Day 3 of the 321FREEDIVE Conference in Cocoa Beach, Florida featured a host of speakers ranging from champion competitive freedivers to industry experts, speaking both virtually and in-person.
Fatima Korok, holder of several Hungarian national records, spoke about how she prepares for competitions and the highs and lows of being a professional athlete.
Performance Freediving International instructor Lance Lee Davis talked about freediving surf survival and his stunt work on various Hollywood projects, including James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” He also shared a bunch of good training tips.
Alexey Vlaskin talked virtually about decompression sickness and freediving, as well as highlighting his product, the DiveBud freediving computer that was unveiled last October.
Liam Abel spoke about his freediving equipment company, 29/71, and the future of freediving gear and design. He highlighted the challenges and virtues of designing new equipment.
Oliver Christen-Drew, a psychologist of work and organization as well as a Molchanovs freediving instructor, spoke on the differences between relaxation and breathe-up.
Dr. Marc Babi talked virtually about the newurology of freediving and incident management. He described the connections between the heart. lungs and brain as well as how the brain reacts to low oxygen levels.
Ben Collins, product manager for GARMIN Dive, discussed pursuing the perfect dive and using metrics to improve freedive training. One tip: “Good sleep hygiene is critical to recovery.”
Allie Reilly, founder of Samudra Flow, talked about breath work and the benefits of yoga in freeediving. Breath is the foundation of movement, she said, and described the benefits of breathing deeply and fully as well as Pranayama and the traditions of breath consciousness.
Champion freediver William Trubridge ended the day with a virtual session from Taiwan, where he talked about his experiences with decompression sickness in freediving. He noted that with the increasing depths competitive freedivers are achieving, DCS is becoming more prevalent, and put suggested some proposed protocols for treating DCS for freedivers.
