IANTD Free diving instructor course

[FreediveWI]

Fred,

There are a couple of other really good courses out there.

Ahron and MT Solomons are now teaching a course down in Baha. They usually only teach in Greece or Israel.

They are camping out south of La Paz all summer long. They have spent a lot of time working with Russian monofin coaches to improve their technique. They can both pull off 200' constant dives and Ahron is over 60 years old.

La Paz is a great place to dive with mantas and seals. The water is warm and flat throughout the summer. You need to be prepared to camp with them if you take the course.

The course that I woud really like to take is taught by Umberto Pellizzari in Italy. He has week long courses at his Apnea Acadamies. He only teaches a few of them each year in English. It will be a long time before I can get away for one of his classes.

Loic Leferme teaches a no-limits sled course in Nice, France. That would be the easy way to go to 200'! 8)
You can book his courses on FREEDIVE UK's website.

J.J. Mayol used to teach courses down in Florida at Captain Slate's place. I haven't heard about him running anything since his dad died.

I think that Tanya has stopped teaching her course in Texas because it was to hard to coordinate things inbetween world record attempts.

Kirk still seems to have one of the best programs that are taught on a regular basis.

Dan's spot in Cayman would be a blast from a pure relaxation standpoint. I guess that they have lines set up down there on all of these different reefs. As you get more comfortable you keep moving out to the next reef. The water is flat and warm. I think that they don't even use boats to get to the lines. They just use the dive scooters to take them out and help with their warm-up dives. I know that Kirk said they used to dive the Carrie Lee (195'-265') while freediving with scooters down there. Everything is very close to shore compared with other places.

When I was in Miami we had to go out a few miles to find 300' of water to train in. While we were doing our 100' dives Eric Fattah was doing 220' warm ups on the line next to us. The support boat had to keep a look out for other boat traffic and be mindful of the powerful gulfstream current while we were out there. You wouldn't really have to worry about any of that down in Cayman.

Jon