Take a breath, take a deep breath now

Black Man
Originally uploaded by Laura Storm.

Now that June is nearly here, just how merry was May? For David Blaine, a bit damper than for the rest of us, and with no personal triumph. The breathhold stunt failed, and he was rescued when diaphragmatic contractions started forcing air out of his lungs. ( Any other stunt person who wants to try this and secretly breathe-up on Oxygen beforehand, take note. ) I could have felt even more smug about the whole thing if ITN had aired the interview I did with them a few days before the bid, where I accurately predicted the outcome. Anyway, Sky News at least gave me 5 minutes to spout forth my opinions on it, albeit after the shouting had died down. Despite the cynical voicings of the collective freediving community, I think we are all secretly grateful to Blaine for giving our shadowy sport a bit of publicity. I haven’t yet heard of any nasty accidents with impressionable people trying to mimic what he did. In any case, I’ve never seen one of those big perspex spheres in our local Homebase, so that’s bound to put most folk off.

My summer resolution now, will be to keep this blog up-to-date a bit more, with more focus on my personal training. I have been very kindly sponsored by The John Lewis Partnership, who are helping me financially with training and attending competitions. My immediate aim is to achieve the necessary AIDA ranking to enable me to qualify for UK team selection, for the next AIDA World Cup Championship in December. Normally us freedivers keep quiet about ambitions like this, along with our personal secret techniques. However, anyone who has followed my ramblings will know that I have no respect for cloak-and-dagger within the sport, which is why I have laid bare on the blog from the outset.

In that case, what have I been doing to train myself for this weekend’s CIPA competition in Nice? Time I would normally have spent depth training in the quarry has instead been used as recovery from a cold virus, or instead doing a PADI Rescue Diver training course. I have been able to get some gym training in though, and concentrate on weight training for my underpowered legs. Also a bit of experimentation in the pool with using neck weights to counterbalance me. ( Big thanks go to Simon Reid for helping me with this, and supplying me with a 1kg neck weight for the forthcoming competition. ) My main objective this weekend is a clean performance in all disciplines. This may well mean dropping back significantly on depths / times, and this is far more difficult to do than instead raising the stakes.

Beyond the big blue of Nice, the not-so-big green of Tiddenham beckons, for something much more worthy than collecting ranking points. This time I want to collect money, and pass it on to Mencap to mark their 60th anniversary. This will take place at the NDAC on the 8th July. Donations gratefully received here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch. All aboard for the Cote D’Azur.