FDog review: Performance Freediving Class
This is a review of the Intermediate Freediving Class, taught by Performance Freediving ( PFI ).
I know this seems an odd topic for a review; after all, we're all scuba divers, and that's a higher level of certification, isn't it? And we've all been freediving with a snorkel and fins since we had our Basic OW class.
Up until a week ago, I would have thought the same way. Now, however, having graduated the class, my mind has made a complete u-turn. So please, follow me through this review, as we look at what is possibly the best value in diving classes today.
Note to moderators: placed in this forum (not the Snorkeling/Freediving forum) to get more exposure to regular mainstream scuba divers.
All smiles: Julie Ollom exits after day 3 of the course
The Review
This is the Intermediate Freediving Class. The cost for this class is nominally $695. I paid $600 because I was lucky and signed up at DEMA last year before the schedule was released, and got an early sign-up deal (looking back on this, and knowing what I do now, I would have happily paid far more). I became interested when Julie Ollom, a friend of ours, signed up for the demo introduction at DEMA. We watched in amazement as she was gently guided through a variety of static apnea (breath holding) exercises, and concluded with a three and a half minute breath hold. Wow!
Kirk Krack and Mandy-Rae Cruickshank have been teaching these classes for 9 years, along the way leaving a swath of World Record holders and a variety of National Record holders as students and clients. Mandy is herself a World Record holder, which lends a lot of credence to the materials and techniques taught in the class.
Well before the class, we received our student manual, a thick 152 pages that covers the material in a thoroughness that most SCUBA programs only wish they could. This also contained a list of suggested equipment (more on this later). Mandy sent monthly updates, which included addresses and times for our class at Newport Beach, CA, as well as contact information for questions. The before-the-class preparation and communication was excellent and far better than normal.
I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to my wife, Janet, for shooting the surface photos for this review, and especially to Peter Satitpunwaycha, who graciously offered the use of the underwater photos he shot during the course.
Day One
The Intermediate class is 4 days long, with each day covering about half lecture and half in the water.
The class started with lecture, and lots of it. Material was rich in detail and very thorough. The topics not only included expected material, such as physiology and physics of freediving, but also included standard dive procedures and safety. In fact, this class is all about safety, as hardly a topic is presented that doesn't reflect back on safety procedures and how to make your dives safer.
Kirk, Mandy and Craig are entertaining lecturers who make the material engaging and the time in the classroom simply flies by.
About 60% of the students in our class were already accomplished spearfishers with extensive freediving experience. The rest of us were technical and leadership scuba divers. Something that was refreshing was that the class covered the dangers of the sport in a very open and straightforward way, instead of minimizing them or sweeping them under the rug. The end result was that we were very aware of possible hazards, and, how to turn them into non-events.
Our first day quickly turned to the pool. The first order of business was assembling and adjusting our gear. I will confess that I thought I had a background in freediving - I've had some Dessaults that I've used for years - but the modern gear used in freediving was a bit of a shock and quickly showed me the gulf between freediving and scuba diving equipment.
Getting everything to fit "just right" during the first pool session. Buoyancy checks were extremely precise, adjusted to within a pound of correct weight.
To begin with, there was the wetsuit. I am the king of the cold weanies, and when multiple folks told me that this dinky 5mil wetsuit would keep me warm in 59 degree water, I was in disbelief. "But it's a freediving wetsuit" they would say, as if that explained it. I had the choice of black or camo. Being one of "those people" the black appealed to me, but the camo was on closeout for $100 cheaper. Avarice won me over, and the extra cash went for 3 mil booties (OMG! 3 mil! ) and a rubber weight belt (Come on now. Rubber? ) as well as a large bottle of hair conditioner and a spray bottle.
The suits, as it turns out, are coated rubber (no nylon) inside. That, the excellent tailoring, and the amazingly stretchy and hideously expensive Yamamoto neoprene, all conspire to produce a suit that is so well sealed that you only get about a half a flush of water inside. It also produces a suit that needs that hair conditioner/water mix to ease the way for sliding the suit on.
Gooping up the suit with hair conditioner: as odd as it looks, it goes on easily.
Was it warm? Well, I spent 3 hours the second day in 59 degree water relatively motionless, and was chilled. The next two days, I was toasty (63 degrees, 3 hours) and warm (59 degrees, 2 hours). They were right there really is a difference with a freediving suit. Except for the booties I had to watch where I walked, lest I step on a pebble. Ouch!
Anyway, the first day in the pool was spent covering simple dive procedures, and how to work as a buddy team. These are simple things that have big implications, such as checking on your just-surfaced buddy, and immediately talking them through "hook breathing" In fact, as we learned, freediving is not really a solitary sport, and is even more buddy-centric than scuba diving.
"Hook! One, two, three" Covering the basics of surfacing in the first day in the pool.
In fact, we learned in the first day in the pool, most of what we've learned as a scuba diver is wrong for a freediver. Scuba is all about an open airway, and freedivers try to keep it closed. Air management for a scuba diver is about an external gas supply the tank and for freedivers, air management is about parceling out a diminishing air supply from the lungs for ear and mask equalization. There was always an instructor nearby to give cheerful, helpful pointers, as well as insisting on perfect execution.
And we did rescues. How to handle a loss of consciousness, recognize that a LOC is coming, and how to rescue breathe in the water. We had to do laps while rescue breathing until we got it right. As much as you think that your Rescue cert is a good background, there's solid reasons for the specific response for a freediving emergency, and by the end of the class, it was all reflex behavior.
We ended the pool session with a static apnea (breath holding) session. Using the breathing techniques that we'd been introduced to in the classroom, a whole segment in itself, we worked our way through "breathing up" for a breath hold, then, gently laid our heads into the water.
Static Apnea: each buddy team works together, either performing or safety/coaching.
As Kirk called the end of our first breath hold immersion of 1 minute, I thought it was a mistake. I thought we'd only been under for 30 seconds! That feeling of time compression continued during the next immersion of 3 minutes. It was easy.
With heads under water for over three minutes, one has to wonder what the lifeguard was thinking!
After another carefully controlled breathe up, using some pretty sophisticated techniques that took advantage of the influence that breathing patterns have on heart rate, we set off on our last static apnea. I was amazed to produce a time of 3:30. And all this on the first day!
This is a review of the Intermediate Freediving Class, taught by Performance Freediving ( PFI ).
I know this seems an odd topic for a review; after all, we're all scuba divers, and that's a higher level of certification, isn't it? And we've all been freediving with a snorkel and fins since we had our Basic OW class.
Up until a week ago, I would have thought the same way. Now, however, having graduated the class, my mind has made a complete u-turn. So please, follow me through this review, as we look at what is possibly the best value in diving classes today.
Note to moderators: placed in this forum (not the Snorkeling/Freediving forum) to get more exposure to regular mainstream scuba divers.
All smiles: Julie Ollom exits after day 3 of the course
The Review
This is the Intermediate Freediving Class. The cost for this class is nominally $695. I paid $600 because I was lucky and signed up at DEMA last year before the schedule was released, and got an early sign-up deal (looking back on this, and knowing what I do now, I would have happily paid far more). I became interested when Julie Ollom, a friend of ours, signed up for the demo introduction at DEMA. We watched in amazement as she was gently guided through a variety of static apnea (breath holding) exercises, and concluded with a three and a half minute breath hold. Wow!
Kirk Krack and Mandy-Rae Cruickshank have been teaching these classes for 9 years, along the way leaving a swath of World Record holders and a variety of National Record holders as students and clients. Mandy is herself a World Record holder, which lends a lot of credence to the materials and techniques taught in the class.
Well before the class, we received our student manual, a thick 152 pages that covers the material in a thoroughness that most SCUBA programs only wish they could. This also contained a list of suggested equipment (more on this later). Mandy sent monthly updates, which included addresses and times for our class at Newport Beach, CA, as well as contact information for questions. The before-the-class preparation and communication was excellent and far better than normal.
I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to my wife, Janet, for shooting the surface photos for this review, and especially to Peter Satitpunwaycha, who graciously offered the use of the underwater photos he shot during the course.
Day One
The Intermediate class is 4 days long, with each day covering about half lecture and half in the water.
The class started with lecture, and lots of it. Material was rich in detail and very thorough. The topics not only included expected material, such as physiology and physics of freediving, but also included standard dive procedures and safety. In fact, this class is all about safety, as hardly a topic is presented that doesn't reflect back on safety procedures and how to make your dives safer.
Kirk, Mandy and Craig are entertaining lecturers who make the material engaging and the time in the classroom simply flies by.
About 60% of the students in our class were already accomplished spearfishers with extensive freediving experience. The rest of us were technical and leadership scuba divers. Something that was refreshing was that the class covered the dangers of the sport in a very open and straightforward way, instead of minimizing them or sweeping them under the rug. The end result was that we were very aware of possible hazards, and, how to turn them into non-events.
Our first day quickly turned to the pool. The first order of business was assembling and adjusting our gear. I will confess that I thought I had a background in freediving - I've had some Dessaults that I've used for years - but the modern gear used in freediving was a bit of a shock and quickly showed me the gulf between freediving and scuba diving equipment.
Getting everything to fit "just right" during the first pool session. Buoyancy checks were extremely precise, adjusted to within a pound of correct weight.
To begin with, there was the wetsuit. I am the king of the cold weanies, and when multiple folks told me that this dinky 5mil wetsuit would keep me warm in 59 degree water, I was in disbelief. "But it's a freediving wetsuit" they would say, as if that explained it. I had the choice of black or camo. Being one of "those people" the black appealed to me, but the camo was on closeout for $100 cheaper. Avarice won me over, and the extra cash went for 3 mil booties (OMG! 3 mil! ) and a rubber weight belt (Come on now. Rubber? ) as well as a large bottle of hair conditioner and a spray bottle.
The suits, as it turns out, are coated rubber (no nylon) inside. That, the excellent tailoring, and the amazingly stretchy and hideously expensive Yamamoto neoprene, all conspire to produce a suit that is so well sealed that you only get about a half a flush of water inside. It also produces a suit that needs that hair conditioner/water mix to ease the way for sliding the suit on.
Gooping up the suit with hair conditioner: as odd as it looks, it goes on easily.
Was it warm? Well, I spent 3 hours the second day in 59 degree water relatively motionless, and was chilled. The next two days, I was toasty (63 degrees, 3 hours) and warm (59 degrees, 2 hours). They were right there really is a difference with a freediving suit. Except for the booties I had to watch where I walked, lest I step on a pebble. Ouch!
Anyway, the first day in the pool was spent covering simple dive procedures, and how to work as a buddy team. These are simple things that have big implications, such as checking on your just-surfaced buddy, and immediately talking them through "hook breathing" In fact, as we learned, freediving is not really a solitary sport, and is even more buddy-centric than scuba diving.
"Hook! One, two, three" Covering the basics of surfacing in the first day in the pool.
In fact, we learned in the first day in the pool, most of what we've learned as a scuba diver is wrong for a freediver. Scuba is all about an open airway, and freedivers try to keep it closed. Air management for a scuba diver is about an external gas supply the tank and for freedivers, air management is about parceling out a diminishing air supply from the lungs for ear and mask equalization. There was always an instructor nearby to give cheerful, helpful pointers, as well as insisting on perfect execution.
And we did rescues. How to handle a loss of consciousness, recognize that a LOC is coming, and how to rescue breathe in the water. We had to do laps while rescue breathing until we got it right. As much as you think that your Rescue cert is a good background, there's solid reasons for the specific response for a freediving emergency, and by the end of the class, it was all reflex behavior.
We ended the pool session with a static apnea (breath holding) session. Using the breathing techniques that we'd been introduced to in the classroom, a whole segment in itself, we worked our way through "breathing up" for a breath hold, then, gently laid our heads into the water.
Static Apnea: each buddy team works together, either performing or safety/coaching.
As Kirk called the end of our first breath hold immersion of 1 minute, I thought it was a mistake. I thought we'd only been under for 30 seconds! That feeling of time compression continued during the next immersion of 3 minutes. It was easy.
With heads under water for over three minutes, one has to wonder what the lifeguard was thinking!
After another carefully controlled breathe up, using some pretty sophisticated techniques that took advantage of the influence that breathing patterns have on heart rate, we set off on our last static apnea. I was amazed to produce a time of 3:30. And all this on the first day!
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