Recommended freediving schools for Level 3 (SSI) and above?
Finally realized one of my childhood dreams and started freediving a couple of weeks ago, in Thailand! Did my Level 1 and Level 2 SSI at Blue Immersion, Koh Tao, and had a blast the entire time. I do feel like I've found a passion in life and I therefore want to go even further and I believe there are better places than Koh Tao to really take this to the next level... Question is where?
I just really want to learn from and practice with some really knowledgeable and talented freedivers. Do you guys have any reccommendations where to go go? Cheers!
Posted Jun 8, 2012, 12:07 PM UTC
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I had a great time with the Freediving course I took from FII in Florida, taught by Martin Stepanek (former world record holder in STA, CNF, CWT, VWT, and FIM) and Niki Stepanek (2009 CNF world silver medalist) . They have other notable instructors too, such as Dan Silveira, a member of the USA national spearfishing team, and they offer courses in a wide range of locations.
While I don't have any experience with other agencies, PFI has a pretty strong reputation, and I believe William Trubridge (current world record holder in CNF and FIM) and Sarah Campbell (former CWT, FIM, and CNF world record holder) teach for Vertical Blue.
Anyways, there are other agencies out there, and I'm sure many great instructors, but those are the ones that came to mind.
Florida sounds pretty cool, actually! Will look into that when I get back home! Is it SSI/AIDA or something else? Vertical Blue is something I have checked out, but the website seems like it isn't updated that often so I'm waiting for an email response. Would be amazing being instructed by Trubridge, though...
The one I mentioned in Florida is by the agency Freediving Instructors International (FII), which was formed by Martin Stepanek after he left Performance Freediving International (PFI). Anyways, as I mentioned, they also teach in other locations, such as Hawaii, Egypt, the Czech Republic, California, Wisconsin, etc.
Just have to check their schedule. Just to give you an idea of the diving in Florida that we did (excluding pool sessions)--since the course focus is on improving performance/depth/breath hold time/safety, the diving was done in about 600 feet of water, going up and down a line. That my sound somewhat dull compared to diving on a reef or something, but there is something rather spectacular about floating in warm, calm water with nothing but blue in any direction. That said, we did have a young (3-4 foot) bull shark hang out with us for several hours, plus some other small fish and jellyfish. Anyways, my point is simply that for a course such as those from FII, location is not too important of a factor, unless you plan on doing other diving/activities in the area.
As a last note, to be slightly more specific, I took the Level 2 Freediver course from FII. As a fun note, we had a sportswriter come on the boat with us on one of our trips and ask some questions/take some pictures. I ended up with a picture of me in Miami Sports, and in California Diver Magazine (it's identical in the print version), my 15 minutes of fame. I'm the diver in blue.