Ask any freediver to explain what the experience of freediving is like and they will tell you words cannot do it justice. It's a transcendent sport – one that transforms our experience of the mind and our limits – and the subtlety of poetry is better suited to communicate what this unique experience is like.
“There’s nothing happening in your body that resembles any other sport or activity,” Suunto ambassador William Trubridge says in the video below. “What you are doing is perhaps the most alien thing the human body can do. Sure, if you went on a space walk, you are off the planet and weightless, but a free dive transforms you into another creature altogether.”
In the TEDx Talk below, Trubridge, who holds the world record for the deepest dive, guides his audience on a free dive, riffing poetically about the experience, how it feels, what happens to body and mind, and why he and other free divers are drawn away from the surface and into the deep.
Lead images: © Alex St Jean / Vertical Blue
Read more about freediving here:
You haven't understood free diving until you've read this.
William Trubridge talks record attempts and the art of freediving.
