Mar 28, 2012 | Freedive Training, Freediving, Meditation, Yoga
Weather has picked up very nicely the last few days. The peak of Agung has been clear, the sun shining and the water warm and clear. The last few days have seen some very pleasant free-diving. All hail the return of sunny days…
Onsite, things here have been plodding on, as fast as they ever do in Amed, Bali.
These will probably be the last pics before the place is all shiny, bright and ready to be filled with stuff…
This space will be used for free-diving theory, yoga and meditation practice and then for hanging out later on…
This will be the funkiest little free-diving gear storage space anywhere… 
At the moment, we have the ugliest front in Bali. But in one month (or ten) this ugly place will be the first purpose built free-diving/yoga space in Bali…watch this space.
Mar 21, 2012 | Freedive Training, Freediving
Last year I read Simon Borg-Olivier’s idea that the mysterious Pranayama practice of Plavini was essentially a form of lung packing (pushing extra air into the lungs to fill them beyond normal volume)and not the filling the stomach with air, as it often described.
A couple of years ago I stopped packing and teaching packing to most students, feeling it to be unnecessary and probably not too good for the lungs. It also just didn’t seem like good yoga. Many also consider it to be a factor in many lung squeezes(lung oedema), which we’ll come to.
That said, Mr Borg-Olivier is one of the most experienced Yoga teachers around and a great free-diver, so I’m inclined to agree with him. It is listed as one of the 8 principle Pranyams though I have never heard of anyone teaching it or practising it. Except maybe Mr Borg-Olivier.
When packing, one fills the lungs and then gulps down extra air into the lungs. This stretches the membrane of the alveoli, allowing a person to expand their total lung volume, up to three litres in some cases.
Whether it is a Yogic practice or not, there seems to be relationship between lung packing and squeezes. Something which would seem to be counter intuitive, if packing means more air, one should be less likely to suffer lung squeeze, squeeze being caused by extreme negative pressure within the alveoli.
There are many people who deny a link, but they seem to generally be people who practice packing. Naturally they would have some resistance to the idea that it could induce squeezes.
For those who believe in a link, there have been various theories put forward. I won’t go into them here as I believe relatively recent research gives a better idea how packing could be a factor in squeezes.
For people who dislike scientific jargon I will summarise the research simply. Packing, when practised by trained divers, causes air to escape into the chest cavity. In trained free-divers this is normally asymptomatic, (there are no symptoms, no pain, no blood and no difficulty in breathing.) The alveoli are simply swollen with so much air that some escapes into the chest cavity. This was shown with CT scans to be the case, to varying degrees in all the free-divers trained in packing. (One didn’t have air in the chest cavity, but was later shown not be proficient in the technique.
This research now provides a more satisfactory reason why packing might be related to squeeze.
With packing you fill the lungs and overfill them, creating tiny tears in the lining. If you then dive to below residual volume, causing blood shift, you are creating the opposite effect in the alveoli. They compress and the capillaries around them swell with blood to fill the space.
If the membrane between alveoli and capillary has been compromised before the dive by packing, then on the ascent to the surface it is easy to imagine that when the alveoli expand once again some of the blood may stay in the air space. This will compromise gas exchange and may lead to coughing of blood or plasma.
Lung squeeze is free-diving’s dirty little secret and it is much more common than people let on. See Sebastien Naslunds great article.
On many free-diving courses squeeze is but briefly mentioned and there is often no mention of a possible link between packing and squeeze, though often they are taught at the same level. The conclusion of this research is that the practice of packing is essentially a repeated barotrauma(pressure injury) and the accumulative effects are unknown. It therefore seems strange that packing should be thought at the intermediate, level as it is on many courses.
So now whether packing is really the mysterious Plavini pranyam or not seems immaterial. Unless you really into competition, packing seems like a needlessly risky activity, especially for ex-smokers or those whose lungs might not be as robust as they should be.
And besides Jaques Mayol did over 100 metres without packing, so what’s the need?
Here’s the abstract from the research so you can make up your own minds..
Abstract
Glossopharyngeal insufflation causes lung injury in trained breath-hold divers.
Source
Department of Thoracic Medicine, Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. stev78@optusnet.com.au
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:
Glossopharyngeal insufflation (GI) is a technique practised by competitive breath-hold divers to enhance their performance. Using the oropharyngeal musculature, air is pumped into the lungs to increase the lung volume above physiological TLC. Experienced breath-hold divers can increase their lung volumes by up to 3 L. Although the potential for lung injury is evident, there is limited information available. The aim of this study was to examine whether there is any evidence of lung injury following GI, independent of diving.
METHODS:
Six male, competitive breath-hold divers were studied. CT of the thorax was performed during breath-holding at supramaximal lung volumes following GI (CT(GI)), and subsequently at baseline TLC (CT(TLC)). CT scans were performed a minimum of 3 days apart. Images were analysed for evidence of pneumomediastinum or pneumothorax by investigators who were blinded to the procedure.
RESULTS:
None of the subjects showed symptoms or signs of pneumomediastinum. However, in five of six subjects a pneumomediastinum was detected during the CT(GI). In three subjects a pneumomediastinum was detected on the CT(GI), but had resolved by the time of the CT(TLC). In two subjects a pneumomediastinum was seen on both the CT(GI) and the CT(TLC), and these were larger on the day that a maximal GI manoeuvre had been performed. The single subject, in whom a pneumomediastinum was not detected, was demonstrated separately to not be proficient at GI.
CONCLUSIONS:
Barotrauma was observed in breath-hold divers who increased their lung volumes by GI. The long-term effects of this barotrauma are uncertain and longitudinal studies are required to assess cumulative lung damage.
Mar 20, 2012 | Meditation, Yoga
In the modern world silence is a luxury, more precious than gold. More than that, it is an experience that for many people is so alien that they even seem to fear it, filling every moment with chatter, TV, facebook and any one of the million media we now have to fill the space between conversations. That is why I love the Balinese holy-day of Nyepi so much.
Nyepi is the day of silence, a day when the whole island takes a big breath and becomes quiet. Observed from 6 a.m. until 6 a.m. the next morning, Nyepi is a day reserved for self- reflection and meditation, anything that might interfere with that purpose is restricted. The whole island closes down. Even the international airport closes, on an island whose lifeblood is tourism…There are no lighting fires, no working; no entertainment or pleasure; no travelling; and for some, no talking or eating at all.
Even tourists must observe Nyepi; although free to do as they wish inside their hotels, no one is allowed onto the beaches or streets. The only exceptions granted are for emergency vehicles carrying those with life-threatening conditions and women about to give birth. Even Kuta with it’s carnival of touts and taxis becomes an oasis of calm.
The Nyepi day is only one part of a lovely series of rituals that culminates the day after Nyepi in the Balinese New Year, a day when people get together and forgive each other any insults or injuries from the previous year.

Today is Melasti. Later, instead of free-diving, we will be joining a 1000 plus people in the village to walk to the beach, in a glorious procession of music and colour to make offerings to Sany yang widi, the supreme deity, Lord of Land and Ocean. This is part of the Balinese path of Yoga, using ritual to achieve union and balance with forces of Nature, in this case, appropriately enough,
this takes place on the beach. Holy water will be taken from the sea and used to bless ceremonial objects. As free-divers, how could we miss it?
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…;)