Preparations for the OIC

Things are running good for the Oslo Ice Challenge. Today, Steinar and Bjarte went out to prepare the fied for us (pictures). The best tool at this point is the snow shuffel.

We are looking at 30-40 cm of Ice under 60 cm of snow. Thats enough to make for nice benches for spectators who just need to bring something to put under the bud...

I like the set-up. This will be the closest one can ever get to a deep dive competition.



Elisabeth and I where training the ice diving two weeks ago in Aarhus as you can see here.



She was actually calling this little dip a dive. I did a proper 9 sec static in that pool. And yes, there is a video that could have proven this if only the videographer would have been strong enough to leave the warm pool for filming and not just stand behind the glas door... ;)

Judging, judging... more judging

After hurting my shoulder in a snowboard accident this winter I was forced to drop my training for the 100m DNF completely and turned to more judging.
It started with the 8ème Coupe des Dauphins where I had the chance to be judging one of the most controversy discussed performances ever.
Christian Maldamé showed us how delicious a real Swiss cheese fondue can be and that it is possible to freedive in lake Geneva in January. I guess he is already training for the OIC.

Then, last weekend I was judging the Finkampen II in Åland. Being a great fan of the ocean and boats and all that, just to travel there was great fun for me. I flew into Stockholm, spend a night with Peter Boivie in Upsala and met all the other Swedish freedivers on the ferry.

With the new rules some things have become much easier to judge and some things are better to understand and beneficial for the athletes. So we were quite happy to be using them in both Geneva and Åland.

I was fortunate to again judge a really amazing performance. Ulf Dextegen held his breath for 8 minutes and 43 seconds. This is the second best result ever achieved in a competition.



I must say that the fun factor of this competition was one of the highest even. First there was a fun static in the frozen Baltic Sea (where I managed 10 s or so with no suit on), then sauna (with Champaign and beer), then Jacuzzi (with beer and that funky Finlandia mixed stuff), then outside pool (with starts above), then restaurant (with pizza, prices, karaoke and freedive drinklist), then night club (with live bands) and then a very hung over ferry ride back after not so much sleep...

Judging is fun!

What’s next?
Berlin Masters Cup 2009
Oslo Ice Challenge
ZLIN APNEA CUP
1st Hemmoor No-Fins only

New German Record DNF - 99 m by Ilka Michaelis

Competitions, competitions.... more competitions...

Berlin Masters Cup 2009

I have just put out the word, the registration form for the 11th Berlin Masters Cup in online. After a few hick-ups and the usual back and forth with the schedule and even a most unusual sabotage attack we finally made it.

According to the number of people that where bugging me about this it should be sold out quite soon. It is funny though that the once who where writing the most emails have not registered yet...

Unfortunately we had to drop the DNF for this time. It does not fit into the schedule no matter how you'd turn it. But we will be working on a solution for the next year.


Oslo Ice Challenge

Then, the preparations for the Oslo Ice Challenge, the first competition under ice, are going very well. Steinar is doing a great job finding people, finding material, testing and discussing things.

I have been drafting a safety concept that is looking very reassuring. Over Christmas I was holding a one day National Judge course for six of the Norwegian freedivers that then can help Sebastian and me as assistant judges.


1st Hemmoor No-Fins only Competition

And in the future I will return to where my freediving started and organize a little CNF training and competition event.
Traditionally the Berlin freedivers are starting their diving season at Christi Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day) and as we have a nice platform with counter ballast system installed at the lake I thought it should be easy to bring a couple of people together.

Surprise visit at the 4th Dutch Open

I always said, if you are a freediver and there is a freedive competition within your reach, there is no question. You must go and you must and you must compete.

Why? Simply because there aren’t enough opportunities for meeting with all those cool but crazy people that I now call my friends.


That being said, there seemed to be no real chance for me to go and do just that at the 4th Dutch Apnea Open. For one I had just been forced to quit competing at the Long Night of Apnea due to a cold that lasted the past three weeks. Second, Eindhoven is not really around the corner but rather far to the west and I had committed to meet with the board of AIDA Germany that Saturday. Last, but not least, Elisabeth did not plan to go anyways…

But then… things changed. First, Elisabeth decided to jump in a ancient car that was supposed to carry her and a bunch of Danish freedivers to Eindhoven but broke down about 100 km from the target. When I sat on the plain going to Düsseldorf it dawned on me that I was going quite a bit west. I checked the competition schedule and realized that they did not compete until Sunday morning. Checking train schedules I then saw that it would only take two hours to get to Eindhoven and since my plain back to Berlin would not leave until 3 pm… I started thinking and calculating…

At 6:35 I was on the train to arrive in Eindhoven at 9:00 am. I caught a cab to take me to the pool where I arrived about 9:15 am to be greeted by many of the above mentioned folks. Some thought it quite natural to see me there, some asked why they had not seen me on the in-list, some asked whether I was judging… it made me feel real good. Surprising Elisabeth was one of the coolest things I have ever done.

She was paying me back by doing a 5:02 min STA dive (me coaching) and later 136m DYN which was winning the competition. Makes me very proud!

Seeing the pool was great. I would have been even more impressed by it would we not have a pool of the exact dimensions here in Berlin. I remember what it was like to go in there for the first time. When a 50m lane is looking small and you start doubting it actually is 50m because the structure of the building is scaling it down… what a place to have a competition!

It was great seeing everyone there. Even when I was under stress to get catch a taxi at 11:30 to be back on the train at 12:02 and back in Düsseldorf at 14:08 and at the airport at 14:25 to catch the plain at 15:15 pm. But it was all worth it…

PS: Yes, Pim, I will do everything to make sure I can come back next year. You just make sure it is not so close to the LNA again... ;)

Diving for a good cause

On Monday I had the chance to be part of a photo and video performance the Word Wildlife Foundation (WWF) was organizing here in Berlin. The event took place at the Stadtbad Schöneberg and involved six freedivers being body painted as fish and swim into a net under water.



The performance was supposed to symbolize the bycatch that is making up to 100.000 tons of fish, that is a third of the overall amount that is fished in the North Sea. Bycatch is all of the fish that the fisher men actually do not want to end up in their nets because they are either too small or not the sort of fish they were fishing for. Most of these fish, however die in the process of fishing and are being cast back into the water.

Those numbers are getting even worse when you look at some special types of fish. The WWF report that was presented to the press just before the performance shows that for one kilogram of shrimps 15 kilogram of other fish die. So you might want to think twice before ordering a shrimps sandwich.

This been said there was no reason for us to fully support the WWF with this campaign. The six divers where Anna von Boetticher, Ulli Wulf, Ilka Michaelis and Martin Legat from the German national team, Nadine Werner (professional under water model and hopefully soon a competitive freediver) and my mermaid Elisabeth (yes, I had a hand in that selection).

The pool is 3,8m deep at the lower end and has a 3m wide window in about 2m depth. That made it perfect for a press event because the various camera teams could get a close look at what was going on under water.


I was in charge of coordinating the safety divers. We had 4 safety freedivers and two scuba diver. We were all quite nervous because that was a real fishing net and it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It caught people. I am very happy that the only thing that needed to be rescued was a nose clip.

Six huge spot lights lit the water as we laid out large lanes of black foil weight with sandbags on the bottom of the pool. On top of that we put the nets and hang one across the pool for the divers/fish to get caught in. In the meantime the body painter got to work and paintbrushed the different motives onto the freedivers. That all took from about 6:00 to 12:00 am. We then did three sessions of shooting and at 13:00 pm it was all over.

The performance was a big success as you can see on the campaign website. There you will also find a video. I will be waiting for the press reports and the DVD that the WWF is going to send out to tell you more about it.

PS: I am thinking of a pool competition in that pool just because of the window... let’s see...

Success in training

I just wanted to let you know that I was doing 4:16 min static and 75m DNF (dynamic no fins) in training on Wednesday. That is only 0,6 points less than my performance in the RMC.

I am very happy I was able to repeat that. It shows me that I am on the right track. I found my way back into static and want to continue doing 75m dives in training in order to go further.

Video of the best dive ever

Rhein Main Cup 2008 - PB DNF 79 m!!!

Another one down... but for a long time this is the first competition with two successful dives.

I was taking away the pressure of the static dive by reducing both my announced performance and my own expectations. After all, I was there for the dynamic dive. So with an astonishing late and relatively short worm up of only three dives around 2min I got to 4:09 min and only stopped because I wanted to save myself for the DNF. I must say that Stigs method of training and diving really changed this discipline around for me. Daniel did a nice job coaching me. I cannot remember when I had a more relaxed competition dive.

Then came the big dive. I was maybe slightly more nervous which I was treating with the usual mambo-jumbo (yoga, music, meditation, autogenic training, visualization).
When I finally got in the water I was so relaxed I had to mess it up. For some strange reason I closed my eyes after pushing off. Now, that can be good for a nice and sleepy dive... but it was not. When I opened them again I realized I was off track. Not much but a bit. When I got to the wall I turned and pushed off and... closed my eyes again!?! Result: I was not pushing off straight but down and hit the ground at about 4m from the wall. Well, that woke me up a little but did not really help me.
At the next turn I tried so hard to make it a good one that I messed that up as well slipping and sliding with my feet along the wall and crouching my body together way too much... nothing like the nice and easy turns I usually do. When I finally did push off (with not so much of an effect) I thought, well that’s nice, you only have one more chance to make one good turn in this dive.
With my previous PB being 72m, I never really made a third turn before, though...
On the way down to it things were getting a little funny but I wanted to get there. The will to make that turn was stronger than the fear. I remembered my first 100m DYN dive. Also no perfect dive with a lot of will power and like then I focused on the line and sad to myself, it's now or never! Stick to that line and you'll get there.
And when I eventually did, I made the best turn of that dive, pushed off and made for the edge of the pool. There, I took off my mask before I started shaking like I have never done before. I was doing the samba, I had problems taking off my nose clip and the magic words "I am ok" sounded so strange that I apologized to the judges and said them again. After Pim gave me my white card he said he wanted that video to use for educational purpose... That says a lot!

But, it is official! New PB in diving on one breath without any fins: 79m!

I really hope my next competition dive is going to look a lot different and I can improve this. I am on track with my little plan so this one was maybe not the luckiest but it was one step on the way to get to 100m. Now that I have overcome lane 3 it is time to start thinking about lane 4. I love this sport!

PS: After the competition I was elected Vice President of AIDA Germany. I want everyone to address me like this from now on. Well... at least once.. for the fun of it... ;)

PPS: I have a video of the dive but I wont show. Not just because it really looks like I do not know what I am doing but also because I think the camera man was drunk and I dont want you guys to get sea sick.

EEC on YouTube

EUROPE EVOLUTION CUP 2008

The reason why I did not write anything about this wonderful event is simply because I was even more unfortunate then in Dahab.

Just before the first competition I caught a virus. I felt a little weird in the morning. Would not eat at all. And then after announcing the performances I felt like all energy was drained from me. I really had problems to keep myself upright. No good!

That was it for me on that weekend. I did not get in the water onece. Exept my feet when I coached Elisabeth and Natalia (yes, she asked me to coach her through her worm-up:). And that was it. Luckaly we had a great time in Venice, a place where one should only go when happy in love.

Never the less I want to bring your attention back to the website of the EEC since they have just published a first video of the event. The cameras they had in place where really impressive and I hope we will see more of this in the future.

Emergency call for Long Night of Apnea, Berlin 2008-11-15

Only 4 weeks to go and we still have very little registrations for the Long Night of Apnea.

Please register now or we will have to cancel the competition.

Register here!

or send an email to m.mueller@aida-deutschland.de

The LNA is the competition with the longest tradition. This year it is the 11th time national and international athletes come together for STA, DYN and the world famous 16x50m.

Accommodation is cheap in the club house and the atmosphere is very German, so very cozy.


If you had plans to come, regiser NOW! If you had not, THINK ABOUT IT! You are all welcome!

FIM here I come

I have just been looking at my list of personal bests (no, not because I am so much in love with myself but because I am worried) and I have decided that next time I go in the water I will crack that free immersion record.

-33 m was just a little try when I had nothing else to do. It is in no relation to the other targets I have hit and it has been lingering around here for moor than a year now...

It has to go away! Wish me luck...

- 30 m CNF in competition at the Nordic Deep

This was a nice dive! A very nice dive, indeed!

After my rather confused training dive in Wildschütz I wanted to know whether I can do the same in competition.

When we got to the platform I was calm and focused, when I went to the line I was picturing the dive. Five seconds after TOP I was going down. No problems coordinating swim strokes and equalization. below 15m I started sinking and before I knew it I was at the bottom plate fiddling around with the tag for a couple of seconds to get it on my arm and not loos it.

Then I made the strongest pull ever that was rocking the boat quite a bit. Anyway, that initial impulse made it so much easier to start the swimming. After my first stroke I really could see myself going up, a sensation I was missing last week when I had the feeling to still be falling.

When I saw the safety, I was already enjoying the gliding and soon felt the uplift of the positive buoyancy. I was choking a bit when I gave my OK to the judges but that was more due to the excitement then to the dive.

Right after the dive (as after every successful dive) I was sure I could have put some meters on. And that might even be true. But this is a good point to start. -30m is a nice depth to achieve and may be the first step in the right direction towards deeper dives to come. I am very happy about it.

It is wonderful to dive in a discipline where not equalization but your physical strength is stopping you. After most of my latest CWT dives I was rather frustrated because I came up fresh and strong having no problem to swim all the way down until the ears would not allow me going any deeper.

Let’s see how long it takes until I hit that frontier again.

Judges: Sebastian and Hanli
Safety: Jens
Coach: Elisabeth
Fotos: Matti Luukkonen

Dive station in Wildschütz

The dive school at my favorit trainig lake has made a long plan come true and sunk a station for decompression to -8m depth.



Now this is too tempting for a bunch of freedivers not to go and check it out.



And then, allways remember to breath out on the way up... ;)



They are sinking another, even bigger station this week. I can't wait to go and dive in...

- 30 m constant weight no fins

Long time no news from the diving Martin but I'm busy.

On Saturday, my sweet mermaid convinced me to try something really crazy. Diving without fins...

So far I have been successfully avoiding that discipline arguing that everything that moves under water has some sort of fin so why shouldn’t I? But I had left my mono fin on land and had done a 40m dive with the bi-fins so I thought... what the heck...

Dove down, got below the point where I'm sinking, enjoyed the ride until I thought "hey, you'll have to swim all the way back up again!". So I turned, started swimming and had the feeling of still falling. I continued to swim and it got better... slightly better. Then I remembered that I had not pulled on the line to give Elisabeth a signal that I'm coming. So I did that. It did not help my ascent but then the swimming got better. Slightly better. When I saw Elisabeth safetying me, I was quite happy. But there was still 20m to go up. I can tell you, that was the hardest 20m of swimming I have ever done and my arms never felt so dead.

But, when I got out of the water my Mosquito showed 30,7m! That is 5m deeper than a certain mermaid... ;)

Oh, and the German Lake Record in this discipline lies at -36m, a performance that I judged at the Apnoe Happening in Hemmoor this summer.

Safety: Elisabeth

108 m in DYN and a white card

Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in the coolest pool competition there is.

See the video, it was just great. Usually pool comps are indoors and after 2 h your head is aching because of the air and you are getting cold quite easy.




But not this time! Fresh air, relaxing in the sun and enjoying the sunlit water. Not to mention the bbq by the pool after a long competition day.

Thank you Kurt for making this happen!

New PB in Competition!!! -47m

This was my day! Everything, really everything worked just how I wanted it.

My tactic retreat yesterday was just the best thing to do. I was busy anyways because of both safetying and judging in the water. But it was good not to rush the big dive and get some rest.

Then, when I woke up this morning I felt so confident, it was almost scaring me. The training dive to -45m felt more stressful than this. Had a nice light breakfast, went out to the Blue Hole, did my yoga, did my meditation, visualized the dive, got in my wet suit and went out to sea. All very casually and calm.

For worm-up I did two FRC dives to -10 and -15m practicing mouth-fill technique and equalization. Then, Elisabeth pulled me over to the competition zone.

When I dived in, I hit the "duck", the little yellow paddle boat that Sebastian turned into a CBS platform, but that did not distract me. I went down.









I equalized almost 3 times a second. In about -30m I got a nice mouth full of air that I was using quite nicely until around -42m. There, I don't know why, I lost it... And there was now was getting it back. Equalizing did not work anymore so I had to take my chances. I was riding my ears for the last 5 m, grabbed the tag and took off again.

Despite the trouble at the bottom I managed to stay calm and move up nicely along the line. I sipped in the air, I used earlier to equalize the mask (that is new for me) and I was slowing down when I saw Annelie, my safety diver.

Out of the water I took a deep hook breath and performed a nice surface protocol and obviousley sank back into a little trance or some sort of worshipping the rope... who knows...

In any case, I was the happiest diver on this planet after I got my white card.

And whats next? Maybe a -50m dive on Friday...??? Who knows...?

Safety: Annelie Pompe
Coach: Elisabeth

Back on Track

Today, I felt like I had some strengh back and so schedueled a training dive.

I prepared quite intensive for it because I do not have so many days left to do what I came here for.

With the wonderful help of my loveley mermaid, I managed to dive down to -45m which is my personal best from last year. The dive went all well until the last 2 meters where I could not equalize any more and then I forgot to look out for the arch at the bottom and hurried back up... :(

But I am confident, that I can do that again and a bit more. So tomorrow I will rest and "just" safety all the other family members who gathered for this competition and probably announce -47m for the day after tomorrow.

Wish me luck... (although, luck is not a factor)

Training in Dahab

So now I have finally made it out to the El Dorado of the freediving world. Dahab really rocks and I had a very good first training reaching -40m easily.


BUT then... Dahab is unfortunately a place where you get diarrhea as well. And that is no good for freediving . So I was totally paralyzed yesterday and had to skip training today as well.

But then I was getting in the water to have a go at the “bells” which is beautiful.

Since I am missing two training days now, I will not compete on the first competition day and will try some more deeper dives tomorrow.