On Sunday 10 April 2022, NAUI held their first competitive freediving competition at the Hillcrest Pool in Pretoria.
It was with great anticipation that the local freedivers came out to support this competition. Many of them competing against their own personal bests. The joy of freediving is you aren’t competing against other competitors, but rather what you have been able to achieve in the past. One of the greatest dangers of freediving is pushing yourself without capable safety divers to watch you closely, as black outs do occur. But while at a competition, there is someone within centimeters to help you, should you get into trouble. During NAUI freediving courses safety is drilled in, to such an extent that it is always top of mind.
The disciplines that freedivers could compete in for this competition were Statics ; how long you can hold your breath, Dynamics ; how far you can swim under water holding your breath, while fully submerged with bi-fins (a pair of freediving fins), Dynamics in a monofin (one fin which looks like a dolphin tale) and Dynamics no fins.
A particular surface safety protocol is required in order the get a ‘white card’ . This includes coming to the surface, holding on the side, without dipping your chin below the water surface, taking your mask off, making an ‘ok signal’ at the judge then saying ’I am ok’, all done within a time period of 20 seconds. This was a huge learning curve for many of our divers who had not competed before. Qualified freediving judges have to make the call of white, yellow (penalty) and red (disqualified). There are also other rules which need to be adhered in order to achieve a white card. There were some amazing performances including a 6 minute 22 second static by Charles.
To make the day fun, we included a mermaiding event organized by Kylee Nel of Moonsong Magic Mermaids Tails. She made an obstacle course which was a sprint of 25m. This brought out a competitive side in both mermaids and competitive freedivers alike. With some of the men donning some rainbow wigs for the race. While the graceful mermaids looked beautiful in their elegant tails .
Unfortunately the weather did not play along and it was rainy and a chilly which is not the best weather for an outdoor pool. Unfortunately, in Gauteng there is a real lack of indoor heated swimming pools. Regardless, there were some lovely stalls including food stalls, diving gear stalls, DAN -Divers Alert Network stall and some mermaid and clothing accessory stalls. There were amazing prizes for winners of categories to spot prizes.
At the end of the day, everyone just had fun and that was what the day was all about. As an instructor at Freediving Johannesburg, the most rewarding for me, was to see how far my students had come. Not everyone did a personal best due to the weather, but to see them doubling the distance they did during their course and tripling their breath hold is very special. I honestly feel so privileged to part of each students under water journey.
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