Dahab part 4

Second to last training day. Some things have been enforced. You need lot's of repetitions to train correct technique. You also need to build up confidence gradually. This requires time and long term commitment. As a reward you get one of the best feelings in any sport when you succeed and the training pays off. I am just a beginner in freediving. I do feel that I have taken the correct path to train. Not by trial and error as many have done before me, but by listening others, learning and enjoying the small steps of improvement.

Let's say you want to be competitive athlete. You set yourself a goal very high so you can compete with the best. Every time you train and compete and you do not reach your goal, you are dissappointed. If you finally reach your goal you feel success, but only for once. What then? Set another goal even higher. At that point being disappointed so many times, it will feel very frustrating. On the other hand, if you set small goals, which are reachable and you can enjoy reaching those as much as you could enjoy reaching the very highest goal, then your training is pretty much constant enjoyment.

While freediving, you find constantly things you can improve. We shot one of my dives with GoPro and I can tell right away that there's improvement to be done in every aspect. But I am happy about it. Today I did 40m and 42m dives. Linda was my instructor today and we added 1kg of weight for today's dives. I was neutral at 17m, but I did find it difficult to start the freefall. I did not felt like I was moving and I kept kicking a bit. This is something I will concentrate on monday. Pressure and eq was really good again today. Only one training day left. I feel already really happy about the training. All the dives have been successfull and I have plenty of new stuff to bring home with me to our quarry next year.

I also started thinking that maybe we could build a semi-permament rig with counter ballast to our quarry. I have to start talking with the guys at home...