[Speaker 2]

Welcome to the Freedive Cafe, episode 162 with David Meller. My name is Donny, I’m the host of the Freedive Cafe. The Freedive Cafe is the long form interview podcast that explores the backstories, the training, the challenges, and the combined wisdom and personal philosophies of the world’s freedivers.

You can find this podcast at truedepthfreediving.com, freedivecafe.com, and on all good podcast players, information about freediving courses, coaching, workshops, and retreats can also be found at truedepthfreediving.com. This episode was also recorded on video here on location at my centre in Dahab, so if you would like to see David and I in action, then check out the Truedepth Freediving YouTube channel. It should be up there, if not immediately after this one, then within a day or two.

So I hope you guys are all doing good. I know that my brothers and sisters in the northern hemisphere can be struggling a little bit at this time of year. If you haven’t been able to get as much freediving action as you would like, but as they say, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and in a few weeks, things will be heating up again, and the freediving action will start ramping up around the world, so keep your chin up and keep dreaming of the big blue.

Here in Dahab, first of March, looks like winter is basically over, the cooler air has passed. Beautifully warm and sunny today, back in the shorts and sandals, and the water temperature is at 21 degrees, and that’s probably as cold as it’s gonna get, so not too bad, it’s actually been a very mild and pleasant winter overall. The diving has been great, really excellent this year.

I’ve been teaching and coaching a lot through the winter, and now I’m officially back to training for the next competition. If you’re a Patreon member, the latest Solo Sword came out a few days ago, and I go into a lot of detail about my current routines and my training plan, so check that out if you haven’t listened to it yet at patreon.com slash freedivecafe. Today on the podcast, we are sitting down with David Meller, David is an English freediver, someone who I met quite a few years back in Indonesia when I was doing my instructor course at Freedive Gili, when he was still a 55 metre or so freediver, I remember, hopefully correctly, and Dave was about 55 at the time, I think, and what’s incredible is that David has been dedicating himself to freediving fully ever since, and at the age of 60 years old, achieved the incredible goal of diving 100 metres deep in competition. Absolutely incredible achievement, and I’m sure you’ll agree, an incredible inspiration.

Often in life, we can feel like our chances are slipping away as we age, but David has shown that often, usually, our limitations are self-created and encouraged more by the structures and the culture and the society we live in, and if we can just break out of that version of reality, we can design a new reality based on what we really want and achieve what previously seemed

impossible. So today on the podcast, I’m delighted to give you the story of David Meller, Let’s Dive. All right, David Meller, thank you so much for coming to the Freedive Cafe, welcome.

Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure to have you here, and thank you for the session this morning at our amazing Blue Hole here in Dahab. We are back in the little blue.

You can all see how beautiful it is today with the amazing weather that we have, amazing water, sunshine, really, really nice mid-December Christmas period, Dahab. You’re gonna leave in a couple of days. What’s next?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, home for Christmas. Should I even mention that I’m gonna be a grandfather? [Speaker 2]
I don’t know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
[Speaker 1]

No one can believe it, for sure. Yeah, I mean, officially, I will be the granddad of freediving then. Yeah, my daughter is due to have a baby on the 22nd of December, and then I’ll stay around for a couple of weeks, and then I’ll be off to Dominica on the 7th, yeah.

Back to Dominica. Yeah, doing a workshop there, two weeks of deeper diving, maybe a little bit of spearfishing as well.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let me ask you about that later on. Yeah, sure.

Remind me, because I don’t have the questions. Yeah, okay. Congratulations on becoming a grandfather, and congratulations to your daughter.

You have a couple of kids, you have three kids, and the eldest is 37, I believe. 37-year-old, yeah. Not too much short of where I am, and a lot of people are going to be amazed that you have a 37-year-old kid and family, because you’ve kind of lived two lives in a certain sense.

Maybe first of all, tell us basically a little bit about your background, where you’re from, where you grew up, and usually I ask people then how they came to discover the underwater world, but you have a story before you came to the underwater world, so take us through it all.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, well, I mean, not everything, but yeah, I mean, I’m one of five, so I have two brothers, two

sisters, and I’m the fourth child. Mother met my father in Malaysia, so he was in the forces, and we travelled around a lot when I was younger, and then when I was 12 years old, we settled in Poole in Dorset, England, and I went to school there, very run-of-the-mill kind of life. Like I said to you earlier, we got a job, got a skill, met a girl, got engaged, got married, had children, bought the house, did all of the usual, very straight road in life.

What was your skill exactly? You’re in engineering, you had a factory, right? I was a toolmaker by trade, and then in my early 30s, I decided to start my own business, never had any money, had three young children, had a fairly well-paid job, so people would have said to me, this is a stupid idea, you know, don’t go starting your own business, but I borrowed 500 pounds off my mom, 500 pounds off a friend, and I had 500 pounds savings of my own, and decided that I would start a business. Back in those days, that was like 50,000. No, no, it wasn’t, it’s probably like 1,000 now.

[Speaker 2]
I’m only messing with you. [Speaker 1]

Yeah, but anyway, you know, the bank lent me a little bit of money, I went out to an auction, bought some machinery, and started the business. And yeah, for 24 years, I think, I did that. And it was a good business, it gave me a good lifestyle, you know, I had enough money to live on.

But then, when I was 45, things changed a little bit, got divorced, and kind of, I would say, my life changed dramatically from that point. For good as well, you know, it wasn’t a bad thing, it just made me realise there was more to life than just, you know, this cocoon of family life. Yeah, and so you started a business, you had a factory, and so it worked out quite successfully then, it was?

Yeah, I mean, it was a struggle, like anything, you know, you start your own business, you have to work hard, and you know, there were recessions throughout the 24 years, so luckily, we had good customer base, I had good staff working for me, so we managed to get through all of that.

[Speaker 2]
What kind of tools did you make, just out of curiosity? [Speaker 1]

It was mainly fixtures for holding precision engineering parts. We kind of moved into component parts in the end, so a lot of the business was making landing gear for Airbus through a subcontract company.

[Speaker 2]
I always find these, like, very specific niches that people get involved in really interesting. [Speaker 1]

Yeah, it’s a million miles away from anything I do now, you know, and back then, time management was key. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, I had to be making decisions to do something, otherwise there was a snowball effect later on, and now, honestly, if I’ve got one email to do, I can always put that off to the next day now, and that’s a busy day for me now.

[Speaker 2]

So, 45, you went through a divorce, and you said things changed a lot after that. Like, in what way did it change?

[Speaker 1]

Well, I mean, single life, children were a bit older. I mean, you know, I still had a big part in my children’s life. I took my daughter to school whenever I could, and yeah, I mean, I was out with the boys for a few years.

You know? Having a bit of fun? Yeah, having some fun, some weekends away, you know, usual stuff, but it wasn’t sustainable, and I knew that, but, you know, I give myself credit.

Even through all of that, I stayed disciplined with my work, because that was what was gonna pay the bills. So, even though maybe I was out partying Friday, Saturday night, on the Monday, I was never late, and I think self-discipline is quite important for your life, you know? And a lot of that I bring into my free diving now.

[Speaker 2]

You said that you were, you know, going out with the boys, partying a little bit, but you’re extremely healthy now, obviously, but at that time, were you also balancing some healthiness in your life? Like, generally, were you kind of a sporty person, an active person, were you always doing some kind of healthy activity?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I would say, I mean, I’ve always been sporty. I liked any sport, and I would always be fairly decent at most sports I ever tried, but I never excelled in any. I never had any coaching or anything like that.

So, my background, really, was football and golf, and actually, when I finished playing football at the age of 30, I played more golf, and then I had three young children. I would finish their

meals off. So, I probably piled a little bit of weight on.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, look, when we first met each other, which was, we were thinking, what, about six or seven years ago, or something like that, back in Gili, Trawangan, when I was doing my instructor course with Mike Board at the Freedive Gili, and we were on the board a couple of times together, and, you know, I remember very vividly meeting you, and you’re in much better shape now. Like, you know, I’m not sure to what extent I imagined that, but I think you were, you know, you looked like a… Somebody who just got divorced.

Well, you looked like somebody who was in decent shape for 55, or whatever, but you still looked 55. Now you’re 60, and you look, you know, like 45 again. You’re reaching backwards.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, that’s right. I am living my life backwards, actually. Yeah, I mean, I’ve always enjoyed keeping fit, and I think, you know, once I realised that going out partying was not the way forward, I started to get in shape a little bit more, do more running, and I enjoyed it, you know, so slowly gave up the drinking, got more into my sport, got more into my fitness and health, and then when I started freediving, that completely changed everything.

Yeah, so when did you discover freediving? [Speaker 2]
How old were you?
[Speaker 1]

I was 49 when I did my first course. I did it with Emma Farrell in the UK. Yeah, back in the quarry.

In the quarry, yeah, Vopster Quay, yeah, and I remember I was, I think there were eight of us on the course, and I was the only one that was gonna fail. Everyone was, like, high-fiving each other because they were getting down. I had some sinus issues, so I couldn’t get down, and then they all said to themselves, oh, let’s go on a deeper mark, because it’s more fun, you know, and I was like, yeah, that’s all I need, isn’t it, you know, a deeper mark, but for whatever reason, from the swim, from where we were to the other mark, my sinus is cleared, and I managed to finish all my skills in the last afternoon.

I was super happy, but after that, I got completely hooked on freediving. I mean, I was a self- taught spearfisherman before, not knowing what to do. I would hyperventilate like crazy, thinking that was the way, you know, so when I did the freediving course, it changed everything.

Everything became easy, you know. I doubled my breath hold, doubled my depth, got so hooked on it. I think I did SSI level one in late July, and by October, I’d done the level two, and then by the November, I came to Dahab actually for the first time to train with Lotta to see if I was good enough to do level three, and I think my PB at the time in the UK in the lake was 26 metres, but by the end of the week in Dahab, I was at 43 metres, so great, I loved it again, you know.

So that was going back eight or nine years then?

[Speaker 2]

That’s now, 11 years. 11 years, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, you know, when you talk about someone maybe starting freediving a little bit later than usual, you, and then you say, okay, now you’re doing 100 metre dives.

There’s still a tendency, I think, when you think about that, to compress the time that was involved, but 11 years is actually quite a long time. It’s more than a decade of your life that you’ve been working towards this.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, but it was never a goal. I mean, my PB after five months of freediving was 43 metres, and my PB after seven years was 49 metres, so I was instructing. Emma and I would do live-aboard holidays and go to the Maldives and teach, so it was pretty much teach, teach, teach, and no training for myself.

So you gave up the factory before that? No, I gave up the factory when I was 55, so more or less like I did my first competition when I was 55, and I got completely hooked on competition, and it was actually coming back to Dahab that was the turning point for me, where all the previous years I’ve been to Dahab, there were mainly Freedive Dahab and Dahab Freediving, and not many freelancers around, but I came back years later at the age of 55, and suddenly there were freelancers everywhere, and I was sat in Fresh Fish there looking at all these freelancers taking students out, thinking, oh man, this is quite a nice life, and it made me think that actually, I’m gonna change my life, that was the point. I think I was training with Renee Blunden, and she was one of the freelancers, and it really made me think there’s more to life than just this factory that I have back at home. By then my children were older, they were independent, and I remember my younger son Dean telling me, just go and do it, Dad, so I did.

I decided to sell the business and go more into freediving for myself, and at that point, from the age of 55 onwards, so really my journey to 100 metres, at the time at 55, I still didn’t think that that wasn’t a goal, it was just to dive deep or enjoy the lifestyle and teach for myself, but I think once I got to 80, 85 metres, I think I told you earlier that I was in the pool, I was 85 metre diving then, and I looked at the length of a 25 metre pool, saw how, it didn’t look that far, another 15 metres didn’t look that far, and that was the point where I thought, I think I can do this.

You can do 15 metres with a good push off the pool while you’re in an arm pool, right? [Speaker 2]

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so at some point it did kind of crystallise in your vision for yourself that you were gonna do the 100, which would have been, you know, how long ago?

[Speaker 1]

I mean, I would say probably at the age of 58, I thought maybe, yeah, this could happen, you know. So just a couple of years ago, two or three years ago.

[Speaker 2]

Really, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so for those of you who are not aware of David, you know, I think that, okay, you did 100 metres last year, or this year for the first time?

[Speaker 1]
No, the first time was in Dominica, late 2022, late 2022. [Speaker 2]
Okay, okay, okay.
[Speaker 1]
So that was, it’s amazing how quickly time goes sometimes. [Speaker 2]

Which is, you know, an amazing landmark and a great achievement for any freediving athlete. I don’t want to overstate the fact that you’re doing it at, you know, 58, 59, 60 years old or whatever, because I think that it’s, are you 60 now? 61 now.

[Speaker 1]

61 now, yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Because we do have a unique sport that does kind of, is, you know, does have a little bit more flexibility for us and a little bit more range in terms of potential performances into later ages.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I’m gonna be very diplomatic with what I’m saying. I agree, yeah. [Speaker 2]

So I don’t want to, like, make a huge deal out of it, but part of the reason that we have this conversation is to inspire people to understand that it’s not like you were, you were like a professional swimmer until you were 18, and then you were like a swimming coach or a triathlete, like you’re doing triathlon until you were 35. And then, you know, it’s not like you had all of these transitions. You really kind of like started a little bit later.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

And you’ve done an amazing, amazing job coming to where you are now. And I saw the very, very nice, beautiful documentary that was made by… Yuval Bergel.

Yuval, okay. So we’ll, you know, put the information about that in the, on the screen, whatever, that will be coming out for people to see.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, Yuval is finishing the film. I showed a few friends, close friends, the first cut of the film, and like lots of nice comments about it. It’s very well shot.

I mean, Yuval is a very talented filmmaker and he wants to put it in a competition. So this is why it can’t go out publicly at the moment. Right.

But…
[Speaker 2]
No, it’s beautiful. [Speaker 1]
Yeah. I really enjoyed it. [Speaker 2]

And I’m looking forward to when everyone can see it. I think it’s one of the, honestly one of the better pieces like of freediving media that I’ve seen because it’s overwhelmingly positive, you know?

[Speaker 1] Yeah. [Speaker 2]

And it’s usually not like that. Yeah. When people get their hands on freediving stories, they tend to want to highlight the dramatic and the extreme aspects of it.

But yours is really nice and your mom is in there. [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
[Speaker 2]

She plays a big part in it. Tell us about this. So let’s go into a little bit about the process from the 85 to the 100.

What did you have to do? What changes did you realise had to be made? How did you start to train yourself?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah. I would say, so I had two things, which I would say made a big difference to me. I mean, I did some, I had some coaching with Harry Shamas a few years ago and I also did a month with Gus.

Both very good. I learned a lot from these guys. But I was kind of stuck at 85.

And I met Elise Modolo. She was at the Blue Hole training. She’s very mentally tough.

And I think I learned some good stuff off her on really not caring, managing to blank out distractions and keep positive with your thoughts. And that’s super important for deep diving. But also, Elise also recommended going to see Federico Manor because I was stuck on equalisation.

And I did Federico’s teaching course, the share instructor equalisation course, which is amazing. Like for any instructor, it just gives you another string to your bow for teaching. And he definitely improved my equalisation a lot.

So the two things that made a big difference to me was Elise’s mental approach and Fede’s equalisation. And then how that worked for me on the line, I no longer had the doubt when I was breathing up. I no longer had the doubt of, is my equalisation gonna last?

Am I strong enough to do this dive? It just became like something I really wanted to do and couldn’t wait to do. So the nerves, they’re different kind of nerves.

They’re excitement nerves, rather than nervous, nervous. [Speaker 2]

You were telling me that you didn’t have an LMC or a blackout until you were already diving 100 metres. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Screw you, man.

Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]

But I think, I mean, this is kind of a good plus of being stuck with equalisation. Because if you’re stuck with equalisation, then you need to focus on other things, right? And technique and breath hold were never a problem.

It was always frustrating. With equalisation and for people that can equalise, that’s the danger because they can dive way deeper than they’re ready for. So I think that helped me.

And then another thing that helped me also is I had online coaching with Tom Pellett. And Tom gave me lots of dry exercises to do, very efficient ones that we spoke about. And that gave me the strength for, to do the dives, but also the breath hold to do the dives, at least gave me the mental strength that I was looking for.

And Fede gave me the equalisation tools that I needed. So, you know, putting all those together made me a much better diver.

[Speaker 2]

And you didn’t have much issue with technique or strength and conditioning through this process?

[Speaker 1]

Well, I mean, Tom gave me lots of exercises in the gym, but also with resistance bands. So they were targeting specific muscles for any of the disciplines that I did. And I enjoy it.

So it’s not like it’s hard work for me. I enjoy the physical training also as much as the dives. So I don’t have a problem getting motivated to go to the gym or do a run or anything like that.

[Speaker 2]

So let’s, at what point would you say that leading up to that first hundred metre dive, which was in Roatan? No, it was in Dominica. Dominica?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.
[Speaker 2]
But you did that in training, right? Yeah. And then you did a hundred in the competition in

Roatan.

Yeah. So let’s say leading up to this period when you did your first hundred, when did you start, let’s say, actively training? Like, was there a block before that that you kind of scheduled your training in quite a disciplined and strict way?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I had, I unlocked the equalisation issue. And so I just didn’t have a chance to dive deep. So for six months after I really worked out my, because I was doing pool, I did a pool competition in 2022.

So even though I unlocked my EQ, I spent six months, I was still training for pool competition. And it was only after that, that I started to train depth again. And it came quite quickly because I remember the knowledge and what I had to do for the equalisation.

And so I progressed quite quickly from that point. I think I was, by then I was at 88 metres, I think. And I knew that I could go deeper.

I just didn’t have the chance to until I went to Dominica. So there I went to Blue Element, trained with Harry McCahill, and slowly built up the dives. And I was getting deeper.

And I think within, it was something like a 10 day cycle where I did 88, 93, 96. Then I think, I was resting one day in between, but then I think I failed at my first 100 metre attempt because I got a little bit cold. I got a contraction.

So then what I did was put a vest on. I did another dive the following day just to check my buoyancy and everything was fine. Rested one more day, and then I did the 100.

And yeah, it’s a special moment, you know? I bet it is. I remember getting down there, touching the bottom, and I remember thinking, right, I’m reaching right down here because I am not coming up with 99.9 on my watch. And then, yeah, and all the way I’m thinking, right, don’t do, just relax, relax, relax, relax. And then of course, when I got to the surface, I was happy, but I was still a bit nervous because I’ve wanted to look at the watch and see, and luckily it had 100.1 on it. Nice.

So that little reach was just the job. Just the job, yeah. [Speaker 2]

You said that you unlocked equalisation issue. What exactly was your equalisation issue? What was holding you back at 85, 88, or whatever it was?

[Speaker 1]
I didn’t really know what I was doing. Fede teaches a method of separation of three

compressions, jaw, cheek, tongue, or cheek, jaw, tongue, and keeping the tongue low, charging, making sure the tongue’s low and belly’s relaxed. They’re like very basic mistakes that a lot of kind of mid-50 divers make.

[Speaker 2] Yeah, yeah. [Speaker 1]

And with the balloon training, dry training, I just managed to make this habit, and I could feel how I managed the air much better. And so it became more consistent. I mean, my friends who I trained with, it was like a bit of a joke.

They used to call me Shallow Dave because there was a lot of Daves in Der Hab at the time, and one moment I was Deep Dave, but all the others unlocked their stuff, and I became Shallow Dave, or Knee Deep High Dave. But then I managed to, I became more consistent. I think I had a run of something, well over 20 white cards in competition, whereas before, I would early turn probably two out of four dives, and it was always EQ.

But once I did the thing with Fede, I also went in the water with him for a week. It was amazing as well. I’d recommend that for anybody who’s, yeah, I did a course with him in, a workshop with him in Lanzarote, and learned a lot.

Fede’s an amazing guy, super, great way of teaching, lots of fun, but also good knowledge as well. So from that moment on, I feel like I had, from the coaching from Harry, from the coaching from Gus, with Fede and with Alice, all of that made me more of a complete diver.

[Speaker 2]
How much of a, how important is strength training for you, and why? [Speaker 1]

Yeah, definitely it’s important, because you cannot have doubt that your legs are gonna burn out, or your arms are gonna burn out for any of the disciplines. So this is another part where, when I’m progressing in a depth cycle, I’ll always make sure that my strength is good enough, my breath hold is good enough, and my EQ is good enough. And if I have those three elements, then it’s 99% sure I’m gonna do the dive, because I have all the elements ready.

And I have had cycles where I feel lactic, maybe on a 70, 75 metre dive, on a bifin dive, I’ll feel lactic. And I know how I feel, and my mind starts to already go ahead thinking, before I dive, this is gonna hurt my legs. So at that point, I’ll either really have a strong word with myself, and just push through the lactic, knowing that it doesn’t get worse.

But that takes quite a bit of mental thought. Or you train more so that the lactic comes much

later. But even, I did a 89 metre bifin dive in training in Dominica, and I remember feeling lots of lactic, but it just became this challenge with myself where I would have these thoughts of, right, okay, this is lactic, is that all it is?

Come on, give me more, give me more, give me more. And just push through it. It became a challenge, me against the lactic.

And I wouldn’t win. Well, it’s the best training right there, isn’t it? [Speaker 2]

Like the most specific training you can get is power through it on a dive. But how many times would you work out a week? You go to a gym, you lift a barbell, that kind of thing?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I do, like now at the moment, I’m doing lots of gym work, squats and stuff. When I get near a competition, I’ll go to more repetition with resistance band stuff, very specific movements to the disciplines that I’m gonna do. And I’ll do the dry hypoxic stuff.

So maybe I’ll hit the gym, it really depends how close the competition, because the closer I get, the less I do. At the moment, I’m in the gym three times a week, maybe I’ll do a hypoxic run once a week, and maybe I’ll do a static hypoxic session once a week. And then I’ll be in the water.

But leading up to competition, I’ll drop the weights, go to more resistance bands and repetitions. And then even close to the competition, I will only do hypoxic stuff then. Because by then you’re diving quite deep, and I feel like the deep dives are enough to maintain or to keep yourself.

Because otherwise, you’re always aching before you get in the water, and it’s not a good feeling. And my recovery, that’s the one thing that I don’t really have, is my recovery because of my age is gonna take longer. So I have to be a bit careful about that.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Whenever I’m thinking I’m not recovering so well despite my good sleep and my magnesium and my L-T and E and everything, I’ll just say David Miller. Yeah, right.

20 years older, shut the fuck up. [Speaker 1]
Get on with it. Yeah.
[Speaker 2]

Hey guys, let me just interrupt the interview for one minute. I hate to do the ads thing, I don’t do it anymore with other companies, but I need to use this space to tell you about something very special going on this year. After five years in development, I’m delighted to announce that the first Living Freediving Retreat will take place in Dahab this year in October 2025.

This seven day retreat’s content is basically the culmination of my entire freediving journey so far as educator, athlete, and lover of freediving. The goal is to share the discipline and practise of freediving, not just as a recreational activity, but as a way of life and a vehicle for deep personal transformation because this is really what freediving is to me. During this week, you’ll get an intense course of training in all aspects of freediving and the complementary practises such as traditional yoga, deep relaxation, and meditation.

You’ll not only learn how to do these complementary practises, but you will learn them properly in such a way that you can take them with you and incorporate them into your own freediving lifestyle. I’m beyond excited this event is finally taking place. I tried to do the first one years ago in Bali right as COVID struck, and it’s been years, so it’s been years in the making.

I put my heart and soul into designing the best experience possible for the guests. The accommodation is incredible. The content is amazing.

The water will be amazing too, and we’ll have an incredible week together living the freediving lifestyle. If you want to get more in-depth information and sign up, head over to truedepthreediving.com slash freedivingandyogaretreat and take it from there. All right, let’s get back to the chat.

We discussed earlier that I also had a pretty good run without hypoxia on my dives. I was doing 82 before I had my first LMC, and that happened in competition as well, and we discussed the importance of training specifically hypoxia, which I think is something that a lot of people are still not, let’s say, really aware of how you can do that quite efficiently on dry, because obviously traditional O2 tables are basically pointless. I mean, holding your breath for, you know, five- minute breath holds 10 times or whatever, you know, it’s a bit too much.

But, and then a lot of people are also kind of focused on the CO2 training kind of thing, and also maybe the belief that they somehow need to improve their CO2 tolerance, where in my opinion, it’s very often other factors that are contributing towards that feeling of discomfort or feeling like they’re experiencing too much CO2. So for the oxygen, we discussed about the kind of intermittent hypoxia training that you do, and I think some people who listen on the Solo Soto, on the Patreon Solo Soto, we will have explained what kind of exercise that I’m doing. It’s quite similar.

Explain what you would do for dry training to build up your hypoxic tolerance, for example. [Speaker 1]
Yeah, the two main exercises that I do are the hypoxic run, so basically nose breathing for

about four minutes just to raise the heart level, and then full exhale and run as many steps as I can. Usually I run around 40. This is a good indicator for me for where my breath hold is, because I know that if I can do 40 steps, that’s what I was doing when I did 100-metre dive.

So if I can manage the 40 steps, then I know that my breath hold is somewhere near where it needs to be.

[Speaker 2]

And that’s a really good point as well you make, is that this is the importance of training with some kind of systematic and progressive system is that if you know you’re doing 40 steps on full exhale on this run, when you start again, maybe you’re doing 25, but as long as you’re consistent with your training and you see the little incremental improvements bringing you back up to 40, it gives you again the confidence to continue, right?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, exactly, yeah. And so yeah, so I would do that full exhale and then nose breathe recovery only for one minute, and at one minute, full exhale again and go again. So I’d repeat that minimum of 10 times when I’m not near competition, and then as I’m leading to competition, probably I’d push it up to 12 or 15 times.

It’s quite an intense, it’s very intense. You get a lot of lactic in the legs. Yeah, yeah, it’s like, and my recovery breathing through the nose is you’re staying hypoxic.

Yeah, it’s like, yeah, anybody who watches me, they’re gonna wonder what the hell I’m doing. And I’ve actually done that in the gym on a treadmill before. And yeah, I get some strange looks.

But you know what? I don’t care about, I’m past caring about, maybe when I was younger, I’d care about that, but I really don’t care. It’s cool, man.

[Speaker 2]

Anyone who’s just jealous of you because you’re doing something, if it was a younger person, and they would be copying you, they’d be putting this on TikTok. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you also do a static exercise as well.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I’ll do the static one. And the thing I like about the static one I do is that it doesn’t strain any of my muscles. It’s pure hypoxic.

And that is like full exhale, 10 reverse packs, nose clip on, part end charge to simulate the last part of a dive. Focus on keeping the tongue down because I’m also training the glottis at this point to stay shut through contractions. And if the tongue’s high, then you’re not really training

the glottis.

So all of those, but all with purpose as well. So like, you know, when contractions start to come, I really focus on my relaxation and I count the contractions. Sometimes I’ll go to 15 contractions on empty with reverse packing.

And then I give myself one minute recovery only. So really at 40 seconds, I start to exhale again and start to reverse pack. And by the time I finish that, it’s a minute again.

I do that with a seven times repeat. So the whole exercise is done in 20 minutes. And what I’m training there is my hypoxic level, my mouth feel, trying to maintain how it is, you know, the last part of the dive, training the glottis.

It’s like a really good, simple, all round exercise. Dealing with contractions as well. [Speaker 2]

And I was saying I have a similar exercise, but I hyperventilate beforehand and then I do FRC. So now I’m thinking about it. I’m cheating.

Like I’m trying to make it easy on myself. I’m trying to like focus on the hypoxic element and remove the contraction element. But I think as I know, I’ve trained static in the past and I know that after, you know, especially moving into the second week training static, like contractions, the quality and the nature of them changes and they really become much, much more tolerable.

And I just have to not be such a pussy about doing it like that. [Speaker 1]

Yeah, because I mean, it’s not about how long the breath hold is. It’s about how you manage with the contractions, you know.

[Speaker 2]

And I think also, you know, if we’re talking about being specific, you know, even on the level of blood chemistry and what’s happening in the cell, it’s probably better to keep the same kind of chemical pH level and the blood and stuff like that is more similar to what you would have during a dive. Yeah, cool. So you make sure that you’re strong enough.

You make sure that your equalisation is good. You make sure that your hypoxic tolerance is good. Talk a little bit about your mental game.

Like you seem to have your head very screwed on and you don’t seem to be a particularly emotional or flaky type. Not that there’s many of those in the free diving community, but is that something that you kind of have to specifically work on? You have some strategy for staying

positive and confident about your diving outside of just doing the training? [Speaker 1]
Yeah, I do, I do. I use anything.
[Speaker 2]

You have a little mantra as well. You were using a little mantra in the video, right? [Speaker 1]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The don’t care about the current, don’t care about the conditions. And really, I think that’s what training in Dahab does for you because it’s nearly always wavy.

Okay, there’s not much current, but it’s nearly always wavy. So wherever I go, I don’t really look at the weather forecast for the next day. I’ve made my mind up, I’m gonna do it.

And outside of diving, I find that little tests with myself, I always test myself. So let’s say I wake up one morning and the night before I plan to go running and I wake up and I feel terrible and I don’t wanna run. That’s, as soon as I say I don’t feel like running, that’s a trigger to say I’m running.

I turn it completely round and that’s how I try to do everything throughout my life now in anything that feels negative or I don’t wanna do. I get in a cold shower, I don’t wanna go in a cold shower. Okay, I’m going in the cold shower just because I don’t wanna go in the cold shower.

And you start to build up this kind of resistance to stuff. And so by the time you’re diving, it’s not a new feeling to be doing something that you don’t really wanna do. The other thing for my diving, I do think very simply, I don’t overcomplicate it.

I know usually that the only thing that will stop me is my EQ. So I only focus on my EQ and my relaxation. I try not to think about the number that I’m diving because I know that if I manage the EQ, I get a good charge and I manage the EQ the way I should, the result of that will be that I’ll hit the bottom plane.

And so my mind doesn’t really have time to go wandering to negative thoughts. Have you had any history with squeezing? Yeah, yeah, I’ve had, I mean, track squeezes.

I had my first track squeeze when I was about a 50 metre diver. Someone told me that I should reverse pack. I didn’t know what that was and I did the grouper call at 50 metres.

You were doing it anyway, yeah. Yeah, and then I squeezed. But yeah, I do like, and I have, in colder water for sure, I get a little squeeze.

Also on the chest? Not so much on the chest, but I would say that I have had in the high part of

my chest. I can feel like in my breathing, sometimes a little vibration and you know that something’s not quite right.

And I think a lot of that is down to the way I was equalising. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Speaker 2]

And has that been, was that like from 50 to a certain depth and then you’ve, is that something that will consistently happen if you, because your equalisation is very good now, right? It’s very consistent now.

[Speaker 1]

It’s good, but it’s not where I want it to be and now I’m stuck at 100.

[Speaker 2]

But you haven’t had any kind of barrel trauma that set you back in a big way?

[Speaker 1]

I had, I would call an overexpansion injury. Okay, okay. I think, so I made a mistake in my training.

When I did my first 100, my final charge was 20 metres and I reached 100 and on my first 100 metre dive, I still had some air. So that could have been 105 metre dive. But what I decided that I needed to build in some kind of safety margin in my diving.

So I thought, okay, I’m gonna pack more and I’m gonna charge deeper. And so that’s what I trained to do. And it was a mistake because all of my problems started when I started to pack more.

And I think that I got an overexpansion injury, which led to some DCI and squeezing. So now I’ve gone back to 20 metre charge and packing less and trying to manage the air better. How much do you pack roughly?

I was, I packed 20 times. I can pack dry, I can pack up to 40. But on the dives where I was having problems, when all the problems started, I packed 25 times.

And it makes a big difference because at 30 metres, I could top up when I packed 25 times. When I packed 20 times, even at 26, I can’t fully top up. So it shows that it does work, but it doesn’t work for me because it was causing me problems.

[Speaker 2]

Let’s come to that DCI incident in a moment. One last question on the practicalities and talking about squeezing and this kind of stuff. Do you do any kind of dedicated training for thoracic

cage mobility, flexibility, compressibility, that kind of stuff?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I do diaphragm stretching nearly every morning. I’d say five times, five times a week, every morning. Lots of empty lung reverse pack, diaphragm uddiyata bandha, stretching over the back rack, doing all of these, the usual cage stuff.

So that is an integral part of what you’re doing. Yeah, and again, 100% it works because I did a little spirometer check and I don’t know how accurate it is, but I was getting consistent reading and I got to 10 litres and I’m for sure, I never had that before I started all the stretching. So I think for sure it works.

[Speaker 2]

Amazing. All right, so you were in Dominica, you had an incident with decompression related things. Tell us about what happened there because there was a bit of drama with the getting care at that time, wasn’t there?

[Speaker 1]

Well, yeah, so I trained hard as well. I trained hard pre-season, it was the first competition and things were going quite well. I was diving into the high 90s in training and yeah, I had high hopes for a UK record and for immersion, you know?

And then I, so this is the point where I was still packing at 25 times. And I did the first day, just a conservative dive, 82 metres. I wanted to build, you know?

So that was a fine dive, no problems.

[Speaker 2]

Sorry, when you say you did the first day, 82?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

How much rest did you have before that?

[Speaker 1]

I had a day’s rest. You had a day’s rest and then you did 82? Yeah, and then the following day, I did 88 for immersion and that’s when I had a problem.

So it wasn’t particularly deep.

[Speaker 2]

No, I mean that’s, I could be doing this any day of the week and teaching at the same time? Yeah, well, I wasn’t teaching at the same time but yeah, you could, yeah. So, and I mean, but you also have other divers who are doing much higher loads than that and much deeper dives.

So you did an 82 and the next day you did an 88. What was the recovery and the rest like between the 82 and the 88? Do you think something went awry there?

[Speaker 1]

I think that maybe I had a squeeze because I had a CT scan after the incident and chamber as well. And at the time, they didn’t tell me there was anything on my lungs. It was only when I needed to do a medical to get past fit again that there was some, they call it like frosted glass or something like that, frozen glass, something.

It can be just a virus or something on your lungs but it can also be a squeeze. So for me, it makes sense that I had a squeeze and maybe this is what led to my DCI along with the overpacking. So of course, like, you know, the overexpansion injury where you’re coming up, the blood shift hasn’t moved out of the alveoli yet and you hit the surface so your lungs are fully overinflated actually.

You could have some fluid in your lungs already. Which I believe can lead to a bubble getting through. And maybe that happened, I don’t know.

You know, it’s very difficult to say but all I do know is that the problem started when I started to overpack or pack more. Interesting, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Tell us though, what happened? What were your symptoms and what did you do? [Speaker 1]
So, it’s funny actually. Because I, so I finished my dive, everything’s fine. I felt fine.

And Elise was diving after me so I thought I’ll just stick around on the platform and watch her dive. And then after Elise was another guy, Johnny. Johnny Carrahabel, I don’t know if you know him.

A nice guy. Yeah, well, like, previous to that I was just joking about how difficult it was to say his name. So, I was just going, oh, it’s Johnny Carrahabel’s dive next, right?

So, when we were training we would say, oh, where’s Johnny Carrahabel? Right, for a joke. And then, anyway, I watched Elise do a dive and then it was Johnny’s dive.

And then I said to Harry, who was on the platform, I said, Harry, is it Johnny Carrahabel next?

And he was going, he went, are you okay? I said, yeah, I’m okay.

I’m joking about Johnny’s. But actually I really couldn’t say his name properly at that point. So, Harry alerted the doctor and he, Bezo, he had a look at me and he said, no, you’re not okay.

So, they put some oxygen. [Speaker 2]
Did he do the test on you? [Speaker 1]

Yeah, yeah, he was holding fingers up, and left and right hand. And I was saying, okay, there’s six fingers there. I thought I was nailing it.

I was like, yeah, I got you there, Bezo. You know, like, I’m fine, nothing wrong with me. And then he would say, raise your hands.

So, I’d raise my hands. And yeah, there’s nothing wrong with me, Bezo. Yeah, raise your legs. Yeah, nothing wrong with me. And he went, no, you’re not okay. We need to get you down. So, I was like, what? So, they put me on some oxygen. I went down, I think, 10 metres.

And I did a table that was recommended at the time. And within five minutes, I was fine again. So, Johnny Sonics was, he got himself on some scuba gear and he was down there with me, talking to me, making sure.

He was amazing, actually. Johnny, like, that competition, honestly, the organisation, safety-wise, I couldn’t fault it. I think they really saved my situation from being a lot worse.

Yeah, that was a very fast response. [Speaker 2]
Very fast, yeah.
[Speaker 1]

But, like, I don’t know many other competitions where someone else has scuba gear ready, you know. Because, mostly, you’re gonna get a safety diver come down for 30 seconds, see you’re all right, and go back up again. But, actually, for me, to see Johnny there, giving me signs, telling me to F off, and, you know, it was, like, quite comforting, you know.

And then, within five minutes, I was writing answers to the questions. And I think the whole table, up and down, took about 40 minutes. And, yeah, I mean, I was fully fine by then.

So, I went back and had something to eat, had a coffee, just chatting, you know. Everyone was super worried. But, honestly, I’m not sure I was aware of what difficulty I was in.

Because, in my head, I was fine. And, really, if, you know, if I hadn’t stuck around to watch Elise’s dive, or joked about Johnny’s surname not being in, maybe I’d have swam in. And halfway back, so that, you know, maybe I’d have had a serious problem.

[Speaker 2]

So, all it was, is that maybe, what, 10 minutes after the dive, you had this interaction? And then you said a name wrong, and then you just noticed something was off about the whole situation? And Harry?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Harry noticed. I didn’t notice. I just, my voice sounded strange.

That’s the only thing I thought. But, when I was being tested, I thought I was doing what he said. I thought I had the right amount of fingers.

But, Bezo said, no, you weren’t doing any of it. I would love to have had a video of you at that time, and just see exactly how you looked to everybody else.

[Speaker 2]

I can’t count, anyway.

[Speaker 1]

So, you know, I was guessing all the way.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, well, you’re English, man, I mean.

[Speaker 1]

Should have seen the school I went to.

[Speaker 2]

I can’t count on my fingers. We’re gonna do this desert island question section. It’s just a little, fun little section of silly questions that you answer for the Patreon supporters.

I put it in the Patreon thing. Just take a little bit. And then, at the end, I’ll come back, and I’ll ask you a little bit about the workshop that you’re doing and stuff.

So, you get a little bit of a chance to talk about that.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah.
[Speaker 2]
And then, but before we, before we do that, anything else that you wanna bring up? [Speaker 1]

People ask me my thoughts, what my thoughts are when I’m coming up from a dive. And I think it’s important to think about something positive. And what I try to do is enjoy the ascent.

So, the dive, it’s not just about getting down there. It’s about, obviously, coming up, but coming up with good feelings, not just, like, I need to get to the surface. Oh, contraction, contraction.

So, this is how you build up a nice feelings for dives. Your brain associates diving with something nice, rather than, like, I’ve gotta get out of here. So, I try to, when I hit the bottom, I always try to, okay, you’ve done that part now.

Here’s the second part, but try to enjoy it. And then, often, I think about my mum looking at me, smiling at me, which is quite nice.

[Speaker 2]

I think, I’m just remembering about your mum now, and I can’t get over the fact that she ran 5K in, was it 24 minutes?

[Speaker 1]

No, not 24, 31, 26 is her best time. Okay, right, still, still.

[Speaker 2]

I mean, when I do my 5K here on a slow day, it could be, like, 28 minutes with the hills and that kind of stuff.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.
[Speaker 2]
So, and that was still some effort. Yeah. And she’s, what, 80? She’s 85 now. 85, yeah, and she’s done that at 85 years old. [Speaker 1]

Yeah, but she started running at 79. Exactly. So, she never did any sport, any sport whatsoever. [Speaker 2]
It’s crazy.
[Speaker 1]

Any sport, she never did any sport, and now she actually trains three times a week on her own. She runs 5K, and do you know what’s funny?

[Speaker 2]

And she looks like she’s properly kilting out the kilometres, man. She can run. She doesn’t move like an old lady.

[Speaker 1]

No, she doesn’t. I took her over because she got frustrated with her time each week. She plateaued out at 33 minutes, right?

So, I said, mum, like, the reason you’ve plateaued out is because you’re doing the same training now every week. So, you need to change your training. You need to go over and do some interval sprints, right?

So, I’ve taken my mum down the local park, 85 years old, to do interval sprints. That’s amazing. Yeah, and the first time she did it, she took off, man.

Like, she legged it, and I was like, geez, man, like, this is fast. And she really shocked me. But she doesn’t quite associate.

She still thinks that running three times a week is gonna be better for her than doing like an interval. I can’t change her mindset, you know, because all she says is, I’m still here, aren’t I?

[Speaker 2]

At this point, I mean, it’s obviously given her so much pleasure, you know? Like, you know, it’s good that if she wants to progress, but you also, like, you can, sometimes when you try to train too specifically, it takes a little bit away from the pleasure, a little bit, you know, like having certain plans and models, but she seems to just be.

[Speaker 1]

She’s competitive. Honestly, I run with her when I’m back, and I run around with her, and I have to tell her to slow down sometimes because somebody overtakes her, and she doesn’t like that, so she runs after them. And I say, Mom, you can’t run that pace.

[Speaker 2]

So just slow down. She doesn’t like dropping a place. No, she doesn’t, no, no.

[Speaker 1]

And the other thing is, she never likes medicine, right? She never goes to see a doctor. She doesn’t like medicine.

And I said to her, Mom, you’re running three times a week. You need to take some protein powder, and you need to take some creatine. No, I’m not taking medicine.

I said, Mom, it’s not medicine, you know? But she, I convinced her in the end, but she keeps saying, once I finish that, don’t buy me anymore, you know? So, yeah, it’s very difficult to try and, try and to get her to, like, I know what she needs if she wants to run faster, but she doesn’t know, and she won’t listen to me.

So, yeah, it’s a tough job. [Speaker 2]

Still, amazingly inspiring. I really love to see that, yeah. And that brings us on to, I guess, the last kind of, like, you know, practical topic.

I think I already said that about half an hour ago, but I never asked you about your nutrition and your diet and supplementation, because being 61, like, I don’t think you can get away with just eating whatever you want at this point. How important is good feeding, good fuelling, and what kind of supplementation do you use?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I think, obviously, it’s important. I try to eat healthy, balanced, like, I’m not like more vegetables or more meat. I try to eat, like, you know, I feel the need to eat a steak once a week, so I’ll eat a steak.

I tend to try and stay off dairy a little bit, because it does affect the mucus levels that I have, and alcohol, for sure. So, I won’t even drink any alcohol at all. I’ll eat healthily.

In the morning, just, like I said, some toast and some honey, and I have a beetroot drink, and maybe I put a little bit of creatine, a little bit in there. I have some cacao powder I’ll put in there, and a bit of manuka honey as well, and a banana. So, that’s my pre-dive snack.

And then, afterwards, I try to eat, you know, healthily. I don’t really have sugar cravings. I don’t really crave snacks.

So, that’s not really an issue for me. I don’t drink fizzy drinks. Did you ever, were you ever into sugar, like chocolate, sweets, candies, that kind of stuff?

I mean, I like dark chocolate. I weaned myself off milk chocolate, and now I prefer dark chocolate. So, if I eat chocolate, it’s gonna be 80% cacao or something.

And then, now, the other chocolate tastes so sweet, I don’t enjoy it, you know. And I’m very good at, if I have a packet of biscuits, I’m very good at eating one, and putting the rest away for another day. I don’t have to binge.

That’s completely the opposite of me. I’m a binger.

[Speaker 2]

I’m just looking at my log here. I’m on 154 days without any sugar.

[Speaker 1]

Oh, yeah.

[Speaker 2]

Added sugar, cakes, cookies.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I was thinking you look pretty fit, actually.

[Speaker 2]

In anything, and honestly, when I get to six months, I’m gonna make a big deal out of it. But now, I just started training again. I just feel like I recover so much better.

I feel so much stronger. I’m more motivated. My sleep is better.

Yeah. I’ll save that for another time. But the main point is, I think that, at least in the way I was using sugar, which is like every night, I have some kind of like chocolate bar, or a cake, or something like that.

And I think it was just like killing me slowly inside. [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
[Speaker 2]

And I’ve been doing that since I was a kid. [Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]

The way we, back in the UK, we have tea with spoons of sugar.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

I’ve been drinking like three spoons of sugar since I was like seven, eight years old, or whatever. You know, it’s nuts.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]

So yeah, sugar’s not great. And if you don’t have that vice, then I think it gives you a massive advantage.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I really don’t, no. I don’t crave it. And every now and again, I’ll have a cake.

I mean, every now and again, I’ll let myself go. But honestly, I don’t feel the need for it. I get more out of having a nice, savoury meal that’s well-cooked, and that’s enough for me.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, me too. I do now, but now the cravings are gone, which is the best thing about this, actually, is that I have zero cravings whatsoever for sugar, for even anything sweet. Even a date is like, it’s nice.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it feels really sweet. This is too sweet for me, you know?
[Speaker 2]
I eat two or three of those, and I’m good. So for supplementation, you’re taking creatine. [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
[Speaker 2]

Very well-studied, well-researched, and proven supplementation for both sexes and all activities, basically. And anything else, you’re taking valerian root for the sleep.

[Speaker 1]

The sleep at night, yeah, yeah. I’ll take magnesium, zinc. Depending where I am, I’ll take iron every other day, a bit of folic acid as well.

Because you can’t, like some of the places we train at, you can’t get everything you need. So I think it’s important to supplement. Have you had your blood work done?

No, not for a long time. Not since I had an amoeba in the house. I haven’t, no. I feel like, I mean, I’m always energised, so.
[Speaker 2]

Well, you look great. I don’t think you have to go to the doctor right now, but just out of, you know, as a, you know, basically a top-level athlete, I think that, you know, maybe doing that, you know, three or four times a year, just so you can kind of quantify, maybe also get a little bit of a heads up in case things are kind of like sloping downwards.

[Speaker 1]

It probably would. It’s probably something I should do, you’re right. I never have, because I never felt the need to.

If I always feel energised, my breath hold, my diving’s going well, then I never felt the need to. But I think, yeah, you’re probably right. Probably most other athletes do that.

But you know, in the UK, it’s very difficult to get anything like that done. So even to get an appointment for a sore throat or something is a joke. So if it’s something, yeah, probably maybe go to see Heiko here or something.

[Speaker 2]

You also have now, I think you have a lot of these services like that offer these more kind of bespoke blood panelling and testing services, maybe a little bit more expensive, but as an athlete, might be worth looking into.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s something I should, you’re probably right, yeah.
[Speaker 2]
All right, cool. Okay, well, before we finish up, I wanna take you through the Desert Island

questions. Very, very unfair, because I didn’t show you them.

In advance, you’re getting nervous now. I’m going to dive mode now. No, well, this is, most of these questions, none of these questions have anything to do with diving actually, so.

No, with my mindset, I’m gonna stay calm. [Speaker 1]
Right, okay, stay calm, stay calm.
[Speaker 2]

Okay, first question in 10 seconds. 10 seconds to official first question. Describe your ideal morning routine.

Like if you could. My ideal morning routine would be. This section of the podcast, the Desert Island questions, was recorded exclusively for those who support the podcast through Patreon.

Patreon supporters get access to extended episodes like this, as well as my famous solo soaps, in which I ramble on about what’s going on with me and my freediving life, and answer questions from the patrons. If you appreciate this project, the Freedive Cafe podcast, and would like to say thanks for the work I do here, head over to Patreon.com slash Freedive Cafe, and check it out. Well, okay, awesome.

That was good, you answered the questions very, very nicely. [Speaker 1]
Uninterestingly.
[Speaker 2]

No, no, no, it was good, you know. Some people really struggle with those, and some people get really nervous about them. I had somebody crying about them at some point.

Oh, it brought back a bit of emotion. Okay, so tell us about, you’re doing some workshops, you’re doing some coaching and training, like what’s, if people want to get involved with that, like what’s on offer for the next season?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, I do some retreats with Echo Echo Projects. So Lydia Gard and Martin Produce. Martin is our breathwork coach.

Lydia is an instructor also, and she does a lot of good, she’s a very organised person. So we do retreats. Usually it’s like after the World Championship, so we did one in Cache.

This year we did one in Kalamata. Next year we’re thinking of coming to Dahab. Oh yeah?

Yeah, we’re thinking about it, yeah. I think we can make it work here. And yeah, it’s just a week of freediving, all levels.

People bonding, breathwork sessions, which are always great. Martin’s an amazing breathwork coach. I love the way he teaches or he runs his sessions.

And they all have good fun, so that’s nice. And then we do short two-day ones at Deep Spot through the winter, so people who are craving some water will do there. But I also do my own stuff as well.

So like, I’ll teach in the UK roundabout June, but as I really want to focus on my depth, and June is like where I really want to be training. So I’m trying to teach less in the UK, but more abroad and seeing if I can get people to come to Dahab or people to come to wherever I’m training. So you can still train at the same time?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So wherever I may be. So I’ve got a nice workshop happening in Dominica, then we have one in Deep Spot, and probably I’m back in Dominica again later, so maybe I can run something there again.

Are you thinking about the Mekomp in Dominica?
[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so how long are you back in Dominica for this time? [Speaker 1]

So I’ll be there from the 7th of January until the end of February. And then I’ll fly back to the UK, quickly fly over to Poland at Deep Spot to do the workshop there in March. And then towards the end of March, yeah, 25th, I fly back out to Dominica until late May.

[Speaker 2]

And in terms of competitions, big comps coming up for the next season, World Championships again?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, yeah, probably World Championships. I would like to try VB if I can get in, if there’s a space there, I’d really like to get in. Did you go there already?

No, I’ve never been, I’ve never been, and I’d really like to. I mean, you know, I did a pool World Championships just because I wanted to experience what a pool World Championships is like once, and actually once was enough. Is that this year?

No, it was 2022, and I haven’t been in the pool since. It was enough to kill me. So, but I don’t feel like that’ll happen with VB.

I’ll, you know, I want to experience that because it’s like the Olympics of freediving, right? [Speaker 2]
It’s iconic.
[Speaker 1]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’ll see. Yeah, and then World Championships wherever that may be, possibly Kalamata maybe again.

[Speaker 2]

Okay, okay. Yeah, and yeah, then that leaves us to ask the final question, which is if you can put it into a few words, why do you freedive?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, that’s, I mean, my answer to that is a little bit boring. I really just enjoy the challenge to myself, and I, you know, like it is the challenge to myself. So for instance, I think in Roatan, I could have done a 71-metre dive for a world record, but I wouldn’t have been happy with the 71-metre dive.

So I did 85 metres, and that was a test for me at the time, but that was the challenge to test myself, and I did the dive, so I got a lot more satisfaction out of that. So yeah, it really is that simple. It’s not spiritual for me.

I like all the lifestyle, everything that surrounds it, training, eating, places, travel, people, and that all together is quite a nice package.

[Speaker 2]

Yeah, I mean, that almost is spiritual. That is kind of like- Yeah, I guess so, yeah. Having some kind of non-material aim that improves how you feel about yourself inside, you know?

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, and you know, like it gives me a reason to carry on. You know, like- That sounded very morbid, actually. Yeah, but you know, if I didn’t freedive, what would I do?

You know, that’s like a question. What would I do if I didn’t freedive?
[Speaker 2]
Just do a mic board and get a surfboard for skiing, snowboarding. Yeah, but my hair wouldn’t

look good that long. All right, cool, amazing talking to you, David.

Real pleasure to have you on the show, finally, and you know, a true inspiration, and you know, for everyone out there, especially anyone who’s maybe on the fence and thinking, oh, it’s too late for me to get into freediving.

[Speaker 1]

It’s never too late.

[Speaker 2]

It’s too late for me to dive deep and to turn things around, maybe, and journey down a new path and find out what awaits you at the end of that. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]

Yeah, thanks, Donny. Pleasure talking.

[Speaker 2]

Pleasure, yes.

[Speaker 1]

And diving with you, actually, first time, right? Yeah. Nice.

[Speaker 2]

That was David Mailer. Absolute pleasure to get face-to-face with David here in Dahab. We see each other a lot, but this conversation was quite a long time coming.

I really hope you guys can get access to that documentary film that was made about David. Once I have a link to that, if it becomes public, then I’ll put it up on the page, at truedive3.com, and I’ll put it up on the website, David’s page, and also on freedivecafe.com, but I’m not sure when that’s gonna be there yet. Keep up to date with me.

I’m on Instagram. I changed the Instagram name because you guys probably figured out that I’m trying to rebrand, basically, everything that I do under the umbrella of Truedepth. So it’s no longer freediveandthrive.

It’s truedepthreediving, if you’re gonna search for me on Instagram as well, truedepthreediving, truedepthreediving.com for the website, and the email will be donnie at truedepthreediving.com. Okay, guys, next up is gonna be Jeroen van Hout, and we’re gonna be talking about freediving medicine and the role of the freediving medic in big competitions, about oxygen, decompression sickness, compression sickness, what should we call it, all of these kinds of juicy topics regarding medicine and safety and freediving for those who are

getting pretty deep. All right, have a lovely, amazing day. Dive safe.