Mar 18, 2012 | Freedive Training, Freediving, Meditation, Yoga
The last few weeks we have been turning away all new students for both Yoga and Free-diving. While we are sorry to disappoint, we are very happy to be completely absorbed in the reconstruction and decoration of our new training space in the village of Jemaluk, on the Amed coast, Bali. We are right on the beach at Jemaluk wall, probably one of the best places for free-dive training in all Bali.
So far the project has coincided with some very rough weather on Bali, with storms ripping up trees and knocking down mountain-sides. This has affected electricity and telephone/net cover, meaning that some calls have not being getting through. It also means the free-diving conditions have been pretty bad.
We hope that we will be back up and running in the next month, in Bali’s first purpose built free-diving, yoga, meditation and cafe space. 😉
Until then here’s some pics for those who have been making curious noises.
So far we’ve ripped the guts out of the dank and dingy kitchen,
knocked down walls…
And put up bamboo.
Right now it’s a dusty mess.
But in a few weeks it’s going to be great. Watch this space…
Feb 18, 2012 | Freedive Training, Freediving
Or at least almost everyone…
If you watch TV and follow forums on the sport it’s easy to believe that you have to be young, ultra-fit and preferably beautiful to free-dive, that it’s a past-time of aquatic supermen, and smoking hot babes in Mono-fins. The media loves the idea of free-diving as an extreme sport, of divers going where angels fear to tread, silently sliding into the dark blue..
But that is only part of the picture…
If you are basically healthy and free of certain health issues then free-diving is as accessible as Yoga, and gentle yoga at that. You don’t even have to like water..
Free-dive training has reached a point where almost anyone can safely learn it, given the right training structure and instruction. At the basic level it is in fact much safer than SCUBA diving.
PADI keeps telling us it’s fun, but no-one considers SCUBA an extreme sport…
The last while we’ve had lots of very different types of basic level students. From the more obvious candidates for free-dive training, such as surfers or spear-fishermen, to the more unlikely ones. We’ve had a 50 year old ex-smoker(heavy), a young headscarf wearing Muslim girl and even people with a quite deep fear of water. For me these are actually the most rewarding students, some of the people of get the most out of free-diving. They also show that free-diving is not just a sport of uber-athletes but something is open to (almost) anyone.
Recently we had two great ladies, who at the same time as putting a smile on all our faces also confronted their deep fear of water. Going from being unable to breath through a snorkel to free-diving at night on the liberty shipwreck, they earned all our respect and admiration.
All hail Elin and Nelli.
In their own words…
Since I was a little child, I was not able to put my face under water. I even could not swim in a lake because of being afraid of the depth. I remember myself sitting on the shore and not being able to put the mask on my face. I was terrified of even the thought of going out in the water. And that was the first day. On the third day I found myself in 17m depth holding on to the rope and … surprise: I loved it!!! I would not call myself a free diver, but I am able to do snorkelling on my own and even doing duck dives to go further down to explore the world down there holding my breath with a smile on my face. This course has been life changing for me and it opened up a whole new world!
Nelli Schmidt, Germany
I came to Amed, where Mathew is teaching free diving. I did’t know anything about it. And always been afraid of water and the thought of even swimming with head over the surface gave me a heart attack especially in the blue water! For Mathew to teach me free diving was quite hard since I was so scared. But he always saw me as an individual and gave me the teaching I needed. From not even being able to be on my own snorkelling where I can’t see what is beneath me. I can now duck dive in to the blue water on my own. I even went out night diving in complete darkness cause I felt so secure with my instructor. Before we went out for the night dive I felt like throwing up and crying, that’s how scared I was. And one hour later I was duck diving on my own with no light in deep black water, and at the same time I enjoyed it! So he has not just taught me how to free dive, but also how to overcome my big fear of water!
Elin Larsson, Sweden
Thanks Ladies, it’s been a real pleasure to train with you. Come back soon and we’ll do some chumming for sharks…;)
Jun 21, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
Free-diving and Yoga as existential tools for living in anxious times.
We live in uncertain times. Our predictions cannot keep up with our pretensions. The world around us shrinks as our need to consume grows ever more insatiable.
We carry phones that are more intelligent and sophisticated than we will ever need to be, but use them mostly to keep up with the growing demands of social networks.
We can see into the furthest reaches of space and deep into the smallest particles of matter, but we find it very difficult to look into ourselves.
Human living has become incredibly sophisticated as our tools for living have become ever more intelligent. If intelligence is a measure of how skilfully one can manipulate and interpret information it can be said that our tools have become intelligent than us.
Intelligence can apportion values but does not comprehend ultimate value, a computer cannot give the meaning of a beautiful symphony nor the moral tragedy of a war-orphaned child. A sense of beauty and meaning cannot come from technology, it comes only from the wisdom of the human heart.
In this time of economic crashes and natural and man-made calamities we will never find meaning or happiness from our rapidly mutating technologies. We must find it in the same place as we have always found it, inside ourselves. Not in egocentric wallowing, but deep inside ourselves where we are all the same human, regardless of culture, class or colour.
We must find our freedom inside the mind and body and to do this we need to know the mind and body. The mind and body are not fixed entities, they are in constant flux. The human being is an infinitely complex interplay of physical, energetic and mental phenomena.
Our problems arise when the interplay becomes stagnant or rigid, resulting in physical and mental sickness and emotional unhappiness. When our body is clogged with toxins and our thoughts become rigid and inflexible, the body loses health. Life loses spontaneity, becoming suffocating. When that happens even a brand new I phone won’t help.
In this age of uncertainty, on so many levels the key to surviving on this Blue planet is fluid living. We must look to the water and learn from it.
With yoga we can bring fluidity to the physical body, with free-diving, pranayama and meditation we can look inside, developing fluidity on the mental and energetic levels. On a social level as our world changes in ways we can barely believe we must flow with the changes and develop new answers, without clinging to the comfort of our habitual reactions.
(DISCLAIMER; Obviously if I said that Yoga and free-diving were the answer to all the ills of the world, I would have to be taking the piss. But the qualities that Yoga and free-diving cultivate when practised with the right mindset are ones that are very useful as we hurtle deeper into the twenty first century.)
If it’s not inside you you’ll never find it outside.
Come to Amed in Bali and learn yoga and free-diving. They are life enriching activites and very useful tools for coping with the impending apocalypse ;).
May 1, 2011 | Freediving, Yoga
Since the heyday of Jaques Mayol the vast science of yoga has been touted as the key to inspired free-diving. The benefits in this area are undoubted, from mental clarity and thoracic flexiblity to emotional well-being. The list of Yogic benefits to the Free-diver is long, less talked about are the benefits of free-diving to the student of yoga.
The benefits of free-diving to the Yogi, when practiced in the right spirit, are equally profound. The most obvious of course is the control and understanding of the breath, free-diving as a door into the science of pranayama. The Aghori Tantrik Vimalananda apparently trained in Pranayama by submersing himself in the Indian ocean and Chinese masters of Tao developed breath-based energy practices with long breath holds in pools.
It’s clear that the aspects of Yoga that deal with the breath are enriched by free-diving but it’s the less obvious benefits that this Blogger is interested in, such as the way water allows for movement in a gravity free field. When coupled with a mature yoga Asana practice the forgiving nature of water allows us a fluid realignment of the body.The nature of water is that effective movement in water is fluid movement, something which every yogi or body worker aspires to.
In Yoga Asana, we work the body, disciplining it and realigning it. We test it and push it to break rigidity, to develop flexibility and make space. The body becomes fluid in its nature with movements like containers that the body flows into and fills. And this fluidity is not a thing only of ligaments and muscles, it is a thing of energy. We don’t do this for the sake of sitting in ever-more complicated postures, we do this so the body’s subtle life juices can flow better.The body becomes more permeable and energy flows better, resulting in health and a sense of lightness.
With free-diving our focus is precisely on this type of fluid movement, to move like water through water. We learn that rigid movement is wasteful movement.
A useful working definition of a yogi is one who does not waste energy, by their thoughts, words or actions. Be it holding tension, or expressing negative thoughts, the dedicated yogi tries to avoid using energy in a wasteful or self defeating manner. This conservation of energy on all levels is an essential part of free-diving.
Through meditation the Yogi slowly learns to avoid the nagging of the non-essential and to be present in the passing moment. With Free-diving we practice the art of letting go to the moment, of disciplining the body and breath so that sometimes you may go beyond the body and breath. When we dive we may feel contractions, the mind may say go up, go up, but we don’t resist, we absorb, we let the sensation move through us and any associated mental reaction is calmly observed. We observe and enjoy sensation, even so called unpleasant sensation. We become permeable to it and liquid in our reactions.
Time is limited but sometimes the moment draws out and becomes something eternal. The non-essential is left behind and there is a sense of union. This drawing together of mind and body into one focused moment is some of the essence of yoga.
Free-diving when practiced in the right way is actually a form of Oceanic yoga. Finding the stillness in fluid movement and the peace in a moment of pressure. See some training principles…
The Ritual of the long line and the deep Blue.
In Bali Yoga is the work of shamans, a communication with spirits. It’s a ritual balancing act of courtesies paid to both the Gods of Mount Agung and the low spirits of the Sea and other dangerous places, such as crossroads.
The sea is considered a place of many dangerous spirits yet also a place of purification. In a romantic way we can see free-diving in the Balinese context as a ritualised confrontation with the our ‘low spirits’ of fear and needless anxiety.
When we free-dive sometimes the mind turns against us becoming mischievous or fearful. we can become plagued by our own inner ‘demons of doubt’. But with the ritual of our weighted line and safety procedures and our faith in physics we can see beyond the doubts to the deep blue face of mother nature. Then we free-dive mindfully, infused with calm and a sense of home coming.
Mar 8, 2011 | Freediving, Freediving for Surfers, Freediving Trips
Free-diving and yoga for surfers
From the 13th of June till the 25th there will be a very special free-diving training programme aimed specifically at surfers. We will be training aboard the beautiful ‘Jiwa’ as we sail through the Mentawai Islands catching world class waves. Off the coast of Sumatra, these pristine islands had head hunters in recent memory and are famous for world class surf.
When the swell is big, we will be in it. But when it’s not too hot, we’ll be free-diving, with optional classes of Yoga and meditation. When taking a break from the water we will see some of the fascinating local culture. The trip will be one to remember.
This is a free-diving course tailored specifically for surfers to give maximum benefit in minimum time. The focus of the breath hold training is on probing personal limits and breaking down mental walls. We do this by understanding and triggering the Mammalian Dive Reflex and experiencing directly just what the human body is capable of in breath hold situations.It’s all in the mind and when the mind knows what the body is capable of, it can relax with surprising results.
Apart from free-diving on a line, personal training routines will be taught so that after the trip everyone can continue to develop their breath hold abilities in their daily life.
The optional yoga training is also designed towards the needs of surfers focusing on strength and balance in rotation as well as opening the chest and shoulders and increasing lung volume. Students can learn some of the principles of good yoga and become established in a very effective daily whole body sequence. There will also be Pranayama and meditation to help develop focus and mental balance, so necessary for those more intimidating waves.
For more details see tradewinds adventures
knocked down walls…
