It's day 4 (probably failed one), I'll try to do it again tomorrow. Day 4 - Awareness and WIllpower ----------------------------------------------------- CONTEXT: Because of my damn job, I was unable to do day 4 in the morning - and was already late for a day full of useless stuff and moneymaking efforts... I had a DYNb pool training today, not a big one (some technique exercises, a set of 8 50m dives and 6x75m dives). For me, 50m is long considered a 'short' distance, and 75m is 'somewhat of a medium' one ('medium' is 100, and 120+ is considered a 'long' one). So I gave myself 3 hours to recover from the pool session, and I hoped to do it enough to do day 4. I was wrong. Even day 2 when I did it in the morning and had a pool session in the evening was better idea :) I also was terrified of X-HOLD, because 80% and 90% of max effort are basically 2 sub-max in a row! And it's the evening, after a long and stressful day at work and after a pool training! Still terrified of this but will redo it after full recovery. X-PAND: I did Sidersky's gymnastics with some light stretching before doing it. X-HALE: I thought 30 fast chest breaths would feel much more like hyperventilation, but actually no. X-HOLD: neither of the holds were felt or done great. The discomfort came very early, and it was quite an unpleasant experience despite my best effort, the calming music and the mindset. I tried to recall that 'dreamy' state but was too stressed and fatigued to succeed. Hold#1: 02:32, medium contractions, but the high CO2 feelings came really early (I didn't count but I believe they were even before 30 seconds!). The one word for that is 'discomfort'. Hold#2: 02:47, medium contractions and very close to 'starting pushing' (that's why I ended this attempt). I also did more packing and it was unpleasant and even somewhat painful in my neck! So the word for this hold is 'pain'. Hold#3: 03:00, I actually pushed myself up to 3 minutes because I was too ashamed of myself. I started pushing from 02:33, the very feeling that makes me exit my long dives and ruins my competition each time came to me at exactly 02:59! It is 'suffering' for the word, no less!

Day 3 - Feel the Edge BEFORE: I did a lot at my workday, and ended up very nervous and anxious about its results. I work in sales, and you see, I'm working on my future monofin, so if I want to start training it somewhere in 2026, I gotta work hard😁 (I'm sure you see the principle why I don't like what I do and why sometimes all the stress and pressure translates into freediving...) I did day 3 right before the strength training, seeing it as a easy warm-up. X-PAND: I did some light stretching. X-HALE: triangle breathing felt good. I noticed that 4-4-8 might be a little bit fast for me normally, but considering how stressful I was today it was probably fitting... Didn't calm down though. X-HOLD: I did some 30+ seconds on full exhale with 1.30 intervals. I measured my BOLT score last summer and there it was 90, so I didn't consider such short exhale holds a big deal, so I tried to shorten resting intervals. They felt like I was breathing, I sat still, and saw no inordinary body signals at all. Last time was 60 seconds instead of 30, I was just curious if CO2 will show up (it finally did at 0'58''😁) X-PRESS: I jogged outside for 5 minutes (despite it was snowy) breathing through my nose, it felt good and as a good warm-up right before my strength training session. Maybe if I breathed through whatever feels right (either nose or mouth) it would feel more natural, but it was enough air for me for breathing through my nose. X-FACTOR: Here is the difficult part. I don't care about the usual high-CO2 'urge to breathe' when it comes, as well as about contractions. So mantras are either not nessessary for me, or - they don't help when the very reason I exit my long dives shows up. So, for the relaxation purpose, I want to learn to return to that 'dreamy' state when i either daydream about my future or the 'observant' state when I'm actuall in that future, but seeing everything with my own eyes. And for competitions and scoring good results, I want to withstand whatever my body throws at me to get good numbers, so I want to be all fiery and fighty, and never ever surrender to anything.

Day 2 - Calm in the Chaos ----------------------------------------- BEFORE: It was early in the morning, right after sleeping. I remembered my old CO2 tables when I did them (right after my base freediving training), and I was feeling curious how it would feel now. Also, I knew it should be a DNF leg-day pool session in the evening, so I decided to go more easy on myself. X-PAND: I did some light stretching right before starting the CO2 table. X-HALE: I did purge breaths (still, my purge breaths told me right from the beginning that I'm hyperventilating because I felt dizzy and tingly in my fingers, and heavy on my head), so I took my time with deep belly breathing to reset. I also enabled a beautiful ambient on my YouTube to see if it helps (from my previous experience, it didn't help but I gave it a try). X-HOLD: I wrote a CO2 table in Apnea Freediving Trainer for myself so it wouldn't conflict with YouTube song playing in the background. The times were fixed but quite good: I set them as 2'40'' (allowing myself to hold less if I need to - I still remember day 1, there was a sub-max, so should be careful). Well, everything was easy. I thought in a moment I could do this table with 3 or even 3'15-3'20'' times, so it would be some time for comfort, some time for urge to breathe, and some contractions time. There were no contractions, just a slight urge to breathe in the end. No matter how short was the interval, I felt the same while holding, it was easy. X-PRESS: I did all the exercises as it was intended, and quite honestly, I felt like I could do a breath once a round, but I still took 1 breath between each exercise as it was intended. X-FACTOR: calming ambiend music was actually good, not sure if it helped, but, I was feeling good. I hoped that it would change my mindsed into the dreamy one when I will daydream about my future freediving when I'm exploring the reef or relaxing in my own coral garden underwater, staying really long there together with my family and friends... Still, I just 'functioned through' - no difference with me existing when breathing, no some unordinary reaction. The time felt the same.

Hey, I decided to do the program in the classroom, so I want to provide some feedback. Hope you'll see and provide some thoughts about that. I also hope that for some people who hesitate to do it, I'll provide an example that it's both useful, full, informative, entertaining and fun!😁 There will be 5 parts. Sadly I didn't have time to post 3 parts that are already here on according days, so I'm doing it now, and parts 4 and 5 will follow tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Day 0 - background ------------------------------- I guess everyone will get entirely different results from this program (or not get the obvious progress - as I see clearly from myself and my coach's experience, freediving progress can sometimes be hard to spot, and building a solid base might feel like a plateau!), but I will provide some context and try to be as precise as possible. I do freediving for 3 years. 99% of the time I train dynamic apnea in a pool, individually with my coach (3 pool sessions and 2 strength sessions per week), my focus is competitive freediving mid-term, and long-term changing my lifestyle from on-land job-family-money typical life to the living in the Pacific 100% off-grid with my own coral garden on an island, embracing both the wilderness and the tenderness of the Big Blue.🧜‍♂️ I haven't done any serious STA attempts for 1.5 years until this program, and I never did consistent STA to improve it (sadly, I don't have time for that, maybe if I hadn't had to work I'd do it...) 1.5 years ago I have set my PB 5'15" for which I fought for about 3 minutes with my CO2 discomfort :) So if my DYN skills are probably good (at least my coach tells me so), I feel like I'm falling behind with STA-related skills such as relaxation and the ability to win mind games with my urge to breathe, and the overall mindset is another point of my concern... Day 1 - Awaken the Breath ----------------------------------------- BEFORE: I was quite anxious of this one. This is a sub-max STA, and I didn't do any STA in 1.5 years, and didn't score good in it anyway! So even if I do it for myself, I'm honestly scared. I chase numbers along with freediving joy, and yes, I know what ego is, but numbers are really important to me (if you're interested why check my 1st post somewhere below👇) I finally agreed with myself that I won't push, and I will consider my NON-PUSHING result not as a max/PB attempt. I felt like if I'm gonna end up with a bad result I lose self-respect, and this haunted me until I tried it out.

To all the fish (72 Members) in this group: check out the calendar here! This is the date and time when Renee is running a new freediving training session! I can tell from experience - her knowledge and skills are amazing - she helped the members of the 2 groups of last year quite a bit - for me it was more than doubling the time of breathhold! :) If you have time - come on and join! The more the merrier! Just because Renee doesn't charge doesn't mean it has no value! What else could one possibly do on a saturday??? ;) PS - talking about the more - if everybody sends out one invite to their diving buddies we could become a really great community - sharing tips and locations of cool diving spots in the respective home country (just a thought).