tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85931712524744862872024-03-13T03:17:07.395-07:00Anna von BoetticherAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-56951576490923645422018-03-26T05:20:00.002-07:002018-03-26T05:20:40.689-07:00Back!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">image: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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One might say that blogging has been far from my mind over the last year. This is largely a good thing, meaning I have been immersed in projects and adventures and generally making a beautiful mess of my life, in the best possible way.<br />
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Challenging was my competition season, which started well enough with my 33d German national record - a dive to 55m without fins at the event Vertical Blue. I thought I had it all figured out since I had given myself a longer freediving period to look forward to for the first time since 2013. A great plan, that was kicking off with world championships in Roatan and supposed to get me to a peak a month later at a small competition in Domincia. Planning, however, is only half the project. A truly evil stomach bug kinda messed up the world championship performances (still a 6th and 7th place, not that bad all things considered) and instead of enjoying the beautiful nature of Dominica I experienced nature at its wildest: I was caught - and trapped - in hurricane Maria, one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded. It destroyed 95% of the island. A challenging experience of an entirely different kind and not one I, or the people of Dominica, need to repeat anytime soon.<br />
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This year is shaping up to be even worse than the last on the freediving front: it looks like I will not get to see the water until the end of June, which might just be the longest break I have ever had, a painful thought for my blue water heart. Truth is, I am faced with brilliant, challenging opportunities that are pushing me right outside of my comfort zone and I wouldn't miss any of them for the world - I love getting scared like that!<br />
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So here my is the blind panic, total "oh shit" challenge of 2018: I have signed a book deal. Which was always coming up eventually but the reality of it is terrifying. Added reason for panic is the deadline: 1 October 2018.<br />
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Oh no! What have I done? Coffee! Coffee!<br />
Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-11459304992460589372017-04-29T13:09:00.000-07:002017-04-30T04:45:11.401-07:00Freediving rebelAfter zero time spent holding my breath for over eight months, it is always a bit of a shock to the system to get back to freediving. For the second year in a row, I am starting the season at the annual Vertical Blue competition on Long Island, Bahamas, organized by Will Trubridge and his team.<br />
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This event is full of top level freedivers, most of whom are well prepared, have been training for weeks or months and are out to do their very best performances, whereas for me, this is mostly about re-discovering the water. It is hard not get carried away here though, and start having expectations of yourself. Keeping a level head and my ego in check is hugely helped by being surrounded by my freediving friends, who are as obsessed with the post dive coffee as I am and know how to talk down a mind that is going nuts with ideas and when to support you when you are feeling incapable of anything at all.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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I will admit to having a freediving rebel in my head, who can be quite hard to tame sometimes! It came out in force here when I went to do my second no fins dive since last year's vertical blue competition. I had a chat with my friend and top no fins diver Will Winram before going out to train, who suggested I should dive with a heavy weight to see how much more relaxed I could be on the descent. His instruction was: "go with the heavy weight to 35m and then tell me the details of the dive and then we'll tweak it". Brilliant idea. Freediving rebel interpreted this as: I wonder what depth I could get away with? As soon as I left the surface, I started going "wheeeeeeeeeeee!" - falling like a stone at top speed because I was so heavy, which freediving rebel obviously considered to be the best thing ever. We continued to go "wheeeeeeee" all the way down to 50m, which is my personal best and the German record I dived last year, and certainly not a reasonable dive to do on day two. Turning at the bottom, rebel thought: great! I'm deep! And as I started swimming up, I was feeling quite pleased with myself all the way, thinking: this is like crossfit! Here are all my pull ups coming to work!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foto: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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Fortunately, this got me back to the surface, a little on the edge but fine. Checking my weighting after the dive I discovered that I was sinking from 4,5m, which, let me tell you, is not how you want to do a deep no fins dive. Coach William said: "I told you to go to 35!!!", but rebel felt little remorse. Two more 50m dives have tweaked the weighting to the right level, and now it is just a question of beating the competition nerves and getting myself down there when it counts.<br />
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As we went through the process of registration and paying for training fees yesterday, a moment that always makes the fact that you are about to compete become real, I was hit by a bit of a revelation. I was paying for two and half weeks of training - and I suddenly understood that what had felt like ages diving (island time does that to the best of us) has in fact been virtually nothing at all, considering my eight month break. To be back at my personal best depth in arguably my hardest discipline is surprising. Overcoming the innate urge to compare with people who have been in the water for weeks and months is key for all of us - in the end, we can only control the time, work and determination we have put in and the place we are at right at this moment.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Foto: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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Our sport is curious because we have to declare our performance a day in advance. This means being truly honest with yourself, judging your state of wellbeing, how trained you are, how nerves will affect you, and not falling for where you think you should be our how would like to see yourself. What you would like has no bearing on what actually is. In spite of the new level of physical strength I was able to achieve with crossfit training, I still lack adaptation and dive fitness, and so this is the time to reign in the freediving rebel. An announcement of a 52m dive is still pushing my limits to a new personal best and will make me nervous as hell, but it is also well within my ability on even a difficult day. Lacking adaptation means I am fighting with equalization and getting down is currently my biggest issue. As long as that works out ok, the rest is just crossfit all the way up!<br />
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I can't wait for this season to begin in earnest. Until I am shaking with nerves in a few hours. Then I will be cursing my rebel who always gets me into this. Can I just announce something easy for once?<br />
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Rebel says: "No way!" <br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-21562232561957149602017-03-01T04:44:00.002-08:002017-03-01T04:44:31.160-08:00Season ready<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the time of the year where I am mostly focused on getting fit, strong and mentally tough. It is a very busy work period for me, so there is no way to get anywhere near the water to dive, but that doesn't mean I can't do my best to get into shape.<div>
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For the last two years, I have done this by simply doing Crossfit. I have discovered that this suits my personality and it has also created really good results for me. Being a coach and teacher myself, I appreciate how good coaching and support can shorten the time spent trying to achieve something, and so I have actively gone out to find the best support for me - so far in the shape of my awesome Crossfit home, Spree Crossfit, as well as my often mentioned devil coach, Sebastian Werner. </div>
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This year, I have added professional nutritional advice for the first time ever, and the results are surprising. I was hoping for a little tweak, but instead over an eight week period have increased muscle, lost fat and added kilos onto each and any lift, exercise, attempt I have made. I have worked from seven am until midnight for six weeks straight with no breaks and not been sick with colds, flus or other bugs. It has been simply brilliant.</div>
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Sometimes, you need to leave the path you became used to with what you decided "works for you" and put your trust into someone else. Be patient and trust the long term process. When my new diet guru Libby Wescombe of Eatercise sent me my meal plan, I was convinced I would be adding a kilo of fat per week. It was scary - in fact, downright terrifying - to eat like that. Instead, I lost 2,5 kilos in the first two weeks, and then put those exact 2,5 kilos back on again as muscle. I am fitter, stronger and tougher than ever in my life. There are four weeks between the following two pictures:</div>
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Constantly discovering new things about how I function and what I can get up to is simply fascinating. I have been busy working with high level professionals on extending their physical and mental barriers, constantly pushing and challenging them. To be able to do this well for others I need to allow myself to be challenged in turn and to not shy away from stepping off the regular path on a regular basis. </div>
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Now I can't wait for the freediving season to start, which I will spend complaining about how awful contractions and the urge to breathe are on a dive while having coffee and cake with my freediving friends! Let the moaning begin.</div>
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Until then, CrossFit and evil coach might just kill me. </div>
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Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-54841454418131795172017-01-01T12:46:00.000-08:002017-01-01T12:46:03.230-08:00Crossing2016 has been such a great adventure year for me. Apart from a host of new professional challenges, I managed to freedive in new places, hang out with friends, and be overwhelmed by encounters with marine life. What more can a freediver ask for!<br />
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One of my favorite parts were three weeks spent with my friends Mike and Kate at their home, Gili Trawangan island in Indonesia. It is a weird and wonderful place, where your biggest freediving risk is getting run over by a horse cart on the way to the water:<br />
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To give myself some contrast, I finished the travel year with a trip to Norway in November. This was not to see the aurora borealis, although I was lucky enough to be out hiking in the dark when the clouds cleared and streaks of eerie green lights lit up the night sky. The aim of the week was to use every bit of available daylight to jump into the water and freedive with two enormous marine creatures: orca and humpback whales. I can't thank friend, freediver and photographer Jacques de Vos enough for organizing this amazing experience and keeping a place for me on the little katamaran.<br />
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I have fallen in love with the polar night. I never thought the absence of proper daylight could be quite so beautiful. I also never thought I would be itching to get into my (5mm only!) wetsuit to jump into the water when there is snow on deck and it is hailing! Truth is: you forget your cold when an orca swims by. Check out the next trips organized by arctic freediving for the 2017/2018 season - it is worth every moment!<br />
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Meanwhile, we have crossed into a new year. I tried a final lift on the last day of 2016, and failed it - devil coach Sebastian Werner had to rescue me. Looking at this picture afterwards it struck me how closely it resembles the attention and focus we share when we provide safety for each other in freediving. This connection enriches us and is a great part of training, having adventures, life. It is complete trust. I love having those moments, and sharing the failures as much as the moments of success with my buddies, freedivers, coaches, crazy, lovely, adventurous friends.<br />
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Thank you! Here's to more fails in 2017!Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-32351285855638305552016-07-27T07:03:00.000-07:002016-07-27T07:03:26.043-07:00Wild placesThis year I set myself a special freediving goal: to explore. I found that with training and competing in the same places all the time, I have been missing the surprise of the unknown and that it was time to focus on the experience rather than competition for a while, and on putting myself out there in this wild world of ours. Having made a start of this with a trip to Dean's Blue hole, I decided to continue in a place I have been meaning to dive for some years: lake Walchensee in my home, Bavaria. Surrounded by mountains on all sides, it lies at an altitude of 800m, and has a sheer wall dropping down to an incredible depth of 196m. It is one of the most beautiful places I know.<br />
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My friend Frank Bittner runs the freediving school Apnea-X there (http://apnea-x.de), and together we made a plan for me to spend a week diving with him. We threw in a fresh water record attempt on the sled (Germany being the only country to still separate records done in fresh water and salt water), mostly to give me a bit of a focus rather than for ambitious dives, since there was not enough time for me to reach sled diving depths that would be significant.<br />
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Excited beyond anything about this project, I soon discovered that it would be a special headache, starting with packing: diving cold water, hiking, running, regular exercise, potential for sunbathing and having to be prepared for any kind of weather made me even more unable to make sensibel choices than usual (five beanie hats to go to the Bahamas, is all I will say). I resisted high heels, but loaded my poor car with pretty much everything else, including life saving kitchen utensils! And before you ask: yes there are such items. One of them is called Espresso maker.<br />
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In usual Anna-luck style, I arrived at the lake in a summer heatwave, but should have known it couldn't last. 31°C had me in my shorts and flip flops, and the first two days went by in pure pleasure. I found that I needed no time at all to adapt to the water - bearing in mind I hadn't so much as thought about holding my breath since early May - and swam straight down to 54m with my monofin on day two, which is where the end of the line happened to be. Opening my eyes, I discovered the magic of this place: there is zero light down there, it is a darkness complete and overwhelming in its sense of vastness. This alone is not unusual. What is unique is the incredible clarity of the 6°C water at this depth. I saw the line and bottom weight in front of me in the beam of my tiny but powerful LCD masklight. Beyond, blackness, below, blackness, above, blackness. Knowing I had 50m of water above and a wall dropping to 100m below me made me feel as if I had opened my eyes and found myself in space. Alone. It was instant love.<br />
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To round off this day, I then went on to go on a four hour hike/trail run in the afternoon along the ridge of one of the most beautiful places in the alps. Looking at the lake from up high, having just been down below its surface, was a special moment and one will cherish for a long time. Hopefully I will forget the aching feet soon!<br />
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The need to bring all my clothes became apparent by Monday, when we started the traditional Anna-luck cycle of storms that had us landlocked and killed all diving for a while. Raging thunderstorms and driving rain not only washed sand into the lake to reduce visibility, but also dropped the air temperature from 30°C to 8°C in a matter of three days! Add to this a battle with technical problems, and my record event was starting to look tricky. I was antsy to dive since I had enjoyed the depths so much at the start, but you have to take things as they come around these things. One of these days I will start to meditate, after all. Omm. Ommmmmm....!<br />
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This weather had me looking at a record attempt with zero training. Luckily, two of my longest freediving friends showed up to help make things happen: Katya and Antero, with Katya judging and Antero there to offer surface support. Together, they helped Frank iron out any final technical issues on the set up, so I was able to announce an official variable weight dive to 60m for day one, the only depth that could safely be chosen considering the circumstances.<br />
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As is customary on my competition dives or record attempts, the weather continued to be as wild as anything, with freezing rain - in July! I was looked after well by Katya, Antero and a truly excellent safety crew, including the Walchensee search and rescue team and doctor Anna. They wrapped me in a golden tent to keep me warm and sheltered from wind and rain, until it was time to whizz down into the eternal night of this mysterious lake. Day two saw us still with clouds and chilly conditions for my 70m no limits record attempt, but mercifully without rain. Both dives were easy and fun, with the experience and sense of exploring much at the forefront for me.<br />
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One of my favorite moments was rescue crew member Alois telling me - with a surprised look on his face - that he had expected me to be doing yoga for ages in the back of their boat and no one being allowed to talk to me! I suppose my allergy to all things yoga and the fact that more than anything, I like to laugh before a dive, has now spoiled their image of a serious freediving athlete for ever. I am serious, guys, I am, I am! Honest! The athlete bit is rather (wide) open for interpretation, though.<br />
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I ended the trip with a final climb before getting into my car to drive away - but plans to return were forming in my mind before I had gone around the first corner. Sometimes the wild, challenging environments are the most beautiful ones, and more adventures are to be had in this special place.<br />
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It was so good to be back in the home of my heart! I will not stay away for long.<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-52831771022235933592016-05-11T04:49:00.002-07:002016-05-12T02:39:24.912-07:00Vertical Blue and a new recordFreediving competitions are a unique universe all to themselves. Being able to immerse fully in the bubble is crucial to success, but it can also bring on cabin fever and finding a steady training and competition rhythm while escaping the frenzy is a fine line that is not easy to walk. Vertical Blue is special in the way it is laid out: athletes get to do six competition dives spaced out over 11 days, making it an incredibly long event. It was created to be used as a chance to set records or achieve personal bests, outside of the big competitions like world championships, where there is only one chance to perform and announcements are often tactical, playing for medals.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dean's Blue Hole, Bahamas</td></tr>
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My plan was to improve my no fins diving and hopefully achieve some personal bests in this discipline, which, if done in competition, would also be German records. Coach Andrea as well as my freediving buddies convinced me to be a pro on day one and go for the very "safe" announcement of 47m - just one meter more than the current German record. This was met with much moaning and tantrums on my part, since my announcement devil was protesting loudly - after all I'd already done 50m in training easily - but the conditions had changed dramatically, with cold weather bringing a significant drop in water temperature and very poor visibility in Dean's Blue hole. Being cold before a dive can have a big impact on how it will turn out, so much as my athlete's soul didn't like it, pulling back was the right decision and gave me an easy start with a little German record to kick me off. Plenty of time to improve it over the next days. After all, I still had five competition dives left - or so I thought!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the way down to 50m. Image: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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One thing I keep learning around my freediving events is that nothing ever turns out according to plan. Vertical Blue was no exception, meaning a combination of random things such as our rusty hire car breaking down to make me miss my start time and unexpected illness cost me three out of my six dives. Taking a safe progression into account, this meant I ended up just repeating the dive I'd done in training and moving the German no fins record to a depth of 50m. For someone used to doing personal bests in world championships, this initially felt like a right let-down, but leaving an event with a sense that you have more in you is often a strong positive motivation for an athlete, as it makes you want to go out and discover how much more that 'more' could be.<br />
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One of my favorite memories from this trip is beating the onset of cabin fever brought about by being forced to give up on a competition dive due to being unwell. Having stared at the contents of our fridge blankly for a while, debating such exciting dinners as jam on toast versus rice crispies, training buddy and housemate Liv Philip and I decided to beat the competition blues by going out to eat burgers in nearby Rowdy Boy's, where we accidentally (really!) ended up getting rather wasted. Three glasses of wine might have been involved. Having stumbled home through the dark, we continued the evening face down on my bed, crying tears of laughter, due to a discovery that we knew we needed to relate to the rest of the freediving crowd the following day. Fortunately for them, I suspect, neither of us had the slightest recollection of what this revelation might have been when we woke up with a blinding hangover the next morning. Spending the rest day with hourly promises to never even look at wine again exorcised all elements of freediving competition madness sufficiently for me to go and break my record and Liv to get out and equalize past the snot blocking her sinuses, reinforcing our long held belief that sometimes, cutting lose is all that's needed to get you back on track.<br />
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Although it hurts to give up dives due to illness or sketchy conditions, the ability to keep your ego in check is one of the most essential skills an athlete must have. We all hate to dive below what we deem to be our potential and want to be seen to be competitive. Being able to leave this behind is maybe the biggest secret to diving safely and with joy. The blue hole with its unique magic was instant love for me, including the fading light in the lower part that has athletes descending into an eerie darkness. As any environment, it has challenges and changing conditions, and one of the main skills an athlete needs is the ability to judge the impact this will have and to adapt. I find that retaining a sense of wonder through this process has left me with some of my best moments in freediving and it is one of the things I like the most about our sport.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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We were well looked after by a great safety crew as well as awesome doctors, and equally nicely saw our performances rated by a team of judges that clearly had their heart in every diver's achievement. In the midst of it all Sayuri Kinoshita became the first Japanese diver to break a world record with 72m no fins, while William Trubridge was on a roll and dived to world record depths in free immersion twice, granting this event media attention from around the world. For me, my first vertical blue was a magical trip peppered with challenges as well as success. Weirdly, it ended as it began: being stranded and having my flights canceled due to a storm in Miami! What are the chances? Next time I go to Long Island, I am taking a boat!<br />
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Back home, it is always comforting to find that my support crew is on common ground. Where sportsdoc advised me it was time to start doing some "real" weights before I left, evil coach Andrea Zuccari commented on my new German record in no fins by telling me I was diving "at least ten meters too shallow". Having returned to Berlin after a three day travel nightmare and a five week break from hard exercise, I went back to my Crossfit gym, where coach Sebastian Werner needed only a minute to tell me to "stop crying and get the heavier kettle bell". I hope these three never meet - the result would likely kill me!<br />
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Maybe I should take up a new sport for a while. I wonder if there is a cake-eating-contest somewhere near me?<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-52386287026566557232016-04-21T11:21:00.000-07:002016-04-22T05:49:33.444-07:00New places!My traveler's heart just loves the adventure of new places. Seeing Dean's Blue Hole for the first time was a moment I have been looking forward to for ages. It's as magic as it sounds, with eerie darkness and a stillness that is unique to this place. Add to that a little yellow island house to live in, white sandy Bahamas beaches, and freediving buddies around, and what's not to love about this freediving life?<br />
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I've been taking it easy on depth since I don't like to rush depth adaptation and my break has been too long to take risks. So while all around me people are pushing to new limits, I have come to the only logical conclusion: I must dive shallow.<br />
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Since I have learned some time ago that I don't enjoy competition without at least a bit of a challenge, the only logical thing is to finally face my nemesis, the one discipline I have resisted: constant weight no fins. Oh noooooooooo! Let the nightmare begin, is all I can say. Why would anyone do this if one can strap a perfectly good monofin to one's feet? It's mystifying.<br />
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After some thought and a lot of whining, I did hit upon a (very clever, I might add) training strategy: do as few of these awful dives as possible! Yes. That sounded like a clever plan. Until I found myself diving to 40m, 45m and 50m in three days, that is. Rarely have I done something quite so terrifying in freediving. It would not have been possible without my freediving friends around who provided me with therapy before and after the dives.<br />
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If mentally tough, physically the dives were surprisingly fine. This is clearly due to the hard work of devil crossfit coach Sebastian Werner as well as the entire crew at Spree Crossfit - if I couldn't get water time this winter, at least I grew enough muscles to get me back to the surface.<br />
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The annual Vertical Blue competition starts tomorrow. It's time to face my announcement devil and reign him in.<br />
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Be a pro, Anna, be a pro, be a pro....!<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-11092562686193125292016-03-28T23:47:00.002-07:002016-03-28T23:47:26.915-07:00Ready!<br />
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Due to chaos and accidents in the family (everyone recovered now, phew) I've had a turbulent winter with next to zero snowtime and little space for thought. Freediving and oceans were a world away and motivation to focus on structured preparation out the window.<br />
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The one thing I did manage was to make it to Crossfit five to six days a week, training in a mix of regular classes and personal training with coach Sebastian Werner. It was one hour per day of not thinking about anything except blasting myself with exhaustion in the best possible way. Physical changes started to be visible after around four weeks, but mentally I needed only an hour to know that this was right for me. Anyone who has had the misfortune to see my constant stream of boring gym posts on social media could spot it: I am hooked. Rarely has sweating and cursing been so much fun.<br />
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The outstanding coaching I have come across in crossfit boxes (gyms) in Berlin and London has a big part to play in how motivating it is, as well as the community spirit. It made me brave London Underground's Victoria station in rush hour every morning just to be told to go "warm up" with running in the rain by coach James or Freddy at Crossfit Vauxhall. They took one look at this odd freediver and after a brief time of getting used to my special weirdnesses, continued to guide, push, and encourage me along the path I started on at Spree Crossfit in Berlin. This has been invaluable to a traveler like me and made a tough month spent in London inspiring and awesome.<br />
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The first stage of checking the result had me do my annual death-by-bycicle fitness test with evil sports doc. What with going to Crossfit six days a week to lift weights, I had given up on any spinning work this year and decided to just not care. This was not an excuse doc was interested in, though, and my attempts at suggesting a new way of getting the test done by visualization was met with a raised eyebrow and some suckers attached to my chest and back. Blast! When my legs gave up I was convinced I had made a mess of it like never before and that crossfit had untrained all the things we'd been working on. In fact, to my (and doc's, I'm sure) surprise, the opposite was true: three months of pure crossfit training have made me fitter for freediving than anything I have ever done before outside of the water and in a lot less time. Just when I was feeling like Zena, the warrior princess, evil doc gave me an appraising look and announced that I ought to start training with "real" weights - a subtle way of telling me it was time to actually get fit. Thanks doc! Thanks. I'm sure devil coach Sebastian will love to oblige.<br />
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It's very well seeing all this on paper but now it's time to check how it translates into actual deep dives. Freediving season is here and if I can survive the two day journey to the Bahamas, I will finally get to freefall into the depth at Dean's Blue hole!<br />
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I wonder if visualizing statics will be enough to prepare me for some deep dives?<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-13045470734939122092015-12-01T08:54:00.001-08:002015-12-01T10:29:18.522-08:00Coaches!I've been off-blog for a while, so just a brief note on the worlds: they were not great for me, as for the first time ever in a depth world championship, I turned early. Unbeknownst to me, I was in bronze medal position, but I was sick with flu and had mentally checked myself out of the dive. I simply lacked the focus to get it done. A new experience. Can't say I liked it, but I suppose it's part of every athletes journey! I did fool around with Daan Verhoeven though, to get some funky pictures:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nJzF0VrN-OE/Vl3L_gu145I/AAAAAAAABVs/nwNg0Ons1ok/s1600/SpreeCF.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nJzF0VrN-OE/Vl3L_gu145I/AAAAAAAABVs/nwNg0Ons1ok/s320/SpreeCF.JPG" width="320" /></a>Back in Berlin (after a detour across some mountains, pure magic) I've thrown myself into Crossfit, asking Nico of Spree Crossfit to recommend one of the team to be my personal coach for the next months. He set me up with Sebastian Werner, who (fortunately) has no idea what he is getting himself into - best not to introduce him to evil coach Andrea, or he might reconsider whether he really wants to do this!<br />
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Sebastian started me off with a relatively gentle session, and had me thinking: well this is nice. He was probably just getting me comfortable so I wouldn't run screaming for the hills after the first fifteen minutes - now he has me hooked and it seems the nightmare is about to begin. In fact, during our last session I strongly considered giving up my lunch right there in the middle of the box.<br />
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I have already noticed one thing: if I (blond, I know) mention at all that I don't like/can't do/am rubbish at something, this very exercise/skill/nightmare appears instantly. Between two repetitions of squats I somehow (blond, see above) told him that I am incapable of doing box jumps (you have to jump onto a box, heights vary, standard are 40cm and 60cm). I went to great lengths to explain that I was physically unable to jump, as in, genetics, and that it had always been like that, even back in school when I played basketball. He listened to my expert reasoning, went off to get a 40cm box and made me jump on it. Now, this might seem like an easy exercise, but I tell you: mentally, to me, it was an unscalable cliff face. I was terrified to catch my toes and slam forwards onto the box, and certain that this very thing was going to happen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rn_S2ypfXc8/Vl3L_-im-II/AAAAAAAABVw/U0oV2ZlUWAU/s1600/boxjump.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rn_S2ypfXc8/Vl3L_-im-II/AAAAAAAABVw/U0oV2ZlUWAU/s320/boxjump.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">it's HUGE!</td></tr>
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So here is why having a coach who suits you and understands what goes on in your head is one of the best investments you can make. It took Sebastian less than three minutes to have me jump onto the nasty thing, something I had avoided so far at all costs, having firmly convinced myself that it was impossible. As soon as I was up on 40cm, scary enough as far as I was concerned, he came back with the 60cm one, pushing my mental boundaries. He could see that I was physically capable of getting up safely and that the barrier was just in my head. This is when you know if you have the right coach - although everything in me said: "impossible!" I trusted him and discovered that although challenging, it was no problem. It took my new devil coach all of 10 minutes to cure me of a conviction that has been limiting me for years. It was our second session together. As an instructor, I love inspiring this kind of trust in students, but I also love giving it to someone myself.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3YG9kzrs0T0/Vl3MAfE3mXI/AAAAAAAABWA/qPZ39xvnB9E/s1600/devilcoach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3YG9kzrs0T0/Vl3MAfE3mXI/AAAAAAAABWA/qPZ39xvnB9E/s320/devilcoach.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">coach Sebastian, aka devil coach</td></tr>
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So. If you want to get ahead, get yourself a trainer to get you out of your comfort zone in the right way. In the water, I could trust evil coach and angel coach to do this for me every time (coach Martin in the pool!). On the mountain, it's snowboard guru Joerg Egli who has made me carve down pitches I felt impossible to ride. Now I can add Sebastian to this crew, who I reckon will push me to new levels of fitness - and be known as devil coach henceforth!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mEKJSa8qXa0/Vl3L-3JpI8I/AAAAAAAABVo/4x4UJZioa0g/s1600/annagym.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mEKJSa8qXa0/Vl3L-3JpI8I/AAAAAAAABVo/4x4UJZioa0g/s320/annagym.JPG" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I shall not vomit in the gym, I shall not...</td></tr>
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Something tells me this is going to hurt - I apologize in advance for any vomiting I might do in the Crossfit gym. It's not my fault. I have a devil coach!<br />
<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-1360703111063706732015-09-04T01:57:00.000-07:002015-09-04T02:02:52.887-07:00Blue water heart<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O9uA1WTYt-s/Vela7t09IUI/AAAAAAAABVE/6kwfTKm9TqI/s1600/anna%2Bflies%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O9uA1WTYt-s/Vela7t09IUI/AAAAAAAABVE/6kwfTKm9TqI/s640/anna%2Bflies%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
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It's that time of the year again: freediving depth world championships are up! In a sport with more world championships than we can keep track of, this is the big deal. It's our ultimate challenge. The very essence of freediving.<br />
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Over the next two weeks athletes from around the world will be battling it out in the deep waters off the coast of Cyprus. Going out in a rib to float in the middle of the sea, with nothing around but water and nothingness below. Hardly anyone knows we are here or what we do. The only cheers come from other athletes. This is something I have always liked about our sport. It's a small universe in itself and doesn't rely on instant gratification from crowds of spectators. The highs and lows are private.<br />
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Although I have most likely had the worst training season ever, I am already loving this place and my very own moments at depth. Whatever that depth may be in the end, the beauty of it is a constant. When James Cameron was asked why he was striving to dive to the deepest part of the Mariana trench in a one man submarine, an endeavor that was as risky as it was expensive and complicated, he said: "it fills my heart with wonder".<br />
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I couldn't agree more. There is plenty of wonder coming up to fill this freediver's blue water heart.Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-7532179908078580622015-07-05T08:37:00.000-07:002015-09-04T02:04:59.487-07:00Survival at sea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been blog-quiet for a while, which can only mean one thing: excitement! New projects! I went snowboarding (how could I not?), did a fair lot of fitness training (75kg deadlift, yeah!) and went to start the freediving season in Sharm, where I was slowed down by illness as usual. So far, all normal - but then: five weeks of new challenges, crowned by a brilliant adventure: taking part in a "survival at sea" course. This is meant to help you not kick the bucket should you happen to fly in a helicopter across the ocean, and should said vehicle have the audacity to say, crash - something that apparently goes on more often than you'd like! Shit. Note to self: reconsider the helicopter flying thing, if ever offered such transport in the future.<br />
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Anyway, having been shown a video of lots of crashes, I got zipped up into an overall with a helmet on my head and chucked into a pool alongside a load of guys, told to float on the surface and not move, then made to remove the overall and turn it into a float, and then put it back on. Someone should have explained to these people that I like to be UNDER the water! This surface stuff is too much like hard work. Still grumbling to myself about all this swimming business, I was sent up to climb the five meter tower by the instructors and told to jump down, doing a "safety jump". Well. As far as I'm concerned, there is a flaw here. Jumping off a five meter tower feels far from safe to me - in fact, it feels like a total nightmare! Problem was, there were 20 guys on the course. As any self respecting female knows, this is the moment where you just can't show hesitation. I managed to suppress a shriek and threw myself into the abyss, feeling pleased that this bit was behind me, not realizing that I'd get to repeat this nastiness another three times!<br />
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Next it was time for the fun stuff: we climbed aboard a helicopter contraption which then gets dropped into the water, turned upside down and other such funky things, sometimes in the pitch black dark, while you have to keep calm and make an orderly exit, one after the other. This was so enjoyable to me I managed to convince the crew to let me put on my mask and follow the next group from the instructor position, meaning I was able to observe what happens when someone gets panicky, ignores the "orderly" bit and tries to exit through the door together with two others, nearly getting everyone stuck! Brilliant! I am more and more fascinated by people's fear/panic responses under water and how to help them overcome their most primal instincts. That is the difference between life and death in the water, right there, in the few seconds that decide whether someone will give into their fear or dominate it.<br />
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Having done the exciting stuff, we got pulled up, made to chuck out the rescue island thingy, jump (again!!!) after it, launch it and climb aboard. Looks easy in the classroom, gets kind of complicated in the water - I don't even want to think about what that would be like in a freezing sea with waves crashing over your head. Sitting inside with five guys is fun in the pool, but I'm sure I'd not pick being adrift like that for any length of time! They threw me in with so much enthusiasm, they put my head under water inside the island for a good 20sec. Just as well I can hold my breath, but thanks for the rescue, guys!<br />
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As if that wasn't enough fun, I next got hooked up to a parachute-pretend-machine, wheeled out from the five meter tower, dangled across the water, and then dropped - again - down, where the job was to release yourself from the straps, then swim underneath a parachute canopy on the surface, pulling yourself along to get out from under it without getting tangled in all the lines. Fun but served as a reminder that there is no reason whatsoever to leap out of a perfectly good aeroplane, as far as I'm concerned - and you can forget it, guys, I'm not doing any tandem jumps either!<br />
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I think I have found my new job when I'm done with the bookshop. The METS (Modular Egress Training Simulator) is the best thing I have seen in a long time. It's a freediver's fairground ride!<br />
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Now. I know it's time to go be serious and train and all that, and then to compete in the world championships, but: when can I go again? When? When?<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-82331717232975037202015-01-28T11:11:00.001-08:002015-02-22T07:36:03.318-08:00New year, new job!Right. 2015 is here. No one knows why these new years always come as such a surprise, and always so suddenly! Mine came with the - totally unsurprising - traditional four week sinus infection, as usual messing up all training ideas. I might try a new approach and just eat chocolate for the entire month of January 2016!<br />
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Fit or not, a new challenge was around the corner for me: my first ever job as a presenter. The crew responsible for the organization of the annual BOOT trade show (the biggest watersports trade show in the world) had decided to book me to be stage presenter in the diving hall for nine days although I had zero experience. Fortunately, I was only the second presenter, and able to watch closely what the proper professional was doing - taking the lead from Ingo Meyer was a very good plan, since he is hosting all manner of events including surfing and kiting world cups and working as TV sports commentator. The days were hectic with a schedule calculated by the second to fill the hours between 10:30 and 18.00. Note to self: drink less coffee next time! In fact, best drink nothing at all.<br />
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My favorite challenge of the week were the German navy divers who came on stage twice per day to present their three divisions. Novice presenter that I am, I asked the obvious: what exactly do the navy divers do? and was presented with a staggering range of military speak. It took me a couple of days to get through to the real information, e.g: they sometimes dive for miles/hours to get themselves and their gear unseen to a location - the audience that is used to paddling around the reef for 45min or so suddenly woke up! Ha. Since I like having a target to aim for I decided to work on making those guys lose their serious look a little more each day, something I started to succeed with when I discovered the best tool ever in one of the videos they were presenting: an underwater chainsaw! Amazing! Instant attention from all the men in the audience guaranteed. I did my best to make sure they were all storming the navy diver stand after each presentation.<br />
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A highlight in our 4m deep diving pool was a helmet diving suit. When I first spotted it, I had nothing better to do but to open my mouth (no surprises there) and declare this to be one the few things I have not tried in diving. Immediate result: the guys started planning to put me into it! My busy schedule (barely any time for toilet breaks) did not deter them at all. I was thinking, hell, this could be fun - until I was told the whole thing weighs 80kg, and that the challenge included me having to climb the stairs to the diving tower myself! A brief oh-shit-moment was followed by: if I don't make it - who cares? Until the exhibitors party, that is, when one of the guys told me that bets were being made on whether I'd get to the top, with some of them betting against me! Outrageous! Did I mention? Oh SHIT!<br />
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The morning came on the busiest day of the entire show. A brief thought of sports clothes was discarded for: why? I'll be dry - after all, it's a helmet suit! Climbing into it with my jeans soon showed the flaw in the plan: the men are a touch bigger than me, so there were, in fact, no seals on my wrists. Anyways, minor details, a bet was on and I was going to get up those stairs come hell or high water!<br />
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Since I was trained on trimix years ago by former UK navy diver Aaron Bruce, I firmly believe that planning is key to any kind of dive. This does not start in the water but well before, and includes such things as figuring out how to get your big ass and your gear to the divesite. Just in case the 80kg suit was going to be too much, I'd recruited the diving area crew to be on standby and help push me up the stairs if needed - what you don't have in your legs, you best have in your head, after all. Still, what self respecting girl can let a bunch of guys bet against her! This is were all the squats and burpees I did last year had to finally be of some use. <br />
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Climbing into the suit, it was hard for anyone around to keep a straight face, including me. This is what I used to call a man-proof-overall when I was still riding my Ducati around London: when wearing one of those, there is absolutely no danger of men getting any ideas. Apart from the size of the thing, the non-seal-wrist fit and the fact that they put a helmet on your shoulders that weighs 64kg, the boots were the biggest challenge. They weigh 7kg each, which is not such a problem in itself, but becomes pretty complicated when you have size 38 feet and the boots are 46.<br />
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Finally it was time to get to it and start climbing. The weight was actually easy enough, although I did notice that the man who's suit I was in cheated a little by not putting the chest weight on me until I was at the top - I reckon it's around 10-12kg. You're a true gentleman, Mr F! Biggest problem was trying to balance the boat-like 7kg boots on my toes to lift them up the steps. Climbing down the ladder was a bit special for the same reason, but once in the water, it was brilliant!<br />
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Of course, the water started to rise up the sleeves right away, but I figured I had time to hop around until it reached my upper arms. It's odd but funky to simply breathe with no regulator in the water, and just as well we had no radio connection, because I was laughing away the entire time. I felt quite heavy - I suppose I might not need quite as much weight as the usual wearers of the suit - and decided to let more air in to see if I could do some bigger jumps. Turns out this was a very bad idea, which I recognized when I nearly could not reach the valve in the helmet any more which you have to push with your head to let the air out! Failing to pay attention will send you straight to the surface, helpless and looking like a right fool. I saved myself - just! Phew.<br />
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Time flies when you have fun and with the water in the sleeves nearly up to my shoulders it was time to get out - standing below the ladder it came to me that all my planning had been terribly flawed. Blond moment! The only way to get out was to leap off the bottom and reach up to grab the ladder, emptying all the water from the arms into the legs. I might as well have sat in a bathtub. Still laughing I climbed out of the suit and prepared to go on stage with a pair of sweatpants borrowed from the diving tower crew. By the way, thank you kids, you were all great!<br />
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My first moonwalk! I loved it! Next time, I will bring tape for the seals and do some somersaults. And climb the stairs with the full 80kg.<br />
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Note to self: prepare for the BOOT show 2016 with heavy backsquats!<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-45698978284165576162014-11-22T23:22:00.002-08:002014-11-23T06:27:41.005-08:00success and failure It's done. The final dives of the season are gone, time to grab a coffee at Cairo airport and start contemplating the winter months ahead. It always feels a bit weird to let go of the ocean like that and not quite right to have done the last dive for a while. But the next one is never far away, and fortunately there are mountains to visit in the meantime.<br />
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I finished with a new German record in constant no fins, which was challenging - 45m in current did not feel beautiful, but was easy enough in the end. Since I had already set the record safely, I decided to have fun with it and take a calculated risk to do a pretty big dive, announcing 50m straight up next. Well. It seemed like a good idea at the time! I was (miraculously) not even terribly nervous, which may have had something to do with the stunning guest we had in the competition zone: a small (well, 2m) oceanic white tip shark spent the entire time cruising around us and came to have a good look at me during my warm up. Diving down to do a record paled in comparison to that experience!<br />
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Conditions were close to perfect, so I had no excuse for what followed, except the number one reason for failing your dive (once given to me by Johan Dahlstrom when I did a poll): I went too deep! The realization that this might be the case hit me when I took one stroke at the bottom and felt my arms go heavy. "Oh shit, I'm tired" might have just crossed my mind, together with a brief debate about bailing and pulling up, an option that was quickly discarded. Attempting to relax on the way up did not help a lot - I made it to the surface at a snail's pace, where I then proceeded to nod off for a second, earning me my first ever red card at a depth competition in the process. Swimming up from 50m with 2kg after a total of 10 days training was clearly my limit for that day. I still had a wonderful time with it though, and actually enjoyed the dive, even the physical challenge of it. Unfortunately someone filmed the mess, which means I will have to bear the shame of showing it to no fins specialist extraordinaire and one of my best freediving buddies, William Winram. I have a feeling he will be snorting with laughter and then tell me he is very impressed with me. For not blacking out in 20m with that technique, that is.<br />
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Well William, the way I see it: there is room for LOTS of improvement! Can't wait. Next up is shoveling snow off the roof of my car and using my calming freediving breathing techniques during the Christmas Bookshop Madness.<br />
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Hell - but how much worse than no fins diving can it be?Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-3126006493498687762014-11-17T04:29:00.002-08:002014-11-17T11:24:09.533-08:00ChallengesThis year has been all about diving without a lot of pressure and to do some much needed work. It takes time to develop new skills, and counting the days until you want to set a record or do well in an event is not helpful for the one step forward/ten steps back aspect of this kind of journey.<br />
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The last months have been fairly free of pressure, but to finish the season I thought I'd put the new found nose clip diving to good use and return to a discipline which I have ignored completely since setting a German record with 40m in 2008: constant weight no fins. It was always my hardest depth discipline, and since it is the shallowest and I just love diving as deep as possible, also the one I was least interested in improving. Being not a naturally good swimmer didn't help and so while I moved ahead across the board in all other disciplines, this one was left untouched. For a brief moment, from the safety of my sofa back home, it felt like a good idea to finally do something about that and turn up for the Freediving World competition without my monofin. The first training dive took me to 30m, with contractions starting pretty much after the duck dive. Back on the surface, I thought to myself: I am not doing this shit again. Ever. Next day I went to 40m and cursed some more.<br />
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With training time being kind of short - just a little over a week - the secret at the moment is acceptance. I can't change a lot or spend much time on fine tuning, and just have to be mentally ok with what is coming up. Yes the way down won't feel beautiful, but it doesn't mean I can't swim up easily enough. I'm kind of enjoying the novelty of it and finding my way, and seeing that all the training of the last years ultimately translates into this, as well. Sometimes it's interesting to do exactly the things you're certain<br />
you are no good at, because that's where surprises might just await.<br />
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Just doing what comes easy would be too simple. At least that's what I try telling myself. Until I am cursing that stupid idea all the way down tomorrow, that is!Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-4345795664056402392014-09-29T05:41:00.000-07:002014-09-29T10:13:55.736-07:00World Championship 2014: Final&Party!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Doing well in a world championship has much to do with getting your tactics right. I thought I'd maximize my chances for a good dynamic by announcing a distance which I could make for sure (30m. No worries there!) and that would get me a mid-morning start time, allowing my coffee deprived body to wake up a bit before action. It turned out to be a terribly flawed plan, but how was I to know that?<br />
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Between depth and the pool final we had two days to kill, which I mostly spent with unsuccessful attempts to upload my blog. This is how exciting we freedivers are: we go out to do a performance of three minutes. For this we need to eat just the right food three hours before, then we need to spend the said three hours resting or stretching (I'm not mentioning yoga here. Evil coach says I'm allergic to yoga. He might just be right.), then prepare for our dive by breathing endlessly in a most boring fashion. Afterwards we need to eat immediately and a lot, then we need to rest - exhausting activity - and annoy the world with facebook posts, after which we need to go to bed early to be ready the next day. After two days of this high intensity program we need a rest day! And people out there think we are an extreme action sport! If only they could see us! </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mSkIHGkkQW0/VClIXakj0ZI/AAAAAAAABOI/2jME158eSs8/s1600/ponies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mSkIHGkkQW0/VClIXakj0ZI/AAAAAAAABOI/2jME158eSs8/s1600/ponies.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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This routine was mercifully broken by UK athlete Mike Board (who at least has the action hero look about him), who had started to feed the ponies in the field next to the hotel. Pockets bulging with apples stolen from lunch, we went out to try and charm them, but they stayed hidden in the tall growing weeds. This led to a bunch of freediving athletes hopping up and down in front of a fence doing their best to make pony-attracting-whinniying noises, which eventually drew them out! Lovely! I had a brief moment of wondering if Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt are half way up a fence with a carrot between their teeth, making horsey sounds, before a Olympic performance? I'd love to hear these tales, if you have any. </div>
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My dynamic announcement worked out as I had planned with a mid-morning start time of 10:25. A bad mistake, as I soon realized, when a combination of extreme nerves (why? why?) and time passing at a snail's pace set my stress levels to maximum, not helped by the fact that my room mates thought my panicked-grumpy state was very funny. I told them to get lost, which led them to put the "do not disturb" sign on me. Thanks guys. Thanks. </div>
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Out by the pool I was faced with a fresh problem: it was very chilly! Curled up with a wooly hat under my towel, I waited for this nightmare to come to an end, spoke to no one and watched others do their thing, notably Per Westin from Sweden, who swam so slowly that he was hardly moving at all. The judges set off to walk next to him only to realize that he was basically still at the start, which had them all scramble to get back, a very funny sight! He reached 185m in a dive time of 3:40. No one quite knows what he was doing - drifting with the current, maybe? Shame, since he can clearly do much more. Maybe the water just wasn't cold enough for such a Viking to wake up. The other funky performance I witnessed was Marina from the Russian team, who did just over 200m by accident: she had lost count of her turns and thought she was coming up at 150m!</div>
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My nerves kept building all the way, with my whole head tingling by the time I reached official top. Not a good way to do a dynamic that was largely (due to only 2 training dives) an unknown for me. The swim felt so awful, I spent 125m having discussions with myself over quitting and planning my excuses in my head. This kept me busy until the 125m turn, when I realized I could do something ok and started monitoring my physical state. I had a sudden idea to swim to 175m, but reigned in the devil to keep it to a safe performance at 157m - it was a team effort, after all. Afterwards, I was annoyed at myself for the useless nerves, but extremely happy to drink a coffee! I will go back to announcing 1m in the future, as just getting it over with still works best for me. In the next pool competition (likely to be in 5 years time, at my rate) it will be time to hardenthefuckup and touch the 175m wall. </div>
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Sun out and coffee in hand, the morning starters could enjoy watching the big swims of the day, with the biggest belonging once again (boring, but incredible) to Natalia Molchanova, who did a world record with 237m in what can only be called a casual way. Complimented on it later by all of us, she said: "it was easy". Yes. Well. No surprises there. 157m? Pussy swim indeed! </div>
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Other teams did not have everything work out so well, with the Danish men in the unlucky bunch - one of their divers got red carded on a surface protocol time violation by less than a second, losing them the top spot. Jesper Stechmann, usually always good for a very big dynamic, lost his will to push and came up 215m, which left the Danes in 5th place over all. They gave up their first place to the Russian men, with the Russian women taking gold on the ladies' side, a fantastic moment of double-win which led the Russian team to throw an impromptu party in the evening. As usual, those instant after-competition-parties are our best ones, with all the pressure gone and everyone in high spirits having a great time. This one was a bit special since it turned out to be unusually shark infested, a tale to be told in private, but that will become freediving-party-legend for sure!</div>
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It was a fun event as always, even if I missed the depth part. A big thank you has to go to organizers, safety crew, judges, coaches, our Aida board and the hotel staff. An apology has to go to the poor hotel guests who made the error in booking a holiday there during a world championship. We are so sorry. Thank you for your patience! To help you to avoid a similar mistake, here are the top signs that a freediving competition is in your area:</div>
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1. The internet is permanently damaged due to 24 hour overload of resting freedivers with nothing else to do but surf. The web, that is.</div>
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2. There are people with fins and wetsuits blocking the pool at all times. The pool is starting to get murky.</div>
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3. People with wetsuits and fins are walking around in the lobby. You step into unexpected puddles of water in lobby, lifts and corridors. </div>
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4. If you spot a banana at the buffet, it has disappeared before you can get to it. In fact, there is a banana shortage in all the supermarkets in the area.</div>
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5. You get blinded by people with bright yellow shirts on walking around the pool, looking serious and demanding quiet while they whip out white, yellow or red cards.</div>
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6. You end up on the internet in various nations because you happened to be innocently lounging in the sun behind the only palm tree that was deemed to be a suitable team photo background.</div>
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7. All those people who were doing yoga, looking intense and meditating around the hotel the one minute are dancing around drunkenly until all hours in the morning the next without any previous warning. It only takes one beer to get them to this state.</div>
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8. The harassed hotel staff need two days to recover from the demand of airport shuttle organization and transfer of freedivers who are still in a state of intoxication. After which the hotel is mercifully quiet and yoga free, the internet works like a dream and the bananas are back!<br />
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Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-67407733887263200152014-09-25T08:52:00.000-07:002014-09-29T10:11:20.610-07:00Sardinia: Team WC 2014!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This year's team world championship set off in the correct manner by having a massive storm roll in, forcing the organizer to bring the static event forward and yet again making a mess out of my clever preparation plans. You'd think I'd learn to skip making them in the first place, but no such thing. With my static training thus reduced from seven days to two, I quit wasting time on making it nice and went for battle. This got me safely to 05:15 on the competition day, but I have to say it's depressing to fight for over three minutes for such a mediocre performance. In the words of my Italian training buddy Sergio Soria: "also my grandmother!!". Oh well. Not doing that again in a hurry!<br />
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Next up was the job of coaching others, which I love and am keeping a decent track record with so far (I once left William Winram when he turned early. I don't coach a dive that stops in 50m. Reputation), although I will say that Liv provided me with a challenge, sending me into a state of coach-panic when she was hit by the first contraction at 1min! What do you do? What to say?? Good luck to the buddy who tries to be soft and gooey and tells Olivia Philip to relax. She will jump right up and tell you where you can put your relaxation! In the end I chose the wise words of our room 123 comp inspiration, Australian comedian the Chopper, and told her to harden the fuck up. Check it out here:<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIVvjZc9Y&app=desktop">harden the fuck up, by the chopper</a><br />
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A collective gasp went up from the audience, but I knew she was now grinning to herself and it pushed her on to reach 06:05, becoming a #hardenthefuckup world championship fighting legend in the process.<br />
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All in all, the static part went well for most teams, with Goran beating Natalia's 08:30 with an easy hold of 09:13 - after she put him in his place in Serbia last year, he is terrified of a repeat incident - Alexey (who is well used to being beaten by his mum) already loves to remind him of the last one and has been known to offer Goran a chance to compete against his older family generations next. Meanwhile, the most notorious item to have emerged from these world championships are the Russian team shorts - emphasis on SHORT - which Alexey has designed to adequately display his newly acquired leg muscles.<br />
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He told me that the night before his 115m training dive he was doing squats with his 80kg team mate on his shoulders. It appears that the rest of us had it all wrong! We thought we needed to rest before our measly dives! Stupid! One of my favorite lucky charms here are Goran's lilac Hello Kitty flip-flops. Feminine side and all that, they appear to be working just fine for him, since he surfaced from his 09:13 static looking like I do after 45seconds! If you see me performing monster breath holds at the next worlds, it will be because I have gone and nicked my niece's pink Hello Kitty hairband. I hope.<br />
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With the ugly static out of the way, it was time for the teams to go back into the sea for constant weight. I fell into a fit of depression when everyone headed out to the boats and I was left behind with my broken ear to swim up and down in the pool. Resistance was building up by the minute during my breathe-up, made worse by the fact that my room mates had forbidden me to drink coffee to prepare myself for this misery. Once I started, I was grumpy enough to swim to 150m. It was easy even with contractions at the 25m turn, but did nothing to lift my spirits.<br />
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At least I got to go out on the competition day to coach Liv to her first 70m dive and to take care of one of my team mates who unfortunately did not quite make it to the surface on his own, putting the German men back several places in the current ranking. He's inexperienced in depth competitions and underestimated what it meant to dive under these circumstances, but has lots of room to go deep with practice. The German ladies have dropped right down, too, all my fault because my bad-ear-no-diving has lost us my depth points.<br />
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Over all constant weight was smooth enough, with only three black outs and a number of early turns. People are conservative and those who compete with a strong team spirit and well thought out performances are at the top, with the Danish men currently in number one spot, demonstrating once again how strong they are in competition tactics.<br />
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Much is still open and Friday will bring an exciting dynamic final. I'll be nervous as hell. At least I get to treat my depression with coffee afterwards, followed by:<br />
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Beer! Tequila! Party!<br />
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But first I have to hold my breath in the pool. Again. Oh shit.Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-47711740637431437292014-08-09T08:21:00.000-07:002014-08-10T01:17:13.703-07:00Ooops...After watching coach breeze through his record, I felt fully motivated to get on with training and move ahead. The plan we had made for this year was to not worry a lot about records, taking time to continue working on deep equalization without the stress of approaching deadlines. I have been enjoying the lack of pressure, announcing a German no limits record attempt for fun more than anything else. Most of the work has been spent on trying to learn to dive with the noseclip, which has been going a lot better than I expected, although I must say: how ugly are these things? It's impossible to look cute with one of those on!<br />
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Apart from minor problems it was all going quite swimmingly until yesterday. We put the line down to 120m - I already did 119m three weeks ago - and it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful dive. Feeling relaxed and happy on the way down, I had air to spare when I heard the 100m alarm and was just getting very pleased with it all when I swallowed most of the nice air, losing the pressure on my ears in the process. I was just checking if I could get them to equalize again, when I felt a very sudden, piercing pain in my right ear (while the left ear was just gently getting under some pressure) and in the split second it took me to hit the brake the eardrum broke. I'd stopped in 119.6m.<br />
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This was a first for me, I can tell you! The surprise was as big as the instant frustration. Interestingly for those that have not (I don't recommend it!) experienced this: the eardrum braking actually didn't hurt at all, there was just a gentle release of pressure. Fortunately the water here is very warm at the moment, so I did not suffer any vertigo and since I am well acclimatized to depth I felt clear and free of the added stress of narcosis. What really struck me was how fast it happened, and that I had no problem with the other ear, although I had lost equalization on both at the same time. At that depth, I normally would have many meters to go and plenty of time to calmly brake and quit the dive, which is how it worked out for my left ear - pain free on the dive and symptom free when checked by Dr. Ahmed at the hyperbaric chamber. Bizarrely, the right side broke with a very small hole at the same time. It appears to have been completely accidental and I have learned something new: many divers break their eardrums with no prior pain at all. All it takes is a small infection with no noticeable symptoms to be present - it's enough to weaken the eardrum and result in a surprise injury. I had a mild infection from the residence pool three weeks ago, but it cleared after a couple of days and I had no problems with it - until now!<br />
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At least I get to work on my tan for a couple of days before flying home early, coach cannot complain or tell me to eat more! When something like this happens it's easy to feel foolish, embarrassed and weak. Whether it was accidental or whether you actively pushed it too far, it doesn't matter. Making mistakes is part of learning. What's important is to own up to the mess that you created, to those around you and especially to yourself. There is no shame in this. Denying mistakes, downplaying accidents and pretending that it was "just a little thing" is dangerous, and not just for the diver himself. Others take a cue from this attitude and before we know it, everyone just shrugs off things that have gone wrong.<br />
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Facing the real state of affairs can be incredibly hard. Aaron Bruce, my very direct technical diving instructor, told us something I never forgot: "The first sign of decompression sickness is denial." I believe this applies to many things in our sport. DCS can be a simple accident or it can be a result of stupid choices, as can be a lung squeeze or middle ear barotrauma. The urge to ignore the symptoms and go "I'm fine, it's nothing" is often overwhelming. We do not want to be "that kind" of diver. We also know it could mean we have to take a step back or stop, ruining chances to reach our goal, which makes us feel weak because we did not achieve what we set out to do. It's easier to convince ourselves that all is fine.<br />
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Only it isn't. This kind of denial can get people killed. It's a type of insanity that is somehow very human. So, we have to practice to be open about our mistakes and to avoid lying to ourselves. Freediving is a sport based around friends and it is our job as a community to help people deal with their accidents and failures, whatever it may take. I was really lucky to be around to force one of my buddies to face his problem when he suffered a severe case of DCS together with an equally severe case of denial, convincing himself that he'd be fine with a bit of rest. Had he boarded a flight untreated, it would have killed him or put him in a wheelchair.<br />
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So - I had an accident, fortunately only a very small one. I learned to be even more careful and allow much less margin for error in the future - not even the split second. It feels frustrating and like weakness right now, but that's ok. It's what I do with it that counts.<br />
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Meanwhile, it looks like I'll be stuck with pool disciplines for a couple of months - oh no!! I wonder if tequila is helpful for statics?<br />
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<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-974201577863651152014-07-27T07:14:00.000-07:002014-07-27T07:18:20.040-07:00Go coach!!!Just when I was getting bored and restless with the endless routine of wake up, look out the window to check sea conditions, have tea, check sea conditions, strech, check sea conditions, have coffee, check sea conditions, do dry skills, check sea conditions - still rough - curse sea conditions, do some pool stuff, curse sea conditions, oh wait, sea conditions are ok! Go train! - my favorite and (mostly) always patient evil coach has gone and provided us with a much needed bit of action.<br />
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He's been training alongside us, meaning he fits in a deep dive after he's been looking after Will and me for a couple of hours, which serves beautifully to highlight our continuing failure to get things right. Nothing like someone hopping on the sled and whizzing down to 160m when you have just hit the brake at 105 to show you what room for improvement truly means.<br />
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On Friday it was time for him to be serious and break his own Italian no limits record, with a dive that would make him the second deepest man in the world. I went to meet him for a coffee in the morning, to enjoy the fact that evil coach was churning with nerves - he's just as bad as I am with that - then we all went to look at (and curse) sea conditions for a while. The dive center was buzzing with equipment and crew, all designed to make evil coach even more nervous, especially when it came to handling his babies - there were 12 cameras involved in filming this dive with some stunning footage taken! Watch this space for the video to come.<br />
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After sorting out some emergency protocols and making sure we had a back up plan for everything it was time to leave coach to his nerves and get in the water. William and I were the freediving safety team for this event, official "safety diver" lycra and all! This kind of dive requires a well organized and especially well focused team as you cannot afford any type of mess. I put the second line down to 110m to help technical safety diver Jim with his deco later - he was waiting in 150m and filmed some spectacular images, bar the moment where he tilts the camera to look at his rebreather gauges because his 200m depth rated torch imploded! Something going "BANG" is not what you want to hear when you are down there, I tell you.<br />
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With the judges in the water and cameras rolling, coach was ready and we gave Jim the five minute signal to start his descent. Everything switches to "go" and things go quiet except for Sergio counting down. Everyone is focused on the moment when the sled is released and drops under the surface. From then on, we are counting the seconds till touch down - he landed after 75seconds and we knew he had made it. Still, this is not the time to celebrate but to get ready - after all, getting down is only half the dive. William went first to meet coach with the scooter, with me following closely behind - waiting for him near the line it took a moment for the bubbles to clear before I could see him. As usual, he was fresh as a daisy and completely unfazed. Surface protocol in six seconds. He did that dive with a mask which is simply spectacular!<br />
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Last person out of the water that day was deep technical safety diver Jim, who finished his deco after a total dive time of 02:58hours. Deco is boring as hell, but I have to say, I still miss that kind of diving! It was great to take a brake from the training routine to be safety crew for the day. Looking after others is an essential part of what we do. Without it, you are missing half of what it means to be a freediver. Keep your skills up to date and take care of your buddies!<br />
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In the meantime: way to go, coach! Now it's back to training. Had better go and check the sea conditions...<br />
<br />Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-61403905794257475582014-07-04T09:45:00.002-07:002014-07-07T00:55:00.205-07:00Freediving friends around!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An essential part of successful freediving are our
freediving friends. Especially depth training often involves lengthy stays in
places far from home, where you share apartments/hotel rooms/tents with your
mates. Freediving does not just happen in the water, but largely outside, too -
you need your buddies around to moan about training miseries, wonder how to fix
persisting problems, brainstorm target ideas and training plans, or develop a
game plan for a competition, amongst many other things such as sharing silicone
grease for your beloved monofin. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Our surroundings and the energy before and after diving is
crucial to being happy and relaxed in the water, especially when you are
challenging yourself and when things are not easy. Nothing quite takes the pressure out of things like having some
freediving buddies around who laugh with you, drink the occasional beer, share
the porridge in the morning and don't think you're a freak when you are holding
your breath lying on the hotel bed. They
know your highs and lows, what you are like when you are nervous as hell, what
you look like when it all went wrong, what you look like when you dance around
drunk at the closing party, and they are in it with all they have, just as much as you are. There is an
open spirit between those of us who train and compete together that I love as much
as the diving itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So here we go - 10 signs that you have great freediving buddies around:<o:p></o:p></div>
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1: They tie a smiley balloon to your locker when you have the training blues.</div>
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2: They let you have their favorite red sweatshirt when it suddenly gets freezing in the desert.</div>
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3: They practice looking stupid with balloons with you every day and do not think you are a freak. </div>
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4: When world championship nerves drive you out of your bed at dawn to go and stare at the sea, they are already there, just as nervous as you are.</div>
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5: They know that the thing to do when you have broken yourself ten days before a world championship is to get you a coffee.</div>
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6: They help you get a medal, and then they help you celebrate getting it. Liv (pictured) has one too, actually, but she lent it to safety diver Stewart for a while. </div>
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7: They make happy-kids-on-family-outing type faces at you when you turn around in the car. Because you all decided it was a good idea to get up at 04:30am to drive to Ras Mohammed national park at sunrise and swim with fishes. Sun decided to rise invisible behind clouds, but they are happy anyway.</div>
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8: They come with you to dive in a 14°C lake when it is raining outside. They don't even think it's stupid to sleep in a tent in the rain after getting frozen in the water first. In fact, they think it's the best thing ever. They are just as mad as you are.</div>
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9: They go: "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee….!" with you on a sled</div>
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10: They know when it's time to quit being serious and just get down and partyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-69240694770301482372014-05-23T06:16:00.000-07:002014-05-23T06:18:39.525-07:00Back!Having dashed home at the end of April in time to enjoy the
annual first of May riots in Berlin (it's the European anarchists favorite
throw-a-bottle adventure holiday destination), greet my spring bookshop
customers, visit London to ramble Wimbledon Common with friends and dog and
pick up 12kg of stuff for evil coach, I made it back to Sharm without catching
any bugs and - how wonderful - am in the water again!<br />
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This is sort of significant as I pulled an Anna reverse
diving special and finished the weeks of spring training with a general
freediving melt down, getting worse by the day until I ended up 100 steps back
from where I started after the winter break, with evil coach finally forbidding
me to train. As always, I need to get that far to I realize that I'm getting
properly sick and not just having a (few) bad day(s) and that it's time to just
stop. Stopping involved rushing around Germany and London, but also drinking
beer and wine, which I am convinced is an excellent cure for the training blues!
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back in Sharm, I've still been feeling like sleeping and
sleeping all day, every day, but the fog is lifting and today I went to play
with the sled, with one sole target: have fun! Never mind skills, plans,
precision... just fool around! Sometimes, you have to just give in, step away
from everything and have faith that you will feel like yourself again at some
point. I have decided on a strict regimen of days off and although it is
admittedly starting to make me restless, I have abstained from filling them
with burpees and squats so far. Seems to be working at the moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Only sad thing: Luda has disappeared! We hope she's just
having babies somewhere. Diving is just not the same without a pet barracuda
around. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-29054215305275646642014-03-13T09:12:00.000-07:002014-03-13T09:24:40.619-07:00Maximum heart rate<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sunny weather is here and people are out in force,
which can only mean one thing: it’s time to quit and go freediving! In the
(brief) breaks between various attacks of colds, flus and sinus infections, I
have been making attempts at getting myself in shape for this over last couple
of months. Since I am following advice from my favorite evil doctor, who is definitely
up there with evil coach, this has been a predictably painful experience.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju7UBhnaIME/UyHSe9dA3fI/AAAAAAAABDs/nDvnpjkKlwk/s1600/AnnaCrossfit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju7UBhnaIME/UyHSe9dA3fI/AAAAAAAABDs/nDvnpjkKlwk/s1600/AnnaCrossfit.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span> <br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before I made his acquaintance, I used to really enjoy
lovely long runs or cycles. This has ALL been cancelled. Of course, a self
respecting evil sports doctor would not be worth his money if he did not
replace something (nice, preferably) he cancels with something else, which had
best be something the athlete is not going to enjoy, meaning that I am allowed
ZERO aerobic training. Instead, I have been given the very un-lovely target of
doing anaerobic training ONLY henceforth. This means: intervals. And then some
intervals, and after that, some sprints. Continue as desired. Add to this a
heavy dose of strength work and you have effectively removed all nice things
from exercise. Except the results, that is! This has been highly effective for
me last year, leaving me stronger and fitter than ever in the water during the
world championships. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This year, I have added a thing called crossfit to shake
things up. After my first workout lasted six minutes and left me unable to walk
for five days, I knew I had hit on something evil doctor was going to approve of!
Apart from being fun (in a weird, painful kind of way) it’s is an incredibly
varied way to train a high level of anaerobic strength, making it perfect for a
freediver who wants to push maximum heart rate as much as possible.</span></span><br />
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Feeling brave in a flu-free moment (of madness), I
announced to evil doctor that I was ready for the horrible fitness test where
they put a nasty mask on your face and make you cycle uphill until you’re ready
to have a heart attack, while they look calmly on and leave you to wonder whether
you might just be the unfittest excuse for an athlete they ever had through the
door. Of course, as soon as I made the appointment I succumbed to the next
killer virus, an excuse evil doctor did not consider impressive in the
slightest. At my offer to think of something more creative, he just raised his eyebrow
– clearly, none of it was going to do me any good. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I was slogging away on
the impressively uncomfortable bike (honestly, the seat is so big, you keep
banging your thighs into it when you try to pedal hard and if my bottom ever
fits onto that thing properly I will go into hiding until I have lost 35kg!),
he started making his favorite …“very good”… “excellent”… noises, that I still
view with maximum suspicion. After all, he can hardly say: “you’re a bit
rubbish today, aren’t you” or: “that’s it???”. One day I will make him do a
static and tell him how well he is doing at 34sec. And then I will give him
some CO2 tables as homework, and then we will be even!</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In any case, sad excuse for an athlete or not, the result
turns out to be just what we wanted: a marked improvement in muscle that is
working perfectly in anaerobic mode, thus not stealing my oxygen but making me
stronger during the dive. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Crossfit, here we go! I am having visions of wall balls
and burpees in my future…oh no…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-53999278219107804162014-03-07T04:17:00.002-08:002014-03-07T04:17:26.246-08:00Behind the scenes: JudgesHaving offered my thoughts on the importance of the safety
diver in the last blog entry, I'd now like to give thanks to another essential (easily spotted by their yellow colouring) creature of the freediving circus: the judge.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the small community of competitive freediving, we tend to
know each other and meet again and again over the years. This, to me, is also
the magic of our sport at this point: it is small enough to feel intensely
sociable and close knit, but large enough to have world championships with a good number of athletes competing hard for the top spots. The fact is:
none of this would happen if it weren't for the time donated freely by
freedivers who are willing to take on the role as judge. They do not get paid,
they have to take precious vacation and fly half way across the globe to then
sit in the blazing sun measuring ropes, creating spreadsheets, watching people
go down and come up again, spend hours reviewing bottom camera footage to ensure all performances are valid and then file endless amounts of paperwork. To round
things off, they get the joyful honour of watching athletes pee in a
jar for the doping test. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-esx80MyKRUg/Uxm3L7FHbMI/AAAAAAAABDU/ClWJNHyxybQ/s1600/judge1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-esx80MyKRUg/Uxm3L7FHbMI/AAAAAAAABDU/ClWJNHyxybQ/s1600/judge1.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">judge Paola!</td></tr>
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Through all this, they carry the responsibilty for often
hard decisions, having to give a red card for a perfomance that has
been trained for for months. If the athletes celebrate a white card, the judges
are often forgotten and rarely thanked. If the decision was a tough one and the
outcome not positive, they get complained at. It's a bit of
a thankless job, and most of them do it for sheer love of the sport and because
they are excited about the incredible things that keep happening before their
eyes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So - as much as the safety divers, the judges share my
performance as an athlete. I have yet to encounter a judge who was not
positive, excited and welcoming and did not want me to succeed with all their
heart. When the crew around me goes quiet and the countdown starts, I can feel
their energy and their crossed fingers radiating my way from the platform. They
have as much a share in creating an environment that frees me to explore my
abilities to the maximum as anyone else around me at this point. When I
surface, there is nothing so great as to see a white card from a judge. They
often are our close friends, and it breaks their heart to judge a performance
not valid. They share every single competition dive with me, the successes as
much as the failures. I have had great moments with judges over the years, and
if it wasn't for the fact that I have to clear the rope for the next diver, I'd
leap out of the water to hug them every time. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BiI5qcsL0UM/Uxm3Mna1OaI/AAAAAAAABDY/R7FWbrzPwLE/s1600/judge3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BiI5qcsL0UM/Uxm3Mna1OaI/AAAAAAAABDY/R7FWbrzPwLE/s1600/judge3.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">hugging judge Marco Nones after the 110m no limits German record </td></tr>
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So - a huge thank you for the time, energy and crossed
fingers donated to me and my fellow freedivers over the years. Here are some
who have judged record performances for me - Grant Graves, Bill Stromberg, Pim
Vermeulen, Lotta Ericson, Linda Paganelli, Panagiota Balanou, Marco Nones,
Stavros Kastrinakis, Ute Gessmann, Kimmo Lahtinen, Martin Müller, Paola,
Christoph Leschinski...and all the others - </div>
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thank you!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-88793523611361461652014-02-25T05:32:00.003-08:002014-02-25T06:45:38.893-08:00Behind the scenes: Safety Divers<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Freediving is a funny sport. I think most of us agree that
it is a huge mind game. Physical strength and skill is one thing, and certainly
important, but if your head is not ready, it cannot work. Thoughts, feelings, subconscious
mind - all of it has to play along.</div>
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Much of this is under my control when I dive. It is up to me
how I have prepared myself physically, and if I am mentally up to the challenge.
But then there is an element to freediving that is often taken for granted or
overlooked: the importance of the safety diver. Essentially, freediving is a
safe sport - but we depend on the safety divers to be there and take care of us
when things have become too difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People underestimate how important a good safety diver - and over all
safety team and system set-up - is for a successful deep dive. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--C4AsuK5T5A/UwyYbZn6OXI/AAAAAAAABCg/zwUUns471II/s1600/safety2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--C4AsuK5T5A/UwyYbZn6OXI/AAAAAAAABCg/zwUUns471II/s1600/safety2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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It's simple, really: if there is any doubt in the back of your head
about the safety diver or system, you will not be able to freely perform a
maximum dive. To be able to reach your potential, especially on very deep
dives, you need to be completely without worry about being taken care of. A
good safety diver will radiate a sense of security to you without words, just
by calmly being there in the water. The safety crew comunicates around you and while
you are getting ready to do your best, they are also preparing themselves to
look after you. All of this filters through into my awareness during
preparation - if it is right, it enhances the focus and sense of readiness for
the dive. If it is wrong, it is subtly but crucially disturbing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HVid75isZxE/UwyYbVSOjoI/AAAAAAAABCk/cELYQkrxBNo/s1600/safety1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HVid75isZxE/UwyYbVSOjoI/AAAAAAAABCk/cELYQkrxBNo/s1600/safety1.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></div>
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Coming up from a deep dive, it is always a fantastic moment
to see the safety diver. Mostly I stay within myself, focusing on the last but
most difficult meters, but I am intensely aware that they are there and all is
well. It is a feeling of: nothing can happen to me now. Through my six years of
freediving, I have had outstanding safety divers - sometimes my training
buddies, sometimes full crews during competitions or world championships. All
of them have shared my successes by allowing me to be mentally free of worry.
If you look at videos of record or competition freedives, you will see that the
first thing many of us do is hug the safety diver - without them, it would not
have happend. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6Q9CkrPkw68/UwyY-cnwfAI/AAAAAAAABC8/58_J6EzxVOY/s1600/anna+up+with+lots+of+lines+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6Q9CkrPkw68/UwyY-cnwfAI/AAAAAAAABC8/58_J6EzxVOY/s1600/anna+up+with+lots+of+lines+1.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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Then there is the moment where you actually need your safety
diver, because you got yourself into trouble. Most deep freedivers have been
there, and it is a curious feeling to wake up in the arms of someone else and
not quite know how you got there. A good safety diver will make you feel
alright even at this moment, they give you calm and trust that things are ok,
and there is no reason to worry about anything. At big competitions, the safety
team will spend hours and hours in the water, diving and diving again to wait
at depths of up to 30m for a diver to return. Over the years there are stories
of superb rescues perfomed, such as at the 2013 world championship by Steven
Keenan who swam down to 40m to pick up a diver in trouble. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I would like to post a thank you here to all the guys who
are working hard at big competitions to look after us, and all of those who
have been there for me over the years, training buddies, friends and others.
Thank you, without you none of it would have been possible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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2013 World Championship safety team:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Andrea Zuccari</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stephan Keenan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Marick le Herisse</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Manuel Maille</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sergio Soria</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stefanos Imelos</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stefanos Tsagaroulias</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stefanos Haniotis</div>
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Giannis Igglesis</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kostas Kalamaras</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lambros Siadimas</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alexander Jankeliowitch</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dimitris Kolokotronis</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friends and training buddies:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Andrea Zuccari</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Marco Nones</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stavros Kastrinakis</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daan Verhoeven</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sara Campbell</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Liv Philip</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Georgina Miller</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Martin Müller</div>
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Elisabeth Müller</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peder Pedersen</div>
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Linda Paganelli</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lotta Erikson</div>
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Jesper Stechman</div>
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Jakob Hansen</div>
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Sergio Soria</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
William Winram</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Deron Verbeck</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Johan Dahlström</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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And many, many others! <o:p></o:p></div>
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Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-51754033637407424532013-12-18T04:28:00.000-08:002013-12-18T04:39:59.411-08:00Stillness<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had it all planned: wind up the freediving season with two final weeks
in Sharm, finish with a nice dive in a small
competition, then head home tanned and healthy to face the crazed winter customers. All was going swimmingly, I did not catch any
nasty colds in Berlin or London and thought I was home free - until I set foot
on the premises of freediving world apnea center, that is. There, I was instantly infected with a killer virus, which knocked me out within 24 hours
and is still with me four weeks later, thwarting the "healthy" bit of my plan long term!</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ohX-l3I7EZE/UrGP96nqmeI/AAAAAAAABB0/ngg5q_qBLl8/s1600/AnnaSharm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ohX-l3I7EZE/UrGP96nqmeI/AAAAAAAABB0/ngg5q_qBLl8/s320/AnnaSharm.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Since the
sinuses simply would not unblock themselves even though I stayed mostly dry, I decided to go for a novel experience on the final competition day by announcing – wait for it - 21m free
immersion! In a dive time of 2min! Ha. Evil coach was ready to disown me, but I
had the best time ever. It’s the shallowest official dive I have done
since I started freediving, I stopped to equalize every 15cm and I was not nervous at all - amazing!</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ILynMjC-j6Y/UrGQFa83HKI/AAAAAAAABB4/ok2jqbDKlio/s1600/anna+hangs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ILynMjC-j6Y/UrGQFa83HKI/AAAAAAAABB4/ok2jqbDKlio/s400/anna+hangs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stillness. Photo by Daan Verhoeven</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">People have asked me why I even bothered to compete. I
just wanted to be out there and look after my freediving buddies and have a
laugh. I think it’s essential to be a bit lighthearted around all of this and
not take yourself too seriously. When things don’t go as planned I grumble and
moan, but I don’t throw my toys out of the pram and it does not mean I can’t
still smile and be happy with my friends. Otherwise, what could possibly be the
point of it all? It’s not like I’m going to get rich here. The sea was lovely
and even though I could barely leave the surface, I had those moments of
stillness underwater that all of us love so much.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What else could there be? This is what it’s all about.
Don’t ever forget to take in the colour of the sea around you, say hello to
Luda the barracuda and smile at your freediving friends. Now I just have to get
through Christmas bookshop madness – then it’s time for my other love: snowy mountain
season! Wonderful (white) moments of stillness are to be had there, too, by the
way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And maybe a beer…or two…or three….!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8593171252474486287.post-82609237068553167792013-10-02T01:32:00.000-07:002013-10-02T01:32:03.308-07:00World Championships: review<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">I</span>’m back home and glued to my desk in the bookshop, enjoying the beautiful autumn days in the city, coming down from the epic closing party and getting used to not putting on my wetsuit every day to head out to the ocean.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">photo: Daan Verhoeven</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The 2013 WC
was a rollercoaster for me. As if the injury wasn’t enough, I ended up losing
two nights of sleep in a row right before the constant weight competition day.
This is a special story – some pretty crazy stuff in the room next to us had Liv
and I still awake and high on adrenalin at 03:00am, calming ourselves down by
drinking beer in reception, which the sympathetic security guard had gone out
to get for us. Not quite the right preparation for an 81m dive, with the
uncertainty of how the pain from the fresh stitches would affect swimming up from
depth. Luckily I had Liv, who was a brilliant partner in crime and, when it all
went way too crazy moments before I had to put on my wetsuit, just said to me:
“Anna. Just go to your happy place. Happy place, happy place..!” Someone should
have been there with a camera – you could not have scripted this if you’d
tried! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">photo: Dann Verhoeven</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I was
pretty stressed before the dive, but once I left the surface, I remembered that
I was ready and the descent was amazing: constant pressure on the ears to 81m,
diving with a mask, and a certain feeling that there is a lot of room still.
Swimming up was no breeze - being tense because of the pain gave me cramps in
both legs starting in around 70m – but there was no way I was going to quit and
I surfaced only a few seconds off my usual speed. Admittedly, once I was given
the white card (fifth place and my 26<sup>th</sup> German record), I may have
yelled “get me off this f#@*g line, I have cramps!” instead of smiling sweetly
at the judges. Oops - sorry judges, and sorry Liv!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">photo: Daan Verhoeven</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">If constant
weight was the challenging dive under the circumstances, free immersion was a
tactical decision – getting the announcement game just right: 73m put me 1m ahead
of Aurore Asso from France, left me with an easy dive and landed me with my
third Bronze medal in as many world championships. Groundhog day or what! Thing
is, this was also a dreaded moment for a very special reason. Coming across a
shop filled with incredibly dodgy sparkly dresses earlier on, Liv and I (we are
claiming temporary insanity) had made a bet: If either of us should
accidentally win a medal, she’d have to get a truly awful outfit and wear it at
the final party. Who could know that we would BOTH get medals? Who??? Evil
coach was having a field day, and with our brains fried by too much leopard
print, we forgot to confiscate his camera. I have a feeling we are never going
to live that one down - NEVER. Guiliano from Polosub even offered to make me a
leopard print wetsuit…oh noooooooooo!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It’s always
a little weird being back from a world championship. It takes so much energy,
focus and luck for everything to work out, it’s a bit like living under a
bubble. I still have a tendency to feel that my medals and record competition
dives are some kind of lucky accidents, but I suppose with yet another medal,
it may be time to start to believe that I’m not doing too badly. Then again - this one might just have been Murphy’s law forcing me to wear leopard print for
the first (and last…) time ever! Evil coach has been making plans to get me into
silver or gold medal outfits - imagine....oh no....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I think I
will have to quit the sport before the next WC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10173532355649242632noreply@blogger.com0