18x World Champion Freediving Legend William Trubridge, and Hollywood Freedive Trainer Kirk Krack

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that is happening around the world underwater. My name is Stephen Wheelan. I'm the founder of DeeperBlue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the Deeper Blue Podcast covers everything that's happening in the scuba diving, freediving, diving travel, and ocean advocates world. So join us as we explore the Deeper Blue. Hi everyone. Welcome to episode 5 of the Deeper Blue Podcast. And this is pretty much our first freediving episode. Freediving has been integral to Deeper Blue from the beginning, and it's one of our primary areas of diving that we cover. So I thought it was only natural that we would focus an early episode about this absolutely amazing sport. Coming up in this episode, we have the latest news for diving, both scuba diving and freediving and the ocean world. That's coming up in a moment. The producer, Jason, is having a chat with 18-time world champion freediver William Truebridge, and we'll be talking about what drove him to push him in ways that really push the boundaries of what humans can do underwater. We have a top tip this week from Kurt Croc, a pioneering freediving educator, and more recently very much the Hollywood freediving trainer who's worked on films such as Mission Impossible and the upcoming Avatar sequels. And that'll be at the end of the show. Now we've been giving some thought to guests on the show, and as I said last week, we have an absolutely amazing roster of guests coming up. However, we're very keen on getting your perspective on this, and it's really important that we hear from you, the diving community, about who you'd like to hear on the show as well. These can be diving heroes, your first instructor, TV personalities, those leading the efforts to preserve and protect our oceans. I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on who you want to hear on this podcast. So got a favour to ask, if you can send your suggestions in to podcast at deeperblue.com, or drop us a line on one of our social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. That would be fantastic. We'd love to hear from you as to who you'd like to have on the show in the future. Now, onto some of the news from the week. First up, we have Divers Alert Network or Dan have issued new guidance and a reference document to promote scuba divers medical fitness. Among the schedules' recommendations is completion of a medical questionnaire by all divers annually. This is especially important for divers over 45 who have multiple health risk factors. And actually they're recommending that a medical fitness to dive evaluation is done every five years for those over 45, or over 65 who have relevant chronic illnesses, which they list out, it is recommending an annual evaluation. I'll be honest, I I was a little worried when I read this because uh and saw this because it's starting to feel like we're forcing an age-related medical on divers over 45. It's not something that we particularly hear about in other industries such as skiing, snowboarding, surfing, or other similar sports. For now, it's just recommendations and we'll be keeping an eye on it going forward, but really keen to make sure that this does not end up being some sort of age-related penalty. But we have to see. Dan obviously are experts in the medical field around diving, so let's keep an eye on what's going on around that. So you're listening to this podcast over the internet, and we're pretty much hooked up to the internet 24 hours a day these days. Yeah, there's one frontier that hasn't really been breached as far as the internet's concerned, and that's when we're underwater. Now, some of you may be thinking that's really grateful around that. We can switch off without having uh without having things bleeping and blinking at us all the time. I know that someone who, as someone who travels a lot on planes, even that was the other area where we didn't have devices blinking at us, but um even that has now gone away in recent years with the advent of in in-flight Wi-Fi. One of the reasons is that communication underwater isn't quite as simple as it is in air and space. However, there's a new study around a new type of aquatic internet that allows you to send data through light beams and is allowing divers to instantly stream footage underwater to the surface. Now, this has come from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. They've actually built an underwater wireless system they've dubbed Aquafee, and some of this was published in an engineering magazine called IEEE and using some LEDs and some lasers to do this. And it was used to send some data between a small computer to a light detector on another computer. You know, this could be the future of how we uh we communicate underwater and allow us to live stream things underwater. In fact, you know, we could be doing this podcast live underwater in the future. I'm not sure how much you're gonna appreciate that, but something that might be possible as we go forward. So really interesting to see how this one pans out. Saturday, the 18th of July, was Paddy's annual Women's Dive Day. It took place, albeit in a slightly different form, depending on where you live, because of obviously the um the global pandemic still in play. But people still got involved with doing the women's dive day, slightly different. So there was a whole host of stuff on social media. Paddy was posting a lot. They were asking participants on Facebook and Instagram to fill the day with posts, video stories, and live conversations, which are all about leading and inspiring women in diving. The hashtags were hashtag pattywomen and hashtag pattywomen's dive day. So uh lots of stuff still on social media for you to take a look at. They also encourage you to go down to your local dive community and where appropriate, where precautions were in place, go and uh join into activities with your local dive shops and dive centres. There was a lot of encouragement to go and look at the paddy diving status map that uh we talked about last week on the podcast, which was a really good real-time information about where diving is allowed and any possible restrictions. You can also go to paddy.com slash women and they had a whole section on the website which are about women talking passionately about diving and the planet. And in fact, we featured as our video of the week last week on Saturday, we featured a video by a number of different groups led by PowerLens, featuring Ranva Jorgmanson and Maria Bollerup, who are two amazing, fantastic cave divers, talking about why they go diving and pursue this amazing sport of cave diving. And I certainly know that my kids love watching that alien environment and uh these two amazing inspirational female divers going out and uh showing the world what can be done. So um take a look at that on deeperblue.com. The folks over at WetPixel have launched WetPixel Live. It's a series of video conversations led by Adam Hanlon, the WetPixel editor, with leading underwater photographers. Uh, he's also helped out by renowned photographer and associate editor at WetPixel, Alex Mustard. The WetPixel Live features topics that are of interest to all those who want to take their cameras underwater and start exploring the world through photo and video. It's crammed full of very technical information, but also a lot of frequently asked questions that they find from their forums. Take a look, it's on the WetPixel YouTube channel, and the first one explains five top tips for those starting out as underwater photographers. News from Scuba Schools International or SSI, they launched during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, their no water, no problem campaign. This initiative saw SSI donate materials to support the SSI family diving family worldwide. And with the campaign, customers could stay connected to their local dive operator or diving professionals with a free science of diving digital kit and certification. Over the course of the campaign, they received over 50,000 registrations for free digital materials. And SSI has ended up donating more than $3.5 million of this material out to divers, which is an absolutely fantastic thing to have happened during the course of the pandemic. They've also set up online exams for their dry specialties and allowed customers to stay at home, stay safe, and still continue their education. Great, fantastic initiative. Something that we've seen a lot of the agencies do is try and issue a lot of online certification and training material. A fantastic way to continue and stay connected to diving and the oceans. I have to say it's probably not something that's come to my mind first off as I'm thinking about diving, but this is a really interesting thing. So you can join the latest Socorro Island expeditions, and there is a scientist called Dr. Denny Ramirez Masias, who is doing a science program in the Socoro Islands to ultrasound pregnant whale sharks and manta rays. So she's conducting research to help understand the reproductive habits and behavior of these magnificent creatures. So in addition to the normal dive interior, which you would do around Socorro, San Benedicto, and Rocco Pardita, there's lots and lots of opportunities on this trip to ultrasound the manta rays and the whale sharks. So scheduled for November 10th through 19th this year, not only would you be able to, on this trip, be able to observe Dr. Massias conducting her research, but also she'll be giving lots of presentations to those on the trip around things like conservation and biology of whale sharks and those sorts of things. So fantastic trip. Take a look on deeperblue.com for the news around that and how to sign up. That's it for the news this week. One thing I'll say whilst I'm here is if you have liked what you hear in this podcast and the previous episodes, please do subscribe, like, and comment wherever you hear your podcasts. They really do make a huge difference to the show and getting it out to other people who might be interested. So thank you again for all your support.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

You're listening to the world's only weekly podcast by scuba diving, freediving, dive travel, and ocean advocacy. I'm Tanya Strito, freediver, mother, and ocean lover. And this is the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Hi, it's Jason Elias, producer of the Deeper Blue Podcast. In today's episode, I speak with William Truebridge, an 18-time world record holder and multiple-time world champion in freediving. And though he is legendary for his free diving achievements, William and I spoke about the deeper meanings of what drove him to challenge himself in ways that continually push the boundaries of what we humans thought we could do underwater. William, thanks for joining us. Thank you, Jason. Could you tell us a little bit about who you are and maybe a brief history of what you have done in the free diving world?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I'm a freediver, I'm from New Zealand, and I've been in the sport now for good 17 years. And I specialize in what I uh see as the purest form of freediving, which is no fins, holding a breath and swimming down as deep as you can with only your hands and feet for propulsion. And in that discipline, I've set a number of world records, and the current world record is 102 meters.

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Some freedivers come from a contemplative aspect. They come from a place of wanting to dive because of the feeling of connecting with themselves, with the ocean, with the space around them. And then I've spoken to other freedivers who connect with the idea of the challenge of it, maybe the challenge of it, but also within the context of a competition. And what's interesting about that is there's two parallel lanes. Rarely is there some sort of intersection as deeply as you have. You seem to have the contemplative aspect, which seems to be your driving force, and yet you also have the challenges of competition that seem to be a large part of your diving history. What do you see as being the main motivator for why you do freediving?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to separate them in terms of the importance of those two motivations for myself at least. The challenge of it, the mental and the physical challenge. Essentially, we're when we're not just a body, we're not just a mind, we're this kind of whole entire unit put together, and free diving challenges all of that. Some other sports might be more physical activities like chess are more kind of cerebral, but freediving is the whole gamut all together. And that really attracted me, the fact that it's kind of this holistic challenge for mind and body. But the connection that we are able to achieve with the underwater world and becoming like an aquatic mammal, being able to assimilate and integrate into that world is just as important a motivator for myself.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Very interesting. I know that you are inspirational to a lot of freedivers because of the world records that you have set. It sounds like from what you're saying, that the world records that you have set and the continual challenging of yourself is really less about setting numbers to beat others, but it's more about challenging yourself personally.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Sure. Part of that has been a little bit by accident, the fact that at least in this discipline that I specialize in, almost every time I've been breaking my own record and pushing it forwards. So it's it's more been about a challenge with myself. Had I had a rival who was on equal footing to me in this discipline, it might have become more about that challenge. And I've tried to I've I've tried to not let myself be distracted too much by the allure of a world record or gold medals and that kind of thing, and concentrate more on just this kind of discovery of human aquatic potential. Because I see freediving as a pure expression of that. We spend all our lives above the surface in gas, essentially. We're kind of on the border between a solid and a gas state in all our lives, but we are able to go beneath that surface into a liquid element, and we're able to do that quite efficiently. And free diving is the measure, it's the expression of how well we can adapt to that completely different environment.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

You said that you wanted to see how far you can push the potential of being a free diver. And you said that right now you hold the current world record at 102 for no fins. Is that correct? Yeah. How far of our potential do you think we have pushed?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, I get asked that question a lot. Normally it's worded, how how much deeper do you think you can go, or what do you think the potential record could be? And it's a difficult one to answer. I I prefer not to ever give any kind of number or definite answer because once we start talking about depths that haven't been achieved, then when we actually get there, it becomes a little bit more of a kind of a non-event. I prefer just to keep the attention on the current human potential, and then everything beyond that is just this kind of increasingly grey area. Sure, I but we can definitely do 103. The world record is breakable, 104. But if someone said to me, Do you think we're ever going to go to 130, 140, no fins? I'd probably be pretty skeptical. And 200, definitely not. So it's just this kind of increasingly improbable zone beyond the world record. And I wouldn't like to put any any kind of stick in the ground and say this is this is the line here, because inevitably that would be a limit for myself. It might not be a limit for someone else.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

Yeah. I'm a scuba diver at a cocktail party. And someone says, hey, you should go meet this guy William over here. He's a freediver. I'm like, freediving, what is that? What when I came over to you, what in your view is freediving?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

So if it was in the in the ambit of a cocktail party with scuba divers, then I'd probably make an analogy which actually comes from my first instructor and mentor, Inverta Palazzari. He says the the scuba diver dives to look around and the freediver dives to look inside. And so when we're freediving, we find out more about ourselves, our own limits and potentials. But not only that, we also find out a lot about our own minds and consciousness because freediving so quickly puts you into that flow state where you your experience is just pure consciousness. And for me at least, in meditating, it might take me 15-20 minutes to partially get into that state. In a free dive, I get there in 15-20 seconds. So that's one of the kind of key differences between freediving and scuba diving, other than the obvious one, which is that in a free dive, you're underwater on its own terms, you're not bringing this bubble of the atmosphere down with you. You're actually becoming an aquatic mammal underwater, holding your breath, just like all the others. Moving even beyond that, when you're holding your breath, we don't realize it's so much, but in our day-to-day lives, the breath is kind of this natural rhythm that follows us around. We can't hear our heartbeat, but we can always feel and hear our breathing. And as we do something strenuous, that rate, that rhythm increases, we breathe faster, and when we're more relaxed, it slows down, just like time slows down. When you hold your breath, that measure of time is taken away as well. And this is why in talks I often equate it to an experience where you are you've almost suspended time and the sensation of space because there's no stimuli coming in at depth, also it can be completely dark or very subdued, we have our eyes half closed anyway. So all you see is just this kind of uniform colour in front of your eyes, even if you do have your eyes open. So, in the absence of all that stimuli coming in, and kind of being in this state where the water takes away thoughts about the future and the past and puts you just in the present moment, that's how you experience so acutely and intimately your own awareness, your own state of consciousness, which is all that we are at the end of the day, because everything else, even our own thoughts, is just information that we're experiencing.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

Could you tell one moment that you really deeply connected with being in the water?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah, the one moment that comes into mind, a cute little kind of zen-like story, is actually the time when I first broke the world record in 2007 for Nofans. And from the way down, I saw kind of flash in front of my my face a tarpon chasing a large barracuda. They're both pretty large fish, four or five feet long, and they move extremely fast. So this kind of blur of silver was going past my face as I was on my way down, and I had to kind of digest that and say, okay, that happened. Now carry on and try and try and do this record. But the the story actually begins before that because when we showed up to the platform where the world record was going to take place in Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas, attached to one of the mooring lines of the platform was a tiny little seahorse. And I'd never actually seen a seahorse in the blue hole before, it's the first time. And we started setting up, and obviously, we had scuba divers down there for safety with a bunch of bubbles coming up to the surface and all sorts of things going on in and around the platform. But it wasn't until after I'd set the world record and we were unpacking and moving away that the seahorse finally let go with its tail from the mooring line and drifted off. So it stayed through that whole kafus. And even before then, I I felt like a connection, I guess, with seahorses. I saw them like as a totem or a talisman in a way. But that definitely solidified it. The fact that this little seahorse had shown up and then held on the whole time. He was making sure I I didn't break any of the rules and did it everything correctly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

He was also the world's witness to your record.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, that's a nice way of saying it too.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

The world underwater. Every week. I'm David Kunkan. I'm a lawyer, an explorer, and a diver. And you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

Today's top tip comes from the legendary freediver Kirk Kroc, who also worked on such films as The Cove and Racing Extinction.

SPEAKER_06 21:22

So my top tip is to make sure you own your performances, that nowadays, with the techniques and the teaching systems and everything we know, it can really allow a free diver to hit huge numbers and get there really quickly, be it static, constant weight, dynamic apnea, so time, depth, or distance. And what ends up happening is you get there before your body's really adapting to it. You're forcing it and you're not really savoring the new depths and times. And so what I like to work on is something called a working static or working depths and time, and your working performances on the are the Ones that you could achieve any day of the week, even if you haven't been practicing in six months, that you've owned that depth so well. And so just because you hit a new depth and you've been hitting that new depth a couple of times, the question is can you spend time at that new depth? Can you do simulations? Because every 10 seconds of hanging at a new depth would be like you went five meters deeper, because five seconds down to that five meters deeper depth and five seconds back up. So that's a really important one is to own your performance because it really cements in not only the physiological adaptations, but it's really important to allow your mental game to flourish. Because if you're getting into really big performances and jumps and you are apprehensive about it, apprehension causes stress, stress tightens up respiratory muscles, increases cardiovascular output, all of these things that go against your performance. So when you learn a performance, you're comfortable and confident with it, the mental game is on your side, the adaptation is on your side, and you've also worked your technique, and then you really should be at that point that you can achieve it properly.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Finally, every episode we share a story from you, the dive community, where we ask you to tell us about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_05 23:23

Hi, Nick Brunn here from Santa Cruz, California. My best dive ever happened just south of Mendocino, California. I was out in probably 40 or 50 feet free diving with my grandfather, and I'd seen this gray blur streaking across my peripheral vision, and I'm of course freaking out thinking, Great white, and what am I supposed to do now? I see a big gray object coming towards me, getting bigger, and the visibility's awful. So as I'm just preparing myself for the worst, what do I see in front of me but a harbor seal wanting to play? I swam around a little bit and generally enjoyed itself, and I'm sure didn't realize the stress it caused me. But the reason this dive is up at my favorites is because this was the last time that as I was able to dive with my grandfather. Um, I had to head out to college the following week. So I'll forever remember it as just a really wild way to go out.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

We'd love to hear your story about diving. So at the end of the show, you'll find out all the info you need to submit your best dive ever. Thanks for listening to the Deeperblue Podcast. Find out more on all the stories you've heard this week, plus connect to the world's largest online dive community at deeperblue.com. And if you like what you've heard, please subscribe, like, and comment wherever you hear your podcasts. These comments and subscribes really make a difference. Before we go, I want to give a big shout out to Jason Elias, our producer. In case you didn't know, he has an amazing podcast about people who have a deep connection to our world's oceans. Connections strong enough that they've dedicated some part of their lives to being in or working on behalf of the water. Take a listen when you get a moment to Jason Show, the Big Deep Podcast. Every week, we want to hear your stories and share them with the world. So please record and send in your short story of your best dive ever. Keep it brief, no longer than two minutes, please. And in it, tell us your name and location, where you were on the dive, what happened that make it so great, and why it's meant so much to you. You can get that over to us at best dive ever at deeper blue dot com. Or head to our website podcast.deeperblue dot com forward slash best dive ever. Join us again next week and explore much more of the deeper blue