Head to Head With Rudi - Part II
Posted By Alun George on 5 August 2003
DB: What were your reasons for setting up F.R.E.E.?
Rudi: I felt there was a need for a different approach towards safety and objectivity in competitive freediving activities, especially record-setting attempts, as well as an education system rigorous enough to create TRULY safety-minded new freedivers.
DB: Everyone would agree that education and training is vital for the future of freediving. Do you think that competitions and records are equally important for the future development of freediving?
Rudi: Yes, the records are our link to the outer world, the vehicle with which we create recognition for the sport, generate awareness about it and attract new divers. They are, for better or worse, the events by which everybody outside our community judges our sport and its figures, so it is essential that records portray the best possible picture of who we are and what we do. Records need to be done under the highest standards of safety, fairness and professionalism if we are to have a chance at gaining acceptance from the bigger media and sponsors for our small sport.
DB: You've always strived to improve safety standards in all aspects of freediving. What further measures can organisations take to improve safety?
Rudi: Up until a couple of years ago, the results being reached by our champions and competitors were relatively easy to judge and protect by using different safety standards, even if one system was stronger than another on certain areas and so on. However, this does not apply anymore with today's depths and the growing number of divers capable of diving to such depths. Thus, the most important step right now is for the different organizations to work together in establishing joint standards for all record and competitive activities, and to use our expertise and knowledge together to create the best possible set of rules. Even if we continue to work independently and under different work ethics and philosophies, we should at least work under a COMMON SAFETY STANDARD. This is, of course, easier said than done and so far my efforts in this regard have been met with nothing more than disinterest and an alarming lack of vision, but we'll keep trying...
DB: Are there plans to make your FREE courses more widely available around the world?
Rudi: Yes, the plans are there, but unfortunately, our system is very strict and time consuming and does not lend itself to easy and quick certification courses, which is both a strength and a weakness of ours. Certifying instructors on several countries is the key to have graduates there, so that is where we intend to move towards in the very near future. Yes, our courses should become more and more available pretty soon, and of course, I strongly recommend them :-)
DB: Following the tragic passing of Audrey Mestre last autumn, FREE made the decision not to ratify further unlimited variable weight world records. As elite freedivers continue to push ever deeper, do you think it may be necessary one day to ban the ratification of other freediving categories, such as limited variable weight or even constant ballast?
Rudi: It is important to understand why we made such decision. No Limits is undoubtedly the most spectacular category in freediving and the one most associated with the sport. However, compared with the other immersion categories, it is the one that requires the least amount of athleticism from the diver and it is more a test of mow much can we endure as opposed to how much can we perform, a sort of experimentation rather than true sport. Suffice to say that several divers that have held records in this category, such as Mestre herself, never came anywhere close to the current marks in the other categories. Yet, the trend outside of FREE ratification was to "plunge" this category in an unexplainable race for the bottom that quickly took it from an already demanding level of 120-130 meters to the definitely dangerous and uncharted zone of 160-170 meters, without "exploring" the intermediate depths that would have given us enough experience and insight to make more informed decisions regarding proper safety protocols. Thus, we felt that such a category posing so little athletic value and so much inherent risk was not worthy of continued ratification. It was not an easy decision but ultimately we felt it was and is the right one. As for the other categories, if we do not find and enforce a way of making a controlled progress towards bigger depths, instead allowing divers to attempt these big jumps that may be survivable for some but not for others, then we may be forced to keep banning categories until some common sense prevails. The notion of going for the absolute "best" or deepest all at once is downright irresponsible in freediving. This absolute mark needs to be reached one meter at a time, and those who believe themselves "immune" to these problems will inevitably end up paying the same devastating price as Mestre.
DB: How did you become a freediving trainer? Who was your first freediving student?
Rudi: Becoming a trainer sort of just happened. I have always been very observant and constantly kept track of whatever helped me reached great results one day or perform lousily the next, and in effect, started seeing patterns emerge. As I moved into the ranks of top class freedivers in Cuba, myself being nowhere near as gifted as them, I was on the reserve team and found myself "sitting on the sidelines" a lot while they were diving and this gave me the chance to observe them at length, helping me verify and formulate many notions and theories. I then went on to substantiate many of these concepts with long studies in biology and physiology, but I would emphasize that the heart of my knowledge comes from many years of patient and careful field experimentation rather than empirical knowledge. There is no substitute for experience. I don't know who my first student was, I was always the one in charge of teaching "the basics" to the new kids in the group back in our teenage years, but if you ask for my first known trainee, then it would be Alejandro Ravelo, who set three world records in the mid nineties.
DB: You are a highly respected freediver trainer. What is the key to being a successful freediving coach/trainer?
Rudi: I love freediving, it is what I talk, breathe and dream 24 hours per day, and I think that this passion comes through with anybody I interact with. if your students believe that what you do is done out of true passion then they will respect you, and if they respect you that is the ground to form a meaningful relationship with them. To be as demanding as I am you first need to put in equal amounts of work and sweat as what you ask from people, and I definitely do that. During a record attempt, I am not only the trainer but also the organizer, the supervising officer and many times even the sponsor hunter, so it is a very involving endeavor and all of us in the team work very hard because everybody is doing their work and then some, so nobody feels the right to slack off or slow down or take a break. We respect and admire each other very much in our group and this is the driving force behind our success.
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