THE ROAD TO INSPIRATION

If you've read my Backstory below, you'll have an idea about my love/ hate relationship with Freediving Competitions. Freediving to me is so much more than what can be measured in minutes, meters, depth... The freedom, the beauty and of course the FRIENDS- dolphins, whales, seals- and now most recently, all manner of sharks!

My training for swimming like a dolphin paid off this last European summer, with 4 new SA records set in Sweden. It was a mind-blowing week. My first dive was Free Immersion, where you pull yourself down and back up a set line. I had done deeper than 50m in Egypt, but was unsure about the dark cold conditions in the Fjord, but it turned out being one of my most relaxed and easy dives. Somehow the darkness allowed me to focus, and look inward- even more. I just closed my eyes- and fell. It was fantastic!

From the Fjord to the swimming pool, I was set to attempt two more records, Dynamic No Fins, swimming lengths underwater without fins and Static Apnea, lying still face-down in the pool, holding your breath. The day of the Dynamic no Fins, I was confident I could break the current 78m record, as I had done 106 in training. But I was unsure of how much further I could take it... then listening to my favourite little blue Dory fish in my head, I just 'kept swimming' and the 126m was probably my biggest achievement in competition to date. This now ranks me in the top five women in the world.

And then there was Static. This discipline is my nemesis! Man! The focus and determination it requires to lie still, just a couple of cm's under the surface, holding you breath as your body shouts for oxygen- is immense. And I have been known to quit at around 3 minutes when the contractions set in. So both myself and my coach had our jobs cut out for us! As in all things in life, what we have to fight for tastes sweetest, and the 5.39 I did, will always be a proud moment, and it was easy... physically easy, mentally a great achievement... 

My bonus dive was a Dynamic with Fins where I bettered my 129m record to 150, an easy, relaxed and ridiculously slow dive, I was thinking of fluked friends, not technique or distance, and it worked!

I have now entered into a new training phase, allowing the inspiration the ocean and her creatures offer me, to better my results even further. Motivation and joy have become my training partners and I am excited to see what the future holds!

BACKSTORY:

This is a personal page where I'd like to share my story of loving water and freediving to the point where one day I woke up hating it. I'd come across that proverbial fine line and fallen head-long over it into a place where my freediving was connected with angst, I was judging my body, disappointing myself and quite simply forgetting the reason I actually started freediving in the first place. I had gotten caught in a carousel of competitions and politics, competing not for myself- and organising, planning, preparing for others. Two days before the 2007 Indoor World Championships I hit the 'that's it' mark, cancelled my participation and vowed never to freedive again - if it's not for me. This was a painful time, I had not achieved some of the goals I had set for myself and lost my joy. I spent several months in a kind of limbo, missing diving like a fish out of water, but too scared to commit fully to competitive freediving. But having freedived for many years, with the knowledge and potential I needed to believe that I had, what was my next challenge? And the thought bouncing back and forth in my mind the whole time was - Surely there must be more?

And there was. Tofo is a small fishing turned diving village on the east coast of Africa, about one third up the white sandy Mozambican coast. Here scuba divers and backpackers from all over the world congregate to admire the unspoiled reefs, the manta rays and whale sharks. I came here on a whim, with a friend needing a traveling companion, unknowing that I would be the one leaving with my needs met, and more. Tofo is famous for it's ocean safari's, two hour long boat rides where you may or may not, safari style, get to see those gentle giants resident here- the whale shark. Dark dusty blue with white spots, this is the biggest and probably the kindest fish in all the oceans. We swam with several whale sharks, with gentle tail strokes they glide through the water, unaffected by our presence, beautiful and aloof. On the way back to the beach, the cry 'dolphins' went up - don't get me wrong, I have met several wild dolphins and had many amazing encounters with dolphins... but what I learnt this day, is that it's not the dolphins you meet, but the state you're in, the YOU you bring to the meeting that is important. And I brought a somewhat lost, very disillusioned ME. Mask on, long fins on, 'you can get in the w....' but I'm in already.

They're spinners, they spin and glide and play and fly... I kick faster, deeper, equalising from habit - fast down till we hit the sandy bottom in one one big ball of flukes, fins, smiles and water water blue water. The dolphins stay around me, coming in, veering off, scanning me up and down, their infectious giggle - like squawks and chirps and incurable smiles making me want to laugh out loud down there. We have left the boat and the other divers at the surface, this is the world of dolphins... and it strikes me... the world of lost competitive freedivers! Suddenly all those years of training, hours swimming up and down the pool, under water over water makes sense. I get to experience these most fascinating and inspiring creatures, who thanks to my years of training, find me interesting, cause I'm fast and I'm deep! Wow! ...  and wow again. This is it. I want to train to be like - swim like - move like - communicate (well, at least body language!) like them!

And after months of feeling demotivated, uninspired and like I never ever wanted to freedive again, the universe opened a small crack in the flat space of what we see as our reality and wham! All I wanted was to start training. They're fast, so I have to be fast, they go deep, I need to go deeper, they're smart - I need to stay focused, they're sophisticated social mammals, I need to study their behaviour... And just like that, one small family pod of spinner dolphins in the Indian Ocean on a Tuesday, and everything makes sense again. This blog is my story of becoming, one of them.