The Fusion Freediving Level 1 course is a 2 day safe and fun introduction to Freediving. This course is for everyone and anyone who wants to safely experience the amazing underwater world, in a totally natural way. While no previous underwater experience is required, this course can also cater for those who have experience but have no formal professional training. During this course you can achieve the Level 1 SSI Freediver International Certification - It's your first step on an internationally recognized pathway as an independent Freediver!
I have in practice been free-diving for about 7 year, self thought, and also learnt a lot from Master Pak Sate who is known in Bali by his legendary skills to land fish bigger than him! I have also done much reading about this activity in the internet. Either because of ignorance or carelessness or both, I and my buddies never really cared about the safety of underwater diving. We have no clue about what to do in the case one of us gets a shallow water blackout. We only had very basic knowledge about prevention and treatment ofinjuries caused by jellyfish, coral or attack by sharks; this has fortunately never happened to us!
I did have a bad experience when diving deep beyond my comfort depth and run out of breath. Ever since my confidence level dropped below my comfort depth and never again dived deeper ever since. I also feel motivated to increase my underwater-diving knowledge and skill because I wouldn’t wish to feel helpless ifan accident happened to one of my buddies! So I decided to take a course on “Fusion Freediving & Yoga”together with my friends Chris Lee and Beau Bruderlin.
From the very beginning I felt this course was timely needed! The subject matter on the first day did present some difficulties to me due to my unfamiliarity with the vocabulary, particularly concerning the technical respiratory system and process. I wish I’d have been better prepared for this! Nonetheless this difficult part at the beginning, the following topics were not only interesting but also useful. Then the fun part came after lunch, we practiced some breathing techniques and we finally applied these on the pool. Our teacher Tomaz Jereb holds the current static record in Slovenia of 8 minute and 3 second and is able to dive 75 meter plus!So it was very easy for him to teach us the techniques given his valuable experience.
On the second day we went to Amed –a beautiful place located in the north-eastern tip of Bali and about 2hours drive from Denpasar- and we dived in the open water, we stretched and then played with sea scooter until we reached the diving spot. The first exercise consisted of first diving by using a rope to go down 5 meter and then progressively to 7.5 meter and finally 13 meter. We then practiced duck dive and properfining techniques. I really struggled and had actual difficulties with the technique using 3 weights with my 3mm wetsuits. I usually dive with 5-7 weights on my belt which makes diving and descending very easy without any effort. However, this Freediving class thought me a very useful lesson: it is dangerous diving deep with all those weights! After several attempts I finally managed to duck dive properly and descendedeasily after 5 meter depth and reached 18 meter! Going deep again was still giving me a bit of an uneasy feeling but I managed to stay down for about 30 second and ascended easily with less effort. So, all in all, I learned something vital for and feel now more confident about underwater diving!
To all divers out there who never have taken a proper Freediving training, I highly recommend this course.As it happened to me, there might be some difficulties in the process of learning this activity but this will at the end prove to be a necessary process for your own safety and the safety of your buddies with whom you do underwater diving.
