If you take your decision to delve into the Freediving world, this article will explain to you why you need to take a Freediving course.

What Is the Importance of the Freediving Course?

Freediving is considered an easy activity to practice. Most freedivers and spearfishers learn to do freediving from friends and family and wrongly think that they don’t need a Freediving course.

You must be sure that you will expose yourself to many risks if you don’t learn this sport from a qualified instructor. You will find that freediving is relatively simple, but you need to know a lot of information on the physiology, safety and technique of this activity.

To get all this information, we recommend you to take a Freediving Course with an experienced instructor from an insured agency. Although you need only a little equipment to practice freediving, you will need to know many things about freediving including risks, safety and techniques.

Getting wrong information about these points can put you in fatal situations. On having a bad training, you can suffer from anything from lung, sinus and ear barotraumas, to drowning.

The previous lines aren’t intended to scare you or dissuade you from entering the freediving world, its goal is to show you the importance of learning freediving with a qualified and reliable instructor.

Most experienced spearfishers and freedivers who haven’t completed the freediving course find themselves doing dangerous and inefficient things. After completing the course, they find their skills skyrockets, as well as their confidence because they know then that they are doing things correctly and in a safer way.

What You Will Learn in a Freediving Course

During the Freediving Course, you will learn many things:

• Equipment: how to choose the freediving equipment that fits you physically.
• Depth and pressure: the factors that affect both your diving ability and your body underwater.
• Equalization: how to do different methods of equalization correctly and also how to overcome equalization issues.
• Breathing: breathing techniques before and after freediving.
• Budding: how to choose an efficient dive buddy.
• Rescue skills: which include skills for self-rescue and others for rescuing your dive buddy.
• Stretching: learning about stretches and relaxation techniques that are the most effective for freediving.
• Risk awareness: how to manage and plan a dive session.
• Weather: how to deal with tides and currents.
• The underwater environment: the type of marine life you should look for and the type you must avoid.
• Pool training: learn about static and dynamic.
• Open Water training: disciplines of free immersion and constant weight.
• Buoyancy control: how to improve hydrodynamics and efficiency.

Who Offers Courses 

You know now that you need to enroll in a Freediving course. Most diving agencies offer three levels of courses, with a basic level that depends on a non-compulsory pool. You will find two types of agencies, small agencies that are run by volunteers and international agencies that employ people from all over the world. Here you are the most popular ones:

• AIDA

Which is an acronym for Association Internationale D’Apnee. The agency was founded in France in 1992. It is considered an international organization that is run by volunteers which it’s job to:

• Set the standards of the courses.
• Ratify the world records.
• Train judges.
• Organize competitions.

• APNEA ACADEMY

It was founded in 1995 in Italy. Umberto Pelizarri who is world champion and Renzo Mazzarri who is a world champion spearfisher are its founders. The job of the academy is to set course standards.

• Apnea Total

It is a training center that is based in Koh Tao and has its own training system. It has an exotic location and as a result it has certified many freedivers.

• CMAS

It is considered an international organization that has many branches around the world. Its job is to set the standards of the courses and ratify the world records.

• Freediving Instructors International (FII)

The FII was founded on the hands of Martin Stepanek who is a freediver that has multiple world records and from the pioneers in freediving education. It is considered the only freediving education curriculum in the world that is accepted at a collegiate level.

• IANTD

It is one of the international technical diving agencies that has started a Freediving program since 2000. You won’t find it offer freediving on its website but it maintains freediving instructors from all over the world.

• Performance Freediving International (PFI)

PFI is regarded as a Freediving training agency that was founded by Kirk krach in 2000. Krack coached Mandy-Rae Cruickshank and Martin Stepanek who are world champion freedivers. The agency  teaches freediving clinics worldwide and is involved in development of both team and athlete.

• PADI

Which is an acronym for Professional Association of Diving Instructors which is famous for being the largest provider of scuba courses worldwide. The association launched their Freediver programs in 2015.

• RAID

It is regarded as an international organization for scuba, Tech and Freediving. Their job is to set the standards of the courses, organize competitions and ratify world records.

• SSI

It is regarded as one of the largest international diving agencies that was founded in 1970. It teaches courses that range from swimming to freediving and Tech diving.