How to Free Dive in Six Easy Steps

Turns out not breathing is hard. A minute or so ago, I filled my lungs with as much air they would hold and now I’m staring at a plane streak across the sky, past clouds reminiscent of alveoli. The pine trees swaying in the sea breeze is triggering my instinct to breathe. So I take a gulp of air and raise my hand to indicate to our instructor that I’ve resumed drawing air into my lungs after about 90 seconds. 

That’s not bad considering I could barely keep my head underwater for 30 seconds in the pool back home. 

Learning to Breathe

Watchmaker Tudor has summoned me to Marseilles, France, for a two-day primer on free diving from champion Morgan Bourc’his and how to practice static apnea (submerge with no movement) by filling and emptying the lungs to increase their capacity. Like a merman with impossibly good posture, the French diving legend has led us through a yoga session and demonstrated the breathing method. By the end of the first session on dry land, I’ve nearly tripled my ability to not breathe.  

For session two, I donned a wetsuit, mask and Tudor Pelagos Ultra to time my “dive” in Bourc’his’s academy’s pool. Using the same technique, I was able to keep my head below the surface for a shade over two minutes. Again, not bad but Bourc’his says most people can take on enough oxygen to practice apnea for three minutes. Easier said than done since you need to convince yourself to ignore your life-sustaining instincts, which Bourc’his admits. “The fact that you have to hold your breath and immerse yourself in this mysterious and vast territory in the ocean is not trivial, and it asks you to know yourself, your self-control, and to have this capacity of letting go,” he says. “But also you must master your emotions, and you have to be incredibly confident about yourself, because as you know that all these feelings, all these strong sensations are really linked to life.”

After a seaside lunch, it was time to test this newly unlocked skill in the Mediterranean. The instructors set up buoys for free immersion, a free diving discipline where you use a rope to pull yourself under. The target depth was eight meters. I made roughly a dozen attempts  and felt poised and comfortable for the first few meters of each dive, but somewhere around the halfway point water would begin to stream into my mask. My beard and mustache were preventing the rubber from sealing properly. That water flooding my eyes caused me to panic and each time I missed my target. The deepest I managed to submerge was around six meters before we called it a day. 

At dinner that evening, Bourc’his set a challenge for the group and the next day’s dive. Every diver would set their own depth objective without knowing the other participants' selection—the same way it’s done in competitive free diving. There would be a tag at the target to retrieve and return to the surface. Of course, there was nothing riding on this except for personal satisfaction. I set my target at eight meters in hopes of redemption.    

Into the Deep

At the diving spot the next morning, we were afforded a few practice attempts before our competitive dive. Given the mask leaks yesterday, I Vaselined my facial hair in hope of creating a better seal. It worked…sort of. The petroleum jelly bought me an extra meter or so of resistance, but the flooding was still causing me to panic and abandon the target. I was going to have to do my best to ignore the deluge and power through the last few meters. 

Eventually I was called to the buoy for my "official" dive. Staring back at La Cité Phocéenne, I gathered my breath and slowly turned toward the abyss. With every pull of the rope I slowly drew nearer the target and each meter the pressure built on my ears, requiring equalization. But like clockwork, around the five meter mark, the brine spilled in around my eyes and nose. I was so close, just a body length and a half from the ring at the bottom of the rope.  “Not today, Poseidon!” I pushed on. A few more pulls and I was there…grabbed the tag and turned for the surface…bout de souffle.  

Success is more satisfying after a little failure. 

It was an incredible experience. I doubt I’ll ever become a competitive free diver, but I’m excited to use this technique paddling around the shallow beaches on the Adriatic next summer. “It's a way to discover new territories, improve your abilities, create new sensations, and it's a way of knowing yourself,” Bourc’his says.

Obviously, it’s not super difficult to pick up. Plus, it's a sport that you can practice at every age of your life. For anyone who wants to learn the techniques or try free diving, Bourc’his has some tips.

Six Tips for Free Diving

Use the Buddy System

The first thing is to never dive alone. You have to find a free diving center, a free diving community, and a professional to help you to discover the activity and to practice it safely. Because if you do things properly, you can have an accident and be OK. If you do things alone, it can be tragic.

Breathe Right

Before stopping breathing, it's very important to know how to breathe correctly. So this is the first step. If you don't breathe correctly before, you lose mobility, which is so important for free driving, and also for your life. It activates your physiology, and everything you do is linked to the breath. So if you start to learn how to breathe correctly, you will create an easy way of living and then you can try to stop breathing.

Create a Routine

If you prepare yourself in a certain way, it can create automation that can help you to be more in the moment during the immersion. Taking a breath at the same time, moving in the water in the same way helps automate your technique. Then you are more dedicated to your feelings and overall experience, which is the best.

Check Equipment

It's important to have your own equipment, completely adapted to your body, to your strengths, to the environment. If you have a lot of water inside of your wetsuit, if your fins are too rigid, if your mask hurts your nose, you will be focused on this and not on the extraordinary sensation. So you have to have well adapted equipment. If you are focusing on what is hurting you, you’ll miss the most important part of the game.

Go Slowly

Progress gradually. Don't try to push yourself too far too fast because you can hurt yourself. It’s important when you want to master a depth, to repeat the depths. If you want to reach 10 meters, you must master five meters, six meters, seven meters, eight meters, nine meters. Same for 20 meters, same for 30 meters. The gradual progression is important for your ability to experience the sport and to feel comfortable.

Relax and Enjoy

Forget the time and let go. The fact that you are in the water and it supports you helps you to disconnect. The sensation activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps you to relax and to enter into this famous altered consciousness. You don't need to hold your breath for six minutes to experiment with it. If you can let go for 45 seconds, it's enough to create this state of consciousness, of calmness, of softness. That’s so important because it's very intimate and opens you up to the sensations that you can feel and have in this activity. If you are closed off to your sensations, you miss a big part of the game. So it's really a way to consider and to feel things in another way and it can help you to focus more on yourself and be more attentive to your feelings and your environment.