The story of this past month has been – a course for under water fishermen , training for 3 ladies
Maria Teresa preparing for the Mediterranean World Cup in Greece and The International competition in Okinawa , Alina Tsivkin’s preparation of 3 Israeli Records in CWT , FIM and DYN, and Estrella Navarro’s preparation of Mexican records in CNF, DNF and FIM. And finally the Spring Cortez Cup challenge.

THE FISHERMEN
This was a particularly nice group and very unlike most spearos . The basic trouble teaching spearos is because they are always vastly over weighted and are used to riding their weights to the bottom they have no idea of technique or even an idea that it might benefit them . They cant do a duck dive, their finning looks a lot like someone trying to ride a bicycle in a very tight miniskirt and believe it or not some have a lot of trouble equalising in a head down position . They all look down at the bottom when descending ,not realising that it is impossible to kick properly in this position – 80% back kick and 20% forward ,that it complicates equalisation and is in fact dangerous- incomplete irrigation of the brain.
Most of them have no idea of safety or of the dangers of their ignorance of this subject . My conclusion is that it is a miracle that any of them are still alive !! The main reason being that the majority are not 100ft men but fish in 6-7 mts. The contrast between them and their brothers in the Mediterranean is stark . In the Med . There are no fish worth taking between 30mts and the surface . The Mediterranean fishermen have long ago learned the benefits of adopting classic freedive techniques and learning a lot more about safety.
Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with is student deafness with this group you can be talking about the fact that there is little point in increasing there breath hold if they do not also improve
their aquacity where they are squandering all their gains in breath hold . All they hear is bla bla bla BREATH HOLD bla bla bla .
This group was exceptional in every respect ,especially in their lack of student deafness and their willingness to learn.

Giammarco is the owner of the best restaurant in Cabo San Lucas ,the Sunset Monalisa , it is both superbly situated facing the famous arch across the bay and has the informal quiet elegance of Italy.
Salvatore is the commander in chief of the kitchen and Carlos ,a professional photographer, is their fishing buddy .
They came with the expected fishermen’s faults but there the parallel stops , they learned and very fast .Their style improved ,both kicking and duck dive , as did head position and equalisation .
Their static breathold went to 4 mins and their dynamic and breath walk doubled . Breath walks of 1 min static and the 1:50 still holding were performed .
But the spirit of the group was inspiring in spite of some unusual hardships . Once getting chased out of the water by Humbolt squid ( see my former blog )and having to deal on more than one occasion with horrendous currents .All this paid off with DEPTH and more fish and I hope a much better understanding of safety.

My next blog will be following the trials and tribulations of a group of Elite freedivers their challenges and their training.The Mental aspects ,their progression in training , the questions that came up and the solutions we found together.
And then of course our Mini competition where a number of National records of 2 nations were broken .