eric van Riet Paap and Erik Skoda, whilst doing so Andreas Hiemeyer and Pim Vermeulen also joined the conversation. Good to see others freedivers again and hearing about their progress in training and well being in general.

Time to check out the start times and wait for static to commence. Whilst the static was underway, I spoke to Eric about a Blue Seventy suit. He’d let me try out the suit to see if it made any difference for me. After trying it on I swam a few test laps, but couldn’t find my peace when I was underwater. I don’t know if it was the current in the pool or the change of wearing a suit, but I got out of the suit and did another lap. This lap was reassuring me of how I had been training before, was the way to go in the competition.

In my preparation for static I started with a 1 minute empty lungs and a 3 minutes full lungs static. Both of the preparation statics were very relaxed and at ease, with no real mind troubles and sabotaging toughts. Fueled by confidence I started my static performance. Contractions started at a normal period and at 3 minutes 30 seconds I was in my own safe zone, but could continue to the next taps. After 5 minutes and 12 seconds I really felt good about it and resurfaced in a clean recovery. Whilst looking at the judges I felt like a million bucks, the white card was presented and Jorg, Marieke & Eric congratulated me on my performance. That felt great!

The time in between the static and dynamic passed fairly quickly as I’d been talking with Michal Risian, which I’d never met in real life.

I announced 60 meters, a distance which is a perfect marker for myself. Usually between 45 and 60 meters I experience the harder part. Now I knew that 60 meters was more than enough and I surpassed this distance in a determined way. As my stroke count varied between 2,5 and 3 strokes, I started burping my way to the 90 meters. As I did not really feel at ease with all the burping and decided to call it a day at 91 meters. Yet again to make myself fel really good about my performance.

I really enjoyed the competition in Wiesbaden and meeting up with all the other freedivers. It had been a while, but taking the step back to take a brake really helped me regain myself. Now the confidence levels are up and I’m thinking of joining another competition at the 25th of October.

This is a post by Sanne.

As this was the section in which I would focus on the technique aspect of my freediving, I put all of these into my training. The specialized training section focuses on:

• Technique
• Speed
• Stroke
• Depth

This week and last week I didn’t really wanted to push my mental limits in preparation for the competition, so I chose to only go for the static in the pool which resulted in a nice reassuring time of 5 minutes 09 seconds. Enough for me to still enjoy and reassuring me on the current path.

Technique

Arms stretched OK

Tuesday I put all my effort in getting my new arm stretch in my system. I have to keep telling myself now, RIGHT over LEFT and Lock right thumb. But today Jorg and I went out for the speed, stroke and depth training and by my own surprise I kept doing it the other way around… So it’s not hard coded yet, but I’ll give it some time and all be well. The other focus point is my leg stroke, which used to have a huge scissor in the technique and on top of that I might not have put the maximum force in the stroke at the time. So tuesday I really focussed on these points by thinking back to my breaststroke fins training. Which really helped me on finding the proper point of scooping the water.

Speed check
For the speed check I had been timing my dives and after today’s training with Jorg we decided on the following times, divided into the different parts for DNF:

• Inhale & immerse: 3 seconds
• Push off & lane: 25,5 seconds
• Turn: 1,5 seconds
• Coming up & Elbow on edge: 1,5 seconds

We calculated the time I had to do over a 50 meters DNF in a somewhat slower execution style: 3 + 25,5 + 1,5 + 25,5 + 1,5 = 57 seconds. And as the calculation was put to the test, it actually was a perfect hit, where I did it in 57 seconds exact. Even though the DNF I do is somewhat slower as I am capable of doing (Push-off and Lane in 22 seconds), this totally makes it feel more relaxed. For now we set the speed check at: 50 meters / 57 seconds = 0,877 m/s.

Strokes count
Tuesday I counted my strokes in a 20 meter pool and came to 2 strokes with the new alignment weight of 3 kilograms around my neck. Today in the 25 meter Tongelreep pool I did two different speeds and the slower one which I’d like to go by now takes me about 2,5 strokes and the somewhat quicker version I’ll need 3 strokes. Which already is a big improvement and showing the alignment is working out.

Depth control
As an added control measure Jorg also spotted my depth, which varied throughout the training of today, but overall this had to do with the lack of reference as the 25 meter pool in the Tongelreep is also 5 meters deep. I think I’m much better in a pool of about 1,8-2 meters in depth to control my depth and not loose too much effort on that point.