The Global War on Error
Posted By Paul Kotik on 23 January 2006
Okay, I'm done.
I've now sat through 79 hours of freediving video, shot at diverse global locations from Hawai'i to the Red Sea from early 1998 through the present.
The subjects were over 300 freedivers, from first-time newbies to world champions.
Every conceivable type of aquatic environment and activity were represented. Teaching, training, DPV's, competition, recreating, spearfishing and some modalities I wouldn't quite know how to characterize but which I suspect would be highly improper in certain cultures.
This examination took much, much more than 79 hours. I had this idea, see, that inside this eternity of raw material is a cinematic masterpiece, just as Michaelangelo's David was formerly encased in a little excess marble that just had to be chipped away. I'm certain I've seen every bit of this footage at least thrice, the better part of it four times and the best parts of it dozens of times. I've seen it in real time, in fast forward, in slow motion, extremely slow motion, in reverse and in freeze frame. Shuttle, shuttle, shuttle.
So now I really have seen it all.
I've learned two things.
The first is that while there may indeed be a cinematic masterpeice embedded in this inventory of moving images and sound, it is exceedingly unlikely that I will be the one to extract and finish it. Scientists have estimated that the universal probability bound is 10 to the 150th power, representing the largest possible number of maximally microscopic events that can occur over the lifetime of the universe. My own back-of-the-envelope computation has shown me that's not quite enough to include the set of events that comprise me making a movie out of this.
The second is that there are a handful of basic freediving errors that are, apparently, human universals. They are made everywhere and by everybody. The great freedivers, the few among us, are all people who have overcome the seemingly instinctive propensity to make these elementary mistakes. That's not enough to become a great freediver, but it does seem to be neccesary.
We can spend a lot of time studying, practicing, coaching and training. Or, we can sit and watch video of freedivers hours a day, day after day, month after month, year after year. Well, I've done that now. I'd like to tell you what I saw and thereby save you the trouble.
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