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I am a competitive freediver from the Czech Republic. I knew how to swim before I could walk. My mother was a competitive swimmer, and wished the same for me. I remember when I was very young, I saw the local scuba club going through training after swim practice. I was amazed by this new sport....people staying underwater for long periods of time with a tank…fascinating!
I begged my mother to sign me up for scuba club. I became a wintertime finswimmer, which was a requirement to be a part of the scuba club in the summertime. I enjoyed the 50 meter sprint the most, which was performed underwater with a monofin. This was done with breath hold, and therefore I developed a knack for breath holding from a very young age. It took well over a year and many grueling finswimming practices for me to earn my stripes. This enabled me to try scuba and breathe out of a regulator for the first time in the kiddie pool for about 30 seconds. This was a monumental experience. After that morning, my life changed. I was now a scuba diver! I graduated to the big pool, with fins, mask and little twin tanks at age eight.
Being the youngest member of the scuba club, there were times when the older kids would take my tanks. This frequently forced me to freedive during the scuba trips we went on to local quarries. Being in a landlocked country, I wouldn't scuba dive in the ocean until I was twenty years old. However, my first experience freediving in the ocean was at age ten in the Black Sea. This, by the way, was quite unexciting. I was attempting to gather mussels to add to the family dinner, and mussels were about the only thing I saw there aside from the occasional jellyfish.
Eventually, a friend approached me about the idea of becoming a competitive freediver. I was not very comfortable with the idea, and thought that this could not be a real sport. It seemed more like a stunt...and a very dangerous one at that. Several months later, I watched a documentary about Pipin Ferreras and Umberto Pelizzari. This confirmed that this concept of freediving was truly a sport, not a stunt when it is done with proper safety protocol.
I continued swimming through my teens. I began college at the age of fourteen, studying forestry engineering because I loved nature and the outdoors. As I was finishing school, my curiosity grew to understand human biology. I wanted to better comprehend what my body went through when I was freediving. Therefore I pursued the study of physiology after I graduated, and attended Charles University in Prague to major in Sports-Biology. I began applying this knowledge to freediving, and developing some training techniques for myself. I decided to take a 6-month break from school, and traveled to the United States. Little did I know, I would never go back to college or live in the little town of Trutnov again.
I resided in Key West for several years, and began training full –time when I moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am grateful for the many friends and colleagues who helped me start my career in freediving and had faith in my abilities. I would not be where I am today without their aid.
I set my first world record in Static Apnea in 2001 in Florida. Shortly thereafter, I set my second record in the Free Immersion discipline, reaching a depth of 90 meters in the Cayman Islands. Records began rolling in, one after the other in locations around the globe. Soon, I had achieved depths far beyond what I could have ever dreamed possible.
I began teaching freediving clinics with Performance Freediving International. Along side Trainer/Coach Kirk Krack and fellow World Champion Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, we set out to educate the public about breath hold techniques and safety. The goal has always been to establish a standardized educational system for freediving that would allow other freedivers and instructors to teach the sport in a safe and effective way.
My real passion is educating people about freediving. I love seeing people achieve goals over a four-day class that they never thought themselves capable of. This interaction brings me more joy than setting any world record. This has led me to begin my own company, and become the Director of Training and Development of FIT which then lead into Freediving Instructors International (F.I.I.)
Check out our website at www.freedivinginstructors.com
I think if you look back at your life, you will see that you are a freediver, too. You do not have to be an elite athlete to be considered a freediver, nor do you have to be in exceptional shape. Have you ever snorkeled on a family vacation? Taken a deep breath and looked at the fish swimming beneath you…or perhaps been swimming at your local pool on a team? Maybe you spearfish. Then yes, like me, you are a freediver too!
