The Short Story: Let me start with the fact that my freediving experience before Ted’s class was limited to freediving to recover dropped items as a teen (30 years ago), minimal spearfishing, and recreational free diving on vacation. I am an active scuba instructor and very comfortable in the Ocean despite the minimal freediving experience. The Immersion Freediving Intermediate Freediving class was one of the best diving classes of any kind that I have taken. You will learn so much in 4 days that it will take you days or weeks after before it all sinks in. The money and time invested will make you a safer and better waterman not to mention improve your freediving. Thank you to Ted and his team for a superb program from registration all the way to arranging for the awesome wildlife visits on our last dives.
The Long Story: Freediving is something that always fascinated me and something that I’ve always wanted to learn. As a scuba instructor here in Florida I was able to ask my network of contacts in the industry who they suggested to learn from, Ted Harty, and Immersion Freediving’s name came up over and over. After taking the course I understand why.
The amount of information I’ve learned to improve my free diving and do so safely is overwhelming and days later I am still processing. Whether you are in the classroom, pool, or in the ocean safety skills and technique are reinforced. The class size is no more than 5 people which allows you to get one on one treatment. Because of this you will not be able to hide in a crowd and you will be expected to perform, by no means will you be perfect so don’t expect to be.
After each dive you will understand what you did well in addition to what you need to work on from Ted. He can provide you this feedback because he is right there with you on the dive regardless of the depth and not just observing from above. Ted does this for every student on every dive. I may be wrong but I doubt in many circumstances that you will find the same level of supervision from a scuba instructor who is now a newly minted freediving instructor. This is not a slam to other instructors or agencies but more a testimony to the level of supervision Immersion Freediving provides their students as well as the skill and experience of the instructor.
Am I now a perfectly tuned freediving machine? Far from it, but given where I started at the beginning to where I am now my diving is night and day. I went from a sub 3 minute best breath hold to 5 minutes and 5 seconds and did the deepest most comfortable free dive I’ve ever done. But, In the end deeper was not the point, there was never any pressure to push beyond what people were comfortable with or in my case what my sinuses were limiting me. In fact, when I became the most frustrated I was encouraged to not push through but instead focus on technique and “enjoy the dive” by Ted. I still have a long way to go before my dives are all locked in but by applying tools and safety procedures I have learned they will get there.
Thank you Ted and the rest of your company for the awesome experience. I only wish I would have your class years ago.
Kerry Vanhorn July 8-11 2016 PFI Intermediate course