Learning How to Freedive

How long can you hold your breath? How deep can you dive? Are you certified? In this blog, I’ll talk about my personal abilities and experiences.

The first time I wrote about freediving, I had just completed my certification and I was writing for The Odyssey Online. I want to make this post a bit different to that first article and incorporate my experience since then. If you like, you can read all my articles here: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/user/@brynfowler

I’ve posted YouTube videos and some Instagram posts about freediving and gotten some questions like: How long can you hold your breath? How deep can you dive? Why are you holding your nose? One person even asked: How deep can you dive WITHOUT fins? I realized I don’t have a quick answer for these. I’m not really recording my stats and I’m definitely not a competitive diver. I’m just doing this because it’s fun. However, I would like to challenge myself some time and see how well I do.

Equipment I’d been SCUBA certified for a few years before getting my freediving certification, so I knew about things like equalizing the pressure in my ears and using other dive equipment like mask, snorkel, fins, wetsuit, and weights. Speaking of equipment – I hate the snorkel. I know it’s useful and some people consider it essential, but I find it annoying. Maybe it’s because they never seem to function as intended a majority of the time. It seems like they function well about 50% of the time. It also seems like an awkward extra step to have to pull a snorkel out of your mouth when you’re starting a breath hold. They can also irritate your gums like the mouth piece on a SCUBA regulator. I don’t like weights for freediving either. They’re essential for SCUBA, and maybe in some cases of freediving i.e. floating near the surface with a very buoyant costume or mermaid tail. That’s fair. I had also never used long fins and that was an experience in itself. The first time I tried them in the pool, I had a hard time maneuvering without the fin tips touching the walls and the bottom of the pool. But I did love them for diving out in the open ocean with lots of space.

Breath Hold (Static) The biggest things I needed to learn for freediving were safe breath holding techniques and recovery breathing. I wanted to hold my breath for longer and be more comfortable. After the classroom portion of the course, we started actually practicing in the pool. When we got to the point of recording our best static breath hold (which is a breath hold with minimal to no motion so as to conserve energy and air), I was really just hoping to match up with my classmates who had more experience. I knew I could do at least one minute, but I was hoping for better. I held my breath for as long as I could, guessing how long I’d been under. I had made it 3 minutes! Not as good as my classmates doing 4 minutes, but still very respectable for someone at my level.

Equalizing The pool where I learned is about 15 feet deep and I knew I could get to that depth easily with or without fins. But I did need to be careful with my ears. I don’t know if everyone’s ears start hurting at a similar depth, but I have to start equalizing the pressure in my ears at about 6 feet. The only way I know how to do that is to hold my nose closed and gently try to blow air out of my nose. That buildup of pressure inside my head equalizes with the pressure of the water and I have to keep equalizing as the depth increases or my ears will be in so much pain. I have heard that you can also equalize by opening your jaw as if yawning, but I’ve never had much success with that technique. I would love to learn.

Breath Hold (Dynamic) When it comes to a dynamic breath hold (when you’re swimming or expending more energy), I have no idea how long I can hold my breath. I’ve just never tested it. We didn’t test it during the course. When I do mermaid shows and photoshoots, I often try to hold my breath for as long as I can without wearing myself out because I know I have to do it all over again almost immediately. A lot of factors can affect how long I can go. If I were going to time myself for a dynamic breath hold, I would create the perfect conditions first: no stress, great breathe up preparation, comfortable water, and a buddy for safety. I do have clips of me swimming in shows or in the Bahamas that show my dynamic breath hold is at least 30 seconds. So at least there’s that.

Depth For our Level 1 Freediving course, we went to an underwater SCUBA park with sunken planes, boats, cars, and even basketball hoops. We did our check out dives down to 15 feet, then 30 feet, and then had the opportunity to do around 50 feet where there was a sunken plane. My instructor would be following me to the plane to look out for me. I was nervous for this one, but I knew I could do it if I concentrated. I swam to the plane as fast as I could to make sure I would get there without chickening out. I had a few moments to look around, and then started to come back up. My instructor told me he timed us and the whole dive took about 45 seconds. I think I can safely say that’s the deepest I’ve ever been freediving. According to the internet, the dive sites we went to in the Bahamas are about 30 feet deep, so I know I can dive at least that deep consistently, in full mermaid regalia.

I really would love to time myself and get an idea of what my best is. Maybe I’ll put together a little experiment with a buddy and make a video showing how I test myself and what the final results are.

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