Team Sharkbait

As we came back from the pool last week, I told Sanne that it was time for depth again. I’m missing it! But overhearing the story of some scuba divers who went out last weekend and hearing them talking about 6 degrees water, I convinced myself I could wait a little longer before putting on my wetsuit.

I was looking back on this site for some older posts and what we’ve been doing. It was fun to read back what we have done already and especially what we have accomplished. Great stuff and so glad that we started this blog already so many years back. While our Sharkbait blog is 99% filled with freediving stuff, it is not only freediving that keeps Sharkbait occupied. It has been more about the way we do sports in general and how we enjoy doing it. Besides freediving, we also enjoy swimming, running, cycling, track & field, freerunning (Parcours), trampoline jumping, skateboarding, inline skating and especially snowboarding as well.

So, our philosophy about how we experience sport is not just freediving specific, but can be layered upon many other sports. Maybe it is time to update and republish our Sharkbait philosophy post again and see where we are standing today. Good times!

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Looking back at 2009 shows us that we’ve really gotten the best out of ourselves by finding the roots of our fun for freediving. Both Jorg and I had been searching for this important factor for a while, but it seems we both found it and are very much motivated for a new year of freediving. As Jorg already posted a set of goals for the new year, I need not say more that he’s motivated and ready to go.

Fun & Lessons learned
For myself when I look back at the last year it started out with my search for fun in freediving and I had no real distance and time goals set out. During the search, which lasted from January to about October, I was getting more and more interested in competing again. But as I really wanted to find out if that was really what I wanted, I had to hold myself off from competing. The first part of the year I spent a lot of time relaxing in the water and doing the other stuff I love to do, filming, producing and writing about it. I wrote a lot of “How-to” articles, which are very popular when I check the Google Analytics panel.

In september I could not keep myself from starting project “The Number 23” and thus inscribing to the Wiesbaden competition, which posed as a good marker to see if was capable of competing again. Wiesbaden turned out to be very succesful and I showed myself that I could do statics again without bailing early. Next test on the list was to see if I was able to cope with results that were not as high as I can, but werre still results I could live with as I did my best for them. So I went to Belgium with no high expectations and pure for fun and meeting up with everybody and it turned out I can easily live with performances I did my best for and not as far or long as I should be capable of. A big lesson learned in this year and the start of a new approach.

Furthermore a lot has happened and changed throughout the year, I got my balance for DNF sorted out better, made my first steps into actually competing with a monofin and improved a few monofin personal bests along the way. As I think back of the travelling I’ve done it’s quite a list: Austria Cuba, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark & Sweden) & Slovenia. Not all of them have been for freediving, but that’s not the point of all my travelling .

2010 – This year
We’re on the virge of getting into more monofin training and thourougly testing a Waterway Glide more intensively. This will bring new motivations along and a lot of nice training we’re both looking forward to. My goals are to enjoy freediving with my new mindset and see which distances and times it will bring me. Sounds like a no goal year, but it’s a real goal for me . The first test will be on the 23rd or January when Shark.nu is organizing a nice dynamic competition, let’s see what I can do with the Glide monofin.

Statistics
Even though we had a hick-up on our Google Analytics account, the statistics counting from 2nd half of May to the end of this year shows the trend of our visitor’s Country of origin. In total 4,606 visits came from 102 countries, I’ll post the top 10 countries:

1. United States
2. Netherlands
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Poland
6. Czech Republic
7. Belgium
8. Australia
9. Canada
10. Spain

The top 5 referring sites, without shark-freediving and social sites like Twitter & Facebook are:

1. forums.deeperblue.com
2. apnea.cz
3. totalimmersion.net
4. dfa.nu
5. lubosub.com

The top 5 Search terms were:

1. monofin technique
2. freediving materials
3. finning technique
4. wiesbaden aida freediving
5. freediving mask

Thank you
It’s very motivating to see so many people know and find their way to our site and articles. We really appreciate all the feedback through comments and e-mail. We love answering your questions and continue to do so if they are related to us & freediving that is . We plan to continue on this course in 2010 as well. although the start for sharkbait is a bit different, as the website is ported over to the Shark-freediving.com portal and now has a different address: http://sharkbait.shark-freediving.com/. Which had also been the reason for me not to post any stories until the site had been fully ported over into the new environment. If you might spot any irregularities please contact us.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

In the coming week we’re going to move  the Team Sharkbait website to our new Shark network server. While Shark Freediving was always about the world news about freediving, bringing news about records and competitions, this website was always about something else.

Team Sharkbait is about the personal freediving stories behind the people who are in Team Sharkbait. In the past we decided to break this up in a separate website, but  technology and social networking has evolved in such a way that it’s now possible to create communities that combine the best of everything.

With our new Shark network environment we will still bring the global freediving news through our frontpage but now the freedivers themselves can bring the personal stories as well. So the first personal stories we place at the Shark network is that of Team Sharkbait.

As it is a big move, you can expect a little downtime in the next week. We will keep both blogs in sync until January 1st. From then on everything will be up to date again directly from the shark network and the old sharkbait.shark-freediving.com domain.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Last Friday I joined up with Daan, Judith and Pim for another freediving session at the Tongelreep. The pool was still swarming with swimmers doing laps after their performance in the Swim Cup, so we had to wait about 15 minutes. Of course we could easily use this time for some catching up , also Pim brought along the special underwater lensed goggles from Kerian Hibbs. Strange how your depth perception can be confused, when you’re not used to these goggles.

After the catching up it was time to do some dynamic’s. I got to borrow the Waterway Glide Fin from Judith again, who swam a fantastic 150 meters with it last week. So from that point of view it was no excuse to not try and at least do a 100 meter dynamic with that monofin. They also made me promise to add a turn when I reached 100m…good thing!

Daan asked me if I liked a 2 minute countdown, but for now I j ust wanted to do it. So I got into the water and took a few deep breath’s and went for it. Coming up to 50 meters my technique was still constant and I had my first contraction at 45meters. I Made the turn and tried to get back into the rythem of kick-kick-glide, but in a strange way I couldn’t really focus on the rythem. So I think I was alternating between kick-glide & kick-kick-glide . Never the less, I reached 100 meters fairly easy and reminded myself to the promise I made, turn at 100m! I made the the turn, did a small kick and glided to 108 meters. Did my surface protocol and recovered fast, I quote Daan on my dynamic: “in speedo’s, without packing and not enough neckweight, coming up like he just did 75. The kid’s got talent” really flatters me and makes me confident again.

We had a great time training at the Tongelreep, atmosphere was good. We were also very eager to see Pim do some freediving training again, he managed his own prediction of 7 meters DNF and superseded it with at least another 40 meters Well done!

Daan broke his Big Fat Bastard 2 and when I write this already made a Big Fat Bastard 3, what a massive thing . Judith did a training of easy 50′s, as she already proved to be able to swim quite the distance, quoting Pim: “a distance Sanne and me can only dream of”.

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

Sanne and I had another good training in the pool. Our normal training schedule is starting to get shape again. First half is static, second is monofin. Easy does it.

We started with static again. The hot tub was filled with people from the previous diving (jump in the water type of diving) class and we  put ourselves in as well. Normally I don’t want to do static if somebody is watching my back. Crazy defect in my head just doesn’t like it when people are watching me doing freediving.

Today was different. Besides the fact that I don’t use goggles and a clock anymore for static already meant a big difference. But the fact that I started my statics with so many people in the hot tub is completly new for me. In the end I didn’t really mind doing it.

Static times are still at around 2 minutes, but it feels easier and easier and I’m doing them without goggles, which is already a big win for me. Never thought I could do it like this and stay (pretty much) comfortable.

Sanne did his required no-warmup static and managed to get to the minimum time he had to do, but there wasn’t much inspiration during his attempt and he stopped way before what he could do.

Next was monofin time. After doing a few 25 meter laps, it’s time for 25+. Legs are full with lactic acid after a few laps, so I switch to high speed, low speed, kick kick glide, etc. I do a very easy 50 meter. Sanne does a 75+ meter in a busy and unorganized pool.

Between the different laps I also do some 25 meter dynamic without fins, which feel great as well. Time for a dedicated lane during club-evening. Got the feeling that personal bests aren’t that far away anymore! Would be interesting to see a new freediving personal because the last one I did was almost 7 years ago.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

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.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Over the last year I was enjoying my step back from competitions, as you might have read on this blog. We’ve done a lot of training, without actual performance goals. The main goal of my step back was to have fun in freediving again. During this year I’ve grown back to enjoying and experiencing freediving the way I used to, giving me an overall fantastic feeling. The last few months thoughts of serious training were crossing my mind again and I kept off these thoughts until I couldn’t resist anymore.

At first I wanted to compete in the 5th Dutch Apnea Open, making it the perfect comeback after a year of absence. Unfortunately I will not be in the Netherlands at that time, as I already planned the time off for my holiday way in advance. It made me consider the Rhein Main Cup competition and I pointed out to myself that it was time to “Just do it!“. Just like the dutch apnea open, this competition and I go way back to the beginning of my competitive freediving, so it mainly serves as a friendly and familiair ground.

I’ll describe the preparation schedule in my next post, in which I’ll also share my live updated schedule.

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

Other posts fmo the ‘Top 10′-series: Top 10: How To Hold Your Breath Longer.

1. Always use a buddy!
Especially important if you try to hold your breath in the water! Better yet; follow a freediving course that will teach you and a friend how to look out for each other during dynamic freediving attempts. Dynamic freediving is particularly differnt to static breath holds as it’s harder to spot when your body goes into preserve mode. Do not try to improve too much when you reach a distance, go gradually and be at peace with the somewhat slower progression.

2. Preparation

Peter Wurschy (Team Apnea Amsterdam) preparing

Of course it is important to pay attention to your breath up before you start, but also pay attention to visualize the way you’re supposed to depart. Visualize and repeat, whilst breathing up for your performance. This is a way of creating the mind-muscle-connection to control the outcome of your departure more. Visualizing aids in staying alert and aware on how to do a good start.

3. Departure/start
There are different ways to depart and they all have their pro’s and con’s, so just choose one you can perform in an efficient way and stick with it. As you’ve been visualizing the departure, you will not have so much trouble getting the chosen departure procedure right. Be keen on the execution and it’ll improve and be more auto-piloted as you progress in your training.

4. Consistent amplitude/stroke rhythm
This could have easily been called the relaxation part, which is achieved through a stroke rhythm you feel comfortable with. This differs very much from freediver to freediver. Be sure to find out what your best rhythm and speed is. This will give you a consistent amplitude while you’re performing your dynamic freedive.

5. Aligning
Another very important subject is aligning, which is also dependent  of your body composure, plus the type of freediver you are. Go out to the pool with a set of (borrowed) weights and have a buddy spot you’re kick-off from the wall. Try and glide as far as you can and see if you either ascend or descend.  Once you’ve got that first stage covered it’s time to fine tune for the rest of the alignment, by actually doing your dynamic performance and see if your legs keep descending or ascending, this might indicate the location of the weight chosen in the first step is a bit off. It’s not easy finding the right alignment, but once you do it will be a good help. Use a camera to record your alignment and see for yourself what you should alter to get it right. Check out more extensive information about step 5 and 6 in this post.

6. Balance
In the previous step you’ve seen how hard it is to find the proper alignment. When you get this wrong it will effect the balance  and stability of your performance. Try and make an equal stroke with your legs, have a buddy spot underwater when you’re swimming away from him. This way he can spot if you make a scissor like movement with your legs, which in turn can lead to an unbalanced movement.  Again use a camera to record your balance and see for yourself what you should alter to get it right. Check out more extensive information about step 5 and 6 in this post.

7. Technique
Your air efficiency will increase as your technique improves. You should optimize the technique versus the comfortable. As being strained too much to get your technique right will not improve the efficiency. Learn to pay attention to your technique overtime and the strain will decrease and technique and efficiency will improve. Using the proper technique and looking into it on underwater camera footage will help you gain the additional efficiency that you need to tweak your distance even further.

8. Turning
Turning can be done in different ways, choosing the one you can perform perfectly will help you gain distance. Also visualize that you’re about to turn and repeat the steps, before you hit the wall. Make the turn and get back into your consistent kicking technique in a controlled manner. Technique for the turn proves very important, if you leave little room for failure the efficiency will be optimal. So stick with the turn you think is best (and is also allowed by the rules) and maximize your performance by mastering it.

9. Re-surfacing
Planning the way you resurface by training it every training, helps you when you’re in a competition. The movement will be automatically like you have it on auto-pilot and the room for error has just gone down again. This leaves you with the concentration you need for your recuperation. The technique for resurfacing can differ to your own liking and might differ from pool to pool as the sides of pool tend to vary a lot. If there is a side where you can rest your arm on, then plan to get your elbow over the edge as you resurface and remember to not touch the wall as you’re about to resurface.

10. Recuperation
Knowing how to recuperate will teach you how to control longer dive times. Making a habit out of the recovery and repeating it with every freedive you do, will hard-code it into your system. If you’re having a performance with some extra factors to pay attention to, you’ll notice that the recuperation will start to go on auto-pilot, which in place let’s you focus more on the extra factors. In this case there are different methods to a good and steady recovery, find a technique that suits your needs and stick with it.

Check out this small video from a performance in the Coupe des Dauphins for a good example how you can use the side of the pool to rest your arms and do a steady recovery:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtVLEo3uLH4

Things for myself to improve in this video are the balance, alignment and turning technique. As an extra note to myself, do not look for your end goal!

This is a post by Jorg Jansen.

It was a beautiful day today, so Sanne and I decided to do some lake freediving. As the rest of the Netherlands was in heavy thunderstorms and rain our diving lake was in full sunshine. However, the waves on the water were even bigger then last time.

After we changed into our gear we stepped into the water and I immediately noticed that the water temperature at the surface is way up again. But the visibility in the top was down a lot!

As always we started with a first dive to 10 meters to test equipment, body and mind and as normal everything felt great. I did a static at the bottom of around 45 seconds making it to a total time of 1:35 minutes. Sanne also did well with his first dive reaching 1:40 minutes.

After the slow long swim to the 23 meter line I still felt great and decided I would make the first dive. It was excellent conditions with warm top water and a good thermocline at around 5 meters. Big diving reflex today so I felt pretty confident about my dives that had to come.

First dive free immersion style down and I counted to 15 before coming up again from 23 meters. This felt sooo easy. As if it was the new 10 meter warmingup dive. Second dive I decided to count to 20 seconds when I was at 23 and it still felt good. For sure time for our own diving buouy so that we can set the line somewhat deeper.

Third dive was again competition time. Sanne  did a countdown and I did a constant weight dive. I managed to come up after 51 seconds and I had no lactic acid in my legs. That was probably due to the fact I used a very small but high frequency kick to come up again. I’ll do some more experiments with  this later on.

Alternating between my dives, Sanne was doing his as well. Sanne set down some impressive dive times and made it look very easy as well. He can do  double this depth for sure! Again: we need the new buoy!

Then it was time for the FRC and empty lung dives. I managed to do a good 18 meter FRC dive, that I had to really work for in the last few meters. I was pretty tired when I came up but in the end it felt fantastic. The empty lung dive brought me to 10 meters depth and also felt okay. Strange thing is that as long as I keep below 5 meters I have no urge to breath with empty lungs, but when I get above that I’m almost always out of air within 20 seconds. The empty lung dive to 10 meters lastet 40 seconds.

Sanne did a good FRC dive to 16 meters and he finally has solved his equalization problem. The empty lung dive brought him to 7 meters and he had to stop because of the equalizing and not  because of the low o2.

After these exhausting dives we decided to swim back to the 10 meter platform and swim back to shore underwater from the platform on. I followed Sanne, or should I say dust cloud. It amazes me how fast Sanne swims underwater with his bifins. I almost had to sprint to keep up with him!

At the shore the water still felt so great we decided it was time to do some diving without wetsuit. In our swimming-trunks and with our mask and snorkel we swam back to the 10 meter buoy. Sanne prepared to go into the thermocline to 10 meters but got stuck because he couldn’t equalize because of the cold. I also tried to do it in constant without fins style, but the cold made it really hard for my diaphragm but I managed to touch the 10 meter platform anyway.

After these first no wetsuit dives the game was on and we did all kind of crazy dives to 10 meters. Head first, head up, free immersion, constant without fins. Free Immersion upside down coming up was my favorite of today.

All in all a great outdoor session! Depth is going great. Equalization power is getting stronger and stronger and the fun factor is very high! I want more!

This is a post by Sanne Buurma.

This has been a question for me since I found out that a lot of freedivers just close their eyes when freediving. My normal way of conduct is different per discipline:

• Static – I start out with my eyes closed, but when the contractions or the boredom starts I usually open my eyes for distraction or no real reason and I’ll be looking around the pool floor.
• Dynamic with or without fins – I always have my eyes open, if I close them I’ll end up in lane 8 instead of lane 1 where I started. I did try a few times to close them, but it’s a must to re-open them every few meters to stay on track, which in my perception is not bringing extra relaxation to my game.
• Depth disciplines – I generally do not close my eyes when I freedive into the deep, but as I explained in an earlier post, this had to do with not being able to fully control or anticipate the environment variables.

Why close your eyes?
I’m aware of the fact that whenever you open your eyes, the brain gets extra stimulus on all the images it receives, so closing the eyes sounds like a good idea to have your mind relax and get along with images you control for yourself. Having said that, for me it’s feels like a mandatory thing to really know the variables from the environment I’m freediving in.

Change is good!
So, I’m willing to change my way of the game just to see how much this can help me relax and being able to get my mind at ease with this way of freediving. Over the last two weeks I started closing my eyes in the depth disciplines. As I know now how the bottom setup looks like at the 23 meter deep buoy in Panheel, it’s much easier to freedive descending with my eyes closed. I still need to get used to it and I still haven’t made a depth without ever opening my eyes.

So the next time I’ll visit the outdoors for some depth freedive training I’ll have to make a depth without opening my eyes until I resurface and see how that feels.

Your thoughts, tips or useful info?
What is your way of freediving and dealing with eyes open vs. eyes closed? Please leave your thoughts, tips or useful information in the comments below.