The terribly wrong image of freediving

The terribly wrong image of freediving

A shorter version of ‘the image of freediving’ originally appeared as a Freedive Wire newsletter.

It is a sport that only people with a death wish practice. A sport for adrenaline junkies that like to dance with death. A sport for athletes that do not mind putting their life on the line. This is the image of freediving. But is it correct?

Four out of ten of the results for ‘freediving risk’ on google:

image of freediving

On the web, a bit of danger, adrenaline, and risk sells. These articles will get many reads simply because of their title. But are they true?

People that do not freedive usually see freediving as a sport that attracts lunatics and adrenaline junkies that like nothing more than to put themselves in danger. Freedivers on the other hand, normally use words such as ‘peaceful’, ‘relaxing’, and ‘self-discovery’ to describe the sport. Spearfishers may talk about the thrill of catching a fish on breath hold, but also about the calmness of the underwater world.

This difference is important, because the way that the general public perceives freediving affects for example club insurance policies and where we are able to practice and dive. Why does the difference exist in the first place?

When freediving gets media attention, commonly somebody tries to break a record. Take for example Will Trubridge’s 102 m dive last year. The dive got attention from for example New Zealand Herald and BBC, and was well marketed by his sponsors, Steinlager, Suunto and others. Freediving underneath ice receives a disproportional amount of attention on social media.

Even though we now have strict safety protocols for record attempts, the focus of freediving in the media often lies on the risks of black out and drowning. Sometimes, freediving is described as ‘a dance with death’. I doubt that many divers that do these record attempts truly feel like they are dancing with death.

In fact, Guillaume Nery dived 10 meters deeper than he intended due to a bad mistake by the organizers (AIDA individual depth championship 2015). He stated afterwards ‘I felt like they were playing with my life’. That does not sound like a statement from someone who likes to dance with death. But hey, risk sells.

Despite the image of freediving, most of us do not actually care to dive very deep, to break records, or to dive underneath ice. In contrast, most of us probably like to dive in less than 25 meters of clear warm water, without pushing their limits. But how many people hear about this?

Because the ‘normal’ freediver is hardly ever in the news, people that do not freedive do not know that this part of freediving exist. They believe that we must all want to dive deep, risk blackouts, and live on the edge. How do we change that mindset?

Some freedivers have recently questioned the rules for AIDA competitions. They say there are too many blackouts and this damages the image of the sport. Perhaps that is true. If the general public would never see a blackout, the image of freediving would surely change. However, I believe the responsibility is also partly ours.

“The responsibility to change the image of freediving is ours”

When we talk about freediving, we should aim to let people know that blackouts are not the norm. We don’t go out and expect one too happen. Rather, we train for the worst and dive our best. We mitigate the risk by knowing safety protocols, and minimize the risk by diving within our limits. The approach is similar in ocean kayaking, sport climbing, mountain biking, or any other sport.

Just as a side note: Whistler Mountain Bike park followed 2000 mountain bikers over a 5 month period in 2009. Nearly 50% of them were injured in that time. Of those, 108 injuries threatened life and/or limb. If I google for ‘mountain biking risk’ I see studies, risk assesments, and articles on mitigating risk. No bold statements such as ‘Deadly risk lurks behind the thrill of mountain biking, or ‘The dreadful (and unnatural) toll of mountain biking’.

Yes, blackouts happen. Yes, we train to hold our breaths longer. But that does not mean we disregard personal safety or are all adrenaline junkies.

Jaap

Jaap is a geologist by trade and a freediver by passion. Jaap wrote the book Longer and Deeper in 2018. His book teaches how to train for freediving and spearfishing on land.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Luca M.

    True! It’s up to us to make people see the right side of freediving 🙂

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