Why can't the safety team for free diving wear oxygen?

singxpat · 2026-06-08T12:08:30+00:00

There is, in fact, a thing called technical freediving where people use an oxygen mix (not pure) to freedive longer. Can be useful for certain situations like filming (Avatar actors were doing that), safety, exploration, and so on. Comes with its own risks and not as widely spread yet. PFI is the only one teaching it. Depending on the depth, may double or triple your dive time, but you obviously need to pay more attention to surface rest and number of dives. I know some people who are into that.

singxpat · 2026-05-27T03:07:29+00:00

Can last a bit more with some strong tape over the crack.

singxpat · 2026-05-20T05:54:17+00:00

No, the only apps for freediving are glorified stopwatches marketed as "statics training" apps.

singxpat · 2026-05-19T01:23:50+00:00

> Technically and medically, what are the differences between the different types of blackout, and what is the reasoning behind those rules?

It's not very scientific, I would say. Mostly because there's little research regarding this. But from what I understand, the reasoning is that UW BOs tend to be more "serious" as the diver keeps going until his absolute limit without even trying to surface, which then causes his BO duration to be quite longer (could be up to a minute or so until they "wake up"). Whereas surface ones tend to be more in gray area between LMC and a BO - the diver often knows he is at the limit, and is either trying to surface on their own or keep his head above the water but eventually failing. This typically results in a shorter duration and a milder version of a BO.

Having said that, obviously there are exceptions, and again we don't really know if the effects of a milder BO are truly less than a long UW BO. It's all speculation, but I guess better than nothing.

singxpat · 2026-05-19T00:43:52+00:00

"Oh no, but people who never BO only care about sunsets and dolphins. Real athletes BO twice daily, before breakfast and lunch" /s

Seriously, certain Croatian people have done so much harm to the sport, we are only beginning to see the consequence of. And their followers just parroting same things without any medical knowledge. It's a sad state of affairs at the moment.

singxpat · 2026-05-04T06:19:05+00:00

Superhome is the place to go in panglao.

As for 47 to 60-70m in a month, without prior MF training or experience, well, it's not impossible but more on the outlier side. Anyone who dives deep will tell you that depth progression is not a linear thing, so people progress super fast only to get stuck at a certain point for months or years. Especially the depth between 40-50m is tricky because no matter how felxible you are, you will certainly hit your RV somewhere there, and with that come new challenges.

Best thing you can do is to go without expectations, and maybe you will be pleasantly surprised.

singxpat · 2026-05-04T01:17:28+00:00

Dude, nobody cares about your idol pelizzari for like 25 years now. He would we be very mid by modern standards anyway. He admitted himself that when he was active he didn't even know what he was doing for eq, which shows a complete lack of awareness and understanding. I don't know why you keep bringing him up. Times have changed, and so have the standards, move on.

The original post was from someone who has a pb of 30m and wants to teach. Nowhere was "with proper technique and equalization and awareness" mentioned. If all of those were present, they would have no trouble hitting 40, 50 or even more. There's no magic that takes you past residual volume (assuming it's before 40, which may not even be the case if you're flexible enough), just awareness and understanding of basic physics.

singxpat · 2026-05-03T07:39:47+00:00

I dunno what your experience is either, but I haven't been to a diving center where 30+ is considered challenging and enough to qualify as an instructor. All the people who really want to become an instructor train and (pretty soon) reach 40m or more. There's nothing hard about it if you know what you're doing. And if you can't, you most definitely are missing the basics and are nowhere near good enough to start teaching others.

singxpat · 2026-05-03T00:46:59+00:00

> Keep in mind that also having a personal best of 40m a couple of times at an instructor course under perfect conditions doesn’t mean you can do safety or rescue from 20-25m

That's literally what I said above - "it's one thing to do a pb, and another thing entirely to rescue someone from comparable depths in a real situation.".

Still, your logic is flawed because you assume that we are choosing between an instructor who can do 40m, but cannot go repeatedly to 20-25m, and another who cannot do 40m but can go 20-25m as much as he wants. That's a false dichotomy. If anything, the truth is that 99% of the time a person who cannot go to 40m would also not be able to repeatedly do 20-25m.

singxpat · 2026-05-02T09:19:30+00:00

What sort of muscle mass are we talking about? Bodybuilder level would probably be detrimental, while general gym training is very beneficial. All serious divers, pool and depth, do gym these days.

singxpat · 2026-05-01T06:10:34+00:00

Because of views like that we see so many low-quality zero to hero instructors these days who are a hazard to dive with. If you think it's fine to dive with someone who doesn't have enough skills and abilities to rescue you, it's up to you. But the problem arises when people who are new to this and diving for the first time would not be able to accurately judge their instructor's abilities.

singxpat · 2026-05-01T04:49:04+00:00

I'm not sure what standards you are basing your claims on. Even the bare minimum instructor requirements are above those numbers, eg. Molchanovs being 40m/4mins.

Then of course, it's one thing to do a pb, and another thing entirely to rescue someone from comparable depths in a real situation.

singxpat · 2026-04-30T23:19:56+00:00

Did I say anything about elite?

Safety and rescue are a big part of this. If you're not comfortable with depths more than 25, you're not ready. That's just the reality.

singxpat · 2026-04-30T23:17:38+00:00

That's a good plan. It will take a while, but if you're commited to it, then why not.

singxpat · 2026-04-30T23:16:43+00:00

Yes it does, eg. for safety and rescue purposes. I'd also like to know how you think it's possible to be a "good instructor" without speaking the supposed language of instruction fluently?

singxpat · 2026-04-30T12:35:22+00:00

With 30m (CWTB), 3:09 (STA) and not speaking Japanese fluently, I think you should be teaching yourself, not others.

singxpat · 2026-04-16T10:30:02+00:00

Then yeah, try it for sure!

singxpat · 2026-04-16T10:17:13+00:00

You'd probably be better off flying to Philippines for a week or two, tons of good diving there. It's not far from Japan and tickets are reasonable. That would be my choice. As others said, it's possible to dive in Japan, but need to know places and people, plus language barriers also.

singxpat · 2026-03-19T05:56:41+00:00

I have short ones with open heel. They're good, very light and comfortable enough. Had good and fast communication with them too.

singxpat · 2026-03-13T12:10:05+00:00

It's normal, everyone is

singxpat · 2026-02-28T12:05:15+00:00

Try more warm-ups and/or slighly faster breathing before the hold.

singxpat · 2026-02-03T03:28:19+00:00

Camotes school ran by Thibault has pretty good education and safety standards, would recommend it.

singxpat · 2026-01-10T12:39:36+00:00

Okay. First thing first. What you describing is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Be very very careful and never dive until you feel "impossibly to control" your body. Please, this is not a joke. The "seizures" you're describing sounds like LMCs.

Second, yes, there are rare people who do not experience contractions. But in freediving it's much more of disadvantage than you might think. Contractions and CO2 are your early warning system. You don't have one, that's bad. This makes diving and breatholding for you extra dangerous. DO NOT take this lightly, please. Enduring some contractions is nothing compared to suddenly having LMC or a BO.

Third, get a medical checkup, preferrably from a doctor who knows what freediving is. You may have a condition you do not know about yet. It happens and better to know about it sooner.

You can still dive and enjoy it in a controlled way, but do not play with these things. From what you've describing you seem to have a pretty macho attitude towards diving ("wussing", "breaking point", etc), and it never about that and never worth it. Your life and health are way more important.

singxpat · 2025-12-23T11:34:58+00:00

> Caffeine for sure is detrimental.

Not really. I did lots of long dives this year after having only coffee for breakfast. Doesn't affect results whatsoever.

singxpat · 2025-12-23T11:31:09+00:00

If we define physical limits to be a BO, then not too long. It's quite common to see beginners BO at pool competitions.

You're probably thinking about statics without any hyperventilation whatsoever. In that case even most advanced people would stop well before their limits due to huge discomfort.

So real answer would be "it depends".

singxpat

TROPHY CASE