Reflection

I did another DYN pb today (104m). It was a mess of a dive. I had slight hangover from yesterday, I did the dive with no-warmup and my goggles filled with water half way through. Last turn was complete failure and dive fell apart. Surface protocol was strong and I felt good otherwise. Lactics kicked in just before 50m turn. I had two safeties (thanks to them!) and other safety timed me for 80sec total. That's pretty fast.

I figured that actually this faster style suits me and especially my mono. I tried my training mate's Leaderfin's Hyper (soft) and it requires completely different technique (slower and wider). My current mono is Specialfins Medium and it's like plywood board compared to the hyper. Well, I've worked out my technique for faster dives with less motion and so far I think there's lot of room for improvement still. I've been now diving with goggles and Trygons clip. I like it better than with regular mask now, but it creates extra hassle with goggles failing sometimes.

Last friday I did my finalization training for Dahab's depth. I am confident about my physical conditioning on diving, but I do think about the mental side. Last few weeks I have been thinking about freediving in general. I am moving pretty fast and the hobby is getting serious. I am unsure if I do want to compete, just relax and spearfish or just to train hard. I am given pretty nice opportunities and responsibilities regarding Freediving and I could also head for the teaching side of it, which would be nice. On the other hand I think the downsides of the sport, the dangers and risks involved. This is something which is easily forgotten. Even non-fatal freediving accident can change your mental approach and many other's too. This has not yet happened but I think it will eventually.

So this leads to another question: Is freediving good for you in the long run? What are the probabilities of the risks involved? I already know it is very addictive, but so are many other things and not many of those are healthy for you...

My training has gone nicely. In two weeks I will be heading to Dahab. I've done some visualization exercises, some dry static, some depth training with empty lungs in 4m pool. Also I've done some DYN dives with hands down and simulating equalization. I still worry that I will be just performing and forget about the enjoyment part. I do hope that this is not the case.

For the spring I've already made some plans. The target would be the national comp. I don't have any illusions of grandeur, but my aim for this is to get a good and positive experience from the training for it and from the competition itself. Also I should start practicing DNF. At the moment I haven't done it at all and I my kick doesn't really carry forward. Nothing what some training wont fix.