Sebastian Murat’s world record attempt.

May 28, 2012 | Freediving

With so much energy and time going into getting the space finished I just got round to looking at the website for Sebastian Murat’s world record attempt.The publicity around it is all a bit hyper for such a cool and down to earth guy, we wish him the best of luck with the dive and the circus around it.

Recently Sebastian Murat was with us in Amed, while training for his no limits world record attempt at over 700 feet.

Some people newer to free-diving may not have heard his name, but Seb is one of the most interesting guys in the sport, devoting the last years of his life to exploring the Mammalian Dive Reflex(MDR). His training and deep research has focused on the MDR  in all its aspects, investigating the medical applications of the MDR and breaking and attempting records using less than a full lungful of air.

This attempt at over 200 metres depth on one breath will be performed in FRC, that’s to say less than one breath. This is something that many would consider as counter intuitive and maybe even a little insane.

Unsurprisingly I had a few questions for him and even managed to drag myself away from the building site to hang out with him and test his no limits retrieval system.

His approach is decidedly minimalist. Basically it involves grabbing hold of some rigid buoys built to withstand high pressure. When they are released you shoot to the surface.

He’ll be using this beautifully simple system to rocket to the surface from 200+ metres.

Another interesting thing about Sebastian Murat’s approach is that since starting to dive using exhale/FRC techniques he has never had a squeeze. Something he previously had a couple of times when practising full lung diving with packing.

As there is lot of interesting things to be learnt from a career spent studying and developing the Mammalian Dive reflex, we’ll come back his ideas on another blog shortly..

 

 

 

 

Exploring evolutionary history with the MDR.

Nov 10, 2009 | Freediving, Physiology of free-diving

Once upon a time there was a blue planet that was inhabited by many forms of life, all of which dwelled in the vast expanses and dark depths of its oceans. In the distant past, over many thousands of years some of these forms of life evolved into land dwellers.  After much catastrophe, inconceivable periods of time and a myriad of evolutionary changes, some forms of life re-entered the sea.   Dolphins and whales are the better known of these. They moved in water but breathed air at the waters surface. Though it might be supposed that this would hinder greatly their aquatic ability, it is known today that some of these creatures can dive to depths below 3000 metres. (more…)