Mari-Ann Kucharek

An introduction to freediving skills that will prepare you for depth. Designed to provide practical techniques for safe freediving and increase your confidence underwater.

You will learn how to breathe correctly before you freedive and on surfacing, the importance of relaxation for improving your breath-hold and to understand the differences in equalisation techniques. You will also be introduced to duck dive, better finning, and basic partner work and safety techniques.

The main objective of AIDA 2 is to become more familiar and less reactive to the unfamiliar sensations of the deeper pressure environment creates in us and to develop a set of mental skills that will allow us to approach depth with confidence. It deals more specifically with safety at depth, and will develop your skills in Static and Dynamic apnea.

This course, as well as teaching the principles of specific and non-specific training, CO2 & O2 tables, deep safety and rescue skills, will improve your confidence, teach you how to exploit the power of relaxation and increase your performance to enjoy longer, deeper dives.

At this level we establish a protocol for each freedive so progress to depth becomes a consistent, and instinctive mental and physical response.

“Project the game ahead of you, 3 seconds at a time.”

The purpose of sequencing each stage of the freedive is to help concentrate your mind on each moment and take your mind off of the goal of depth. This sequence of ‘building blocks’ sets up the freedive from the first part of the descent, culminating in the free-fall or ‘sink phase’ and then the return. This structure, trained to proficiency is the groundwork for progressing to the depth of your choice.

If you choose to continue on to this course you would have committed more fully than at any other level, to both the mental and physical challenge to ‘dive into yourself’.

Included are the more highly skilled strategies for depth including ‘mouth-fill’, ‘RV’ Residual Volume dives, and Variable Weights for inurement to pressure at depth and continued familiarisation with the ‘free-fall or ‘sink phase’ as the essential ingredient for energy efficiency. In addition to this, the course touches on certain more profound aspects of sports psychology and discusses lifestyle, and the dietary and nutritional changes that are beneficial to freediving.

By this stage, you will have understood the principles of structure inherent in each freedive, its precise mechanical skills combined with the ‘no-mind concept of, ‘concentration – de-concentration’, first coined by the queen of freediving, Natalia Molchanova, dependent on total relaxation.

You’ll learn the rules that govern freediving, the discipline of the practice and finally, to relinquish form, ‘let go’ and fall into a state of flow.

As a result of the high performance levels required to become an instructor we recommend that after completing the advanced level an aspiring freedive instructor should take the time to develop the skills necessary to train for safety and comfort at depth as well as dedicating equally as much time to becoming a keen and strong observer and communicator to be able to qualify as a more than just competent teacher.

The Instructor Assistant Stage course duration is based on acquiring those skills, being assessed on them at intervals and on completing the requirements.

Please contact me for more detailed information.

The Instructor Training intensive course is to work towards the required minimum level of personal performance established by AIDA, in the determined number of days, to familiarise each instructor with all the levels of courses and procedures and promote an understanding of the ethics of instruction.

The course does not allow for specific depth training. Each applicant should arrive capable or close to the training depth of 50m required by AIDA. The purpose of this course is to teach how to improve your teaching skills and does not guarantee that the instructor in training achieves the depth required for completing the certification.