What is Freediving?

Freediving is a technique which involves holding ones breathe underwater. Just as any other type of sport, freediving also requires intensive training and dedication in order to get better. There are several sports associated with freediving-spear fishing, underwater rugby, synchronized diving, snorkeling, apnea competitions and underwater photography.

Freediving can be taken up as a hobby or for more enthusiastic divers; it can even be taken up professionally. There are professional freediving competitions help every year at local, national and international levels.

To learn to free dive, it is absolutely important to find someone who can take you through the sports and various equipments used very patiently. Unlike other sports freediving involves a lot of equipments which may seem intimidating to a first timer. Moreover diving underwater while holding ones breathe is a different ball game altogether. Even if you are a great swimmer, diving may not be very easy if you are not used to it.

You can find lots of freediving coaches or trainers if you live near the seas. Before shelling out your money to pay for a trainer, you can do a bit of background check on his or her experiences in training. Take some time to get to know each other and find out your level of comfort with each other. If you want to enroll in a freediving course, you may need to buy or hire some equipment. A freediving course can be a crash course packed in a few days like during holidays or it can be an ongoing training if you are into the sport on a serious basis. But it is absolutely important that you are physically and mentally at ease underwater. Freediving requires a lot of grit and determination. It is not something that one can master easily. To an onlooker, freediving may seem like the diver is merely gliding in the water without much effort. But it is really more than just holding ones breathe and gliding underwater. Besides training to hold ones breathe for longer periods of time is not easy to achieve.

There are many competitive and non-competitive freediving sports, as well as individual or team sports. If you have taken up the sport, you can compete in local levels to get a good exposure on the sport and to improve your techniques.