Freediving & the Art of Breaking Limits
Why you should try it at least once
It’s possibly one of the weirdest pastimes out there. Not as weird as collecting in-flight sick bags, but maybe more “extreme” than extreme ironing, although you can do the latter while freediving.
Some people still refuse to call it a sport, at the very best, it’s a strange hobby.
Who in their right mind would want to stop breathing to dive down hundreds of feet underwater? Surely, the act of not breathing is like the act of dying?
Some say what freedivers do is irresponsible, dangerous, perhaps even teetering on the limits of putting suicidal ideation into practice.
It’s not just a strange hobby — it’s plain crazy.
When people watch YouTube videos of top athletes propelling themselves to depths of over 400 feet, they cringe in sheer disbelief.
It was after all only in 1949, that Raimondo Bucher won a wager to descend on breath hold to 100 feet and hand a parchment enclosed in a metal cylinder to a scuba diver waiting at the bottom.
Back then, scientists were certain that he would implode under the pressure.
He did however not implode and his successors pushed this new record to 134 feet in 1956, where it stagnated…
