It's not a Spectator Sport!

They watch me floating face down in the water of that far-away pool. So many moons and loves and dives ago. I'm completely relaxed. Not a single muscle is tensed.
I'm playing dead. My then quite new wetsuit looks shiny compared to it's present day state of patches and scratches.
Today the guys are huddled around my computer in the dim-lit wood cabin that serves as office and HQ for the Blue Wilderness dive operation on the KZN South Coast. We've done yoga, we've stretched our lungs, we've done deep breathing , they've experienced breathing contractions for the first time.
I've talked them through the theory of freediving, the history, the physiology, the philosophy. Now I am showing them this bad quality clip filmed on the judge's camera at a competition almost two years ago.'It's not a Spectator Sport!' I hear myself say, the guys laugh, as I knew they would. No, watching someone lie face down in a pool is not ice-skating. I laugh with them but the laughter gets stuck in my throat and I'm left with an uncomfortable jarring thought at the back of my head. But no time to ponder... getting changed into suits, grab masks and off to the pool.The guys float on their backs and when it's their turn I talk them through their three final breaths, the last deep deepest breath, and then he rolls over.


Face down. Playing dead.
'Relax your neck, relax your shoulders' I repeat, gentling squeezing his shoulders, encouraging him to relax. His head drops a little deeper, his body lets go. My voice echoes in my head... 'It's not a spectator sport...'

I am so wrong.

Freediving is the greatest spectator sport of all time. Greater than ice-skating, basketball, pole-vaulting (I love pole-vaulting!), gymnastics or even parkour.
The only difference is, there is only one spectator. You. The diver. And you are not only watching. You are seeing yourself from the inside. And you are not only seeing. You are feeling, experiencing, assimilating, learning, shifting, adjusting, growing. This is the ultimate experience. It just happens to happen within one person. For no-one else to see.
The breath-hold I had shown the guys as an example, I remember as if it was yesterday. My warm-up, my nerves, the song I had in my ipod just before. The first stage of holding my breath, the relaxation, I remember the thoughts, coming and going, memories, feelings, hopes, uncertainties... this quiet revolution going on inside.
Contractions starting, destroying the meditation, the focus, the die-hard kicking in. Sebastian's voice urging me on, supporting me, carrying me. My elation at feeling my body meet my mind in these perfect minutes of mind-body communication. Oxygen swirling through my blood, caressing my brain, deserting my toes. I know this. I know what my beautiful body is capable of. Beautiful for what she is capable of, for the dive response she harbours. Glorious, magnificent half-seal that I am. All this becoming as I lie there, face down. Dead to the world. Alive as never before. This is the greatest spectator sport of all time. And I am the only ticket-holder.


Rene, Rob, Anthony, David, Mike and Rowan, welcome to your stadium!

Actors and Oceans

Monday was Durban again, teaching the Cast from Blue Crush 2 the basics of Freediving so they feel happy in the water to start their super intense 3-week surfing lessons that will turn them into ripping surfers by Shoot Day 1. No tall order.

We started the day at the Protea Hotel in Umhlanga, where the cast met each other and the team of pro's who will teach them the ways of the waves. The task of choosing the surf-coaching team was placed in the capable hands of BOMBSurf John McCarthy. Sandy for Yoga, Clayton for Coaching, Allen for SurfBasics, Wilma for Fitness and Me, for Ocean Comfort/ Freediving.

Sasha and Elisabeth meeting their boards, love at first sight!

I'm the first port of call in their journey to becoming surfers, first feel good under the water, then learn to ride it, cause inevitably, you will fall off, and panicking is Not an Option. Especially not with A, B and C cams aimed at you!

Sasha is an LA based bubbly blond originally from Windsor, sweet-looking exterior housing a wicked sense of humour and a never-give-up spirit. Elisabeth is an intelligent and entertaining ebony skinned, willowy tall model/actress originally from Michigan, now also LA based. And Chris, Cape Town born funny and fun, good-looking and earnest.

Low glory- yet very important- pose, ankle circles! Happy ankles= good board-balance!

We started the day with yoga and breathhold on land, where they got to learn about contractions, their magical spleens and inner seals... then off to the blue blue sea. And maybe sensing the importance of the day, the ocean obliged and gave us flat and calm, warm and clean for their first submersion. Breathhold in the shallows, the girls both cracking 2 minutes easy and Chris doing a strong 3.20. Oh yes, they will be fine with whatever the sea throws at them.

Then we swim out a little deeper, practice some equalisation and then play around on the sand at the bottom. Swimming down together, passing a snorkel around before coming up, getting more and more comfortable under the water. Sasha laughingly remembering hours spent in the pool as a kid, playing mermaid, holding her breath lying at the bottom. Elisabeth dropping my 'lucky snorkel' and doing a quick and confident dash to the bottom playing retriever dolphin. The ocean loves us and we love her back.

Surrounded by the right people, with loads of good energy around and strong wills I think they have a good shot at looking like surfers once the shooting starts end of the month.
And I am certain, that for now and forevermore, 3 more surfers are born!
Happy Birthday guys!!

Stand Up Paddling with Seals

A Sunday out of Hout Bay, freediving and then SUPping with Cape Fur Seals.

Thank you to Steve from Animal Ocean for boating, filming and smiling!

Music: 'I like Giants' by the lovely Kimya Dawson

Sharks, Surfers and Deep Blue Water!

From ice to rolling green hills covered in sugarcane! The KwaZulu Natal coastline has really crept into my heart. Once a month I am teaching a volley of courses up on the tropical side of our beautiful country. The water is a clear rolling blue, the trees are a vivid green and the people are as diverse as the sand is white.
I am working together with Mark and Gail Addison from Blue Wilderness just south of Umkomaas, and together with their supercrew- Marcus, James and Goodman, I've been introducing many new freedivers to the lure of the deep!
I love this Zuluwonderland and as much as Cape Town holds my heart, a small part of me has definitely taken root up east.

A usual week in KZN includes numerous one-day courses- a crash course in the mental and physical intricacies that is freediving; an advanced day of deeper dives for those who have done the course the previous visit; and also, the opportunity for those who have done the course to come out on a shark dive! Aliwal Shoal offers a smorgåsbord of black-tips, Zambezi's, Tiger Sharks, Dusky Sharks, Raggies... not even to mention the whale sharks, dolphin, turtles and other ocean friends.

It is always the greatest pleasure to take as active ocean user as a surfer is, and showing them these toothy friends... a shift happens when somebody gets to hang out with over 30 sharks in close proximity and realise 'they don't want to eat me!'


Look forward to many more days of blue green rolling waves, hills and sharky friends!

Big Waves Big Lungs Part 2

There is something about people who truly love the ocean. I'm not sure what it is, a certain whatchamacallit... depth?

The last few weeks I've spent time with Cape Town's Big Wave Surfers (yes all those capital letters are much deserved!) and what a pleasure. Earnest, honest, vibrant ocean people who seek to better themselves, their performance and they really do love the sea!

So this past Sunday saw me once again with a group of passionate people, giving and receiving in equal doses. Like last time, I was impressed by the mixture of physicality, mental focus and willingness to learn.

Breathe, breathe breeeeathe... and hold... yes, that's a contraction!!

Telling them about the Mammalian Dive Response, man I love it!
(Chris Bertish, Cecilia Liebenberg, Jean Holmes, Sean Holmes)

James Taylor, Steve Benjamin, Barry Futter, Greg and Chris Bertish getting ready to dive.

C'est moi!

Thanks to Kimi Stewart for the pics and good company, and huge thanks as always to Steve Benjamin for great boat, great skippering and the best smile in town:

The Southern-most tip of Africa!

If you have an insatiable, inexplicable, unstoppable and all-consuming love for the ocean- and you haven't been to Cape Town, then you're a liar... or need to travel more.
Coming back to Cape Town has been like seeing a lover after months of absence and years of solitude.

My friend Steve has brought a boat to Cape Town, and Steve, like me, is unashamedly in love with the ocean- although he might express himself more manly... Nevertheless, we understand each other and the sea. Steve and I plan to unlock, explore and savour all the treasures of our beloved Peninsula. Our first trip was legendary.

We launched the boat off Miller's point, into flat, calm blue water. Looking down into the water I let out a shriek- 'It's like Thailand, with Kelp!' Top to bottom visibility: white sand with tall dark kelp rising up off the bottom, swaying in the current like the spirits of the deep come to play.

I had brought two very green girlfriends along, experienced surfers, truthfully, but freediving? It was more like, 'um, equalisation?' so Steve and I decided to ease them into it... ah, a perfect plan made in the most perfect of ways...
First we stopped at a beautiful reef outcrop (reef my side of the world, think dark rocks covered in colourful urchins, kelp forests and sheepish looking shy sharks- no Nemo here...) anyway, the girls got to pull themselves up and down the kelps testing ears and breathhold, both doing exceptionally well.
Next stop, a seal colony. We continued further down the coast, to a stinky rock covered in seals, the most perfect playmates for three ocean loving girls.
So, the most perfect plan was to get dropped just south of the seals, swim with the current and waves to them, play a while, then swim past the rocks to get picked up the other side again by the boat... sounds simple?
Firstly, Steve's words, said softly so Roxy and Kim couldn't hear, 'Han, stay close to the rocks, keep your eyes open, all directions'. Seals, False Bay, deep water= Great Whites. 'Gulp, sure, no worries Steve- come on girls!'
Eyes peeled, finning hard for the rock, current strong waves bigger than expected, and suddenly we're off course wih huge swell running over a barely submerged rock and we're tumbled, white water, lost my snorkel... look over my shoulder for my friends, 'dear god, let me not kill my friends today' seeing Kim's slightly dishevelled but smiling face, 'easing us in genlty, are you?' we burst out laughing and call for the boat. This time less plan more precision, drop next to the seals and yes! They flash past us, closer closer closer, their curiosity making them spin around us like bees to pollen. One little seal caught up in the moment took a quick bite at Roxy's fin before joyfully leaping over Kim's shoulder and then speeding up to me diving down and between my legs, three girls in the big blue surrounded by ecstatic seal-friends laughing joyfully!

I'm home.

Taste it!

It's five o'clock in the morning, Stansted airport, London. Halfway back to Stockholm on a marathon trip that will eventually Friday midday land me back in Cape Town.

Last thing I told you was that I almost burst my eardrum, and then I disappeared... So much has happened these last two weeks, so many lessons learnt. (And yes, my ear is fine, by the way, thanks for all who wondered.)

Competitive Freediving.
Taste those two words in your mouth. Roll them around on your tongue like a good wine. Close your eyes and succumb to the flavour.
What do you think?
Sweet? Bitter? A contradiction? A challenge? Salty..?

Well, for me it goes from sweet to bitter to pure I-need-to-puke-dash-to-a toilet right now and pass the water bottle, please! My training was sweet and then slippped unbeknown to me into something else, and suddenly there I was, swimming around the Blue Hole, a bitter taste in my mouth, crying into my mask. It was a really tough decision not to go for the records I had announced, especially as my training had taken me to my goals and beyond... but ah, when you lose the joy, when the taste is bitter?

Freediving for me is more than a sport, more than achievements, more than meters, seconds. Losing that love- happiness was not worth it, it never will be. So as I swam around the hole, sobbing into my mask (yes, it is possible, just very snotty!) I decided to back off, and wait. As Linda says (in her accentuated and adored Italian accent) 'You can't force it, let the depth come to you, it will- but not when you're pushing for it'.

And since then I've had a wonderful time in Dahab, coaching, teaching courses, organising, judging Bizzy Blue Hole and applauding all my friends achieving their dives.

At peace, in joy and with a sweet taste in my mouth I say goodbye to Dahab, for now.

...and Depth, when you're ready, you know where to find me.

A long lost friend

faith

• noun 1 complete trust or confidence

Oxford English Dictionary

Today I announced a record attempt.

No, no all of you out there with oodles of faith in me... not world records, you sillies! South African records. The last two SA records I don't hold, CWT 60m and CNF 40m as well as bettering my own FIM 50m and STA 5.39. (For all the dear non-freedivers following this blog)*

So, faith. Complete trust or confidence.
I am recovering from a tummy bug (think bad bug with incisors, not spotted ladybird of luck) and have not dived particularly deep since arriving back here over a week ago.

But record attempts need to be announced 14 days in advance, and the way it's all going at present, I am not ready... But! I have 14 days...
So I am re-acquainting myself with faith. Faith and I go back a long way. We've been best friends for years... Faith is the kind of friend you can lose touch with for a while, and when you meet up again you're chatting away like you never left.

'Hi Faith, it's Hanli here... yeah... yeah... nice to hear your voice too...'

*CWT- constant weigth with fins, diving deep with monofin; CNF- constant no fins, diving deep no fins ie. breaststroke; FIM- free immersion, pulling yourself down a rope and up again; STA- static apnea, floating dead still face down holding your breath.)

Cultivating wellbeing- Ears and Sprouts

So, you might ask yourself, what do ears and sprouts have in common!?

Hanli's list of similarities between ears and sprouts:

1. They are both important to my freediving:
1.1 If I can't equalise, my dive is ruined
1.2 If I'm not healthy, my dive is ruined

2. They both rule my world:
2.1 I speak to my ears, tell them they'll be ok, they can eqaulise, I love them, I'm with them all the way... (no, they're not always sure of this, rather insecure yes)
2.2 I speak to my sprouts, I tell them I love them, that they're beautiful and that I will eat them with respect
2.3 I rinse my ears in fresh water after each salt water dive
2.4 I rinse my sprouts every morning
2.5 I then pour alcoholic spirits into my ears to kill all bad things
2.6 I rinse my sprouts at noon
2.7 I then let my ears dry out before putting in some olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin organic) to stop beloved ears form drying out too much
2.8 I rinse my sprouts every evening
2.9 I say goodnight to both before bedtime, neither answer

3.0 I will share them with my dive-buddy, Stefan:

Good night ears, good night sprouts, I love you.

Blue Hole Revisited

Today, at last, my Swedish dive-buddy Stefan and I took the bumpy pick- up on the camel-trafficked path out to the Blue Hole. A deep, deep coral surrounded place of beauty, where freedivers play and scuba divers die. Morbid, but the call of the deep is strong, and the naturalists have a better chance at survival. The early morning air is chilly, we have come at seven, so we are the only divers here. I drink some hot lemon with honey to warm up, we stretch, kit-up... at last, my dry season is over.

How I have been yearning for that rich blue expanse others call nothingness, I call everything. I take my last breath, leave the surface, the bustle, the voices- the world above, and dive...
I close my eyes, looking inward, as my body gets heavier as the pressure gets more, and then I fall... free-falling, allowing the water to pull-push draw me down. LIke a hundred arms of a hundred lovers the blue envelops me, holds me, cradles me... and this is enough. I am enough. Here... - I am.

I keep it easy, my recent illness still in my body, and I stop at 40- open my eyes at last, take in the silence and the solitude, before starting my ascent. My lungs want air but my soul wants more... more time down here, more depth... more!

Then I'm at the surface, breathe again, smile at the sun, my heart still beating... at depth.




This pic was taken by Annelie Pompe, my freediving soulmate, and really captures the feeling...

Ok! Ok... I'm listening!

I think the Universe, or someone really big with lots of power, is trying to tell me something...

I'm in Dahab, Egypt, at last after stressful days finishing off work in Sweden, travelling trans-sweden to catch my flight here, only to arrive with a terrible cold and a raging fever.

You know when you feel like you're banging your head against the same door again and again, thinking that maybe you will get a different reaction next time- well surprise, you won't!
Patterns, it's all about patterns, the patterns we live- that become who we think we are- makes sense?
No? Hardly to me either. But I'm starting to figure out how much of what I do and what I say is actually me, and how much of it is just what I've always done... and said... ie. my pattern!

My rollercoaster life led me to above mentioned crazy trip to Dahab, where my heart and soul has been for so long- longing for this blue blue water and living only for my diving. And then, as the time approaches, I'm flat on my back with a terrible cold and a fever.
So now I've been here in Dahab since wednesday, and NOT BEEN IN THE OCEAN!!

Talk about a hard lesson, phew!
So now I'm observing my greatest love from a distance, and getting immense perspective through it. Seeing myself more clearly, my expectations, my dreams, what I am and what I want to be.

So, yes, I'm listening.
Listening more, speaking less.
And tomorrow- I will dive...



Photo: Annelie Pompe

Memories of a Shark Scare... or two!

Sitting in my dear friend's flat in Stockholm, snowing outside the window, and as usual dreaming about my beloved Cape Town. The place that I call home.

On one of my last surfs there a few weeks back, I had an exciting experience that triggered other memories... so bear with me here, this is not a marathon down memory lane, promise!
And there are sharks in the story.

I'm in Umkomaas, off SA's east coast a while back, and as we're heading out to sea to go dive with the beautiful black- tip and tiger sharks who calls that spot home, we pass by some buoys that our super skipper Steve expertly avoids hitting. 'What are those for?' I innocently ask, Steve looks at me in a somewhat baffled manner before replying through clenched teeth, 'the shark nets'...
Ah, the shark nets... the WHAT? So, we get in the water and for reasons I cannot devulge in this post, (but promise to later) - we get in the water, myself, Steve and some other avid shark lovers, and take a closer look at the nets. It's so eerie. This beautiful wide open wilderness of blue blue blue, cut up into small evil squares... ready to catch an innocent dolphin, turtle, manta ray, whaleshark or misunderstood shark. And of course I know we have shark nets in parts of SA, but this was my first real encounter with them, and honestly, it left me quite traumatised.
While finning around frantically in my monofin, trying to feel what it would be like to be caught behind a shark net, it happened, I GOT CAUGHT IN THE DAMN NET! My weight belt got tangled, and I thought great!!! this would be so apt, 'FREEDIVER DIES IN SHARK NET'.
It would be good for media purposes, though...

So, further along memory lane, some weeks later I was surfing my sweet little Muizenberg break, when the loud whooping sound of the shark alarm came wafting over the water, AHA- a GREAT WHITE in the water!! The Shark Spotters up on the mountain have seen one approaching, so they warn us, we catch the next best wave (or ok, the next wave...) and surf to the beach. Now the beach is packed with surfers like sardines, chatting, laughing... waiting for the white flag with a black shark on- meaning: shark in the water, to go away and the red flag- shark has moved on, to be raised. At which point we all paddle out to the backline and resume our worship of the waves.

And you know what, THAT wasn't half the scare as seeing those shark-nets was. It felt so good to be sharing the ocean with our toothy friends and not just happily, or rather- PRIMITIVELY setting out booby traps for them, in their own homes.

VIVA THE SHARK SPOTTERS, VIVA!

Not that Alkaline!

How often do you think about the blood in your veins?
When you bleed... is that all?

Well, Freedivers think of their blood quite often, or... should. See, your blood can either be alkaline or acidic, this is true and scientific, but I'm not going to explain the technicalities, just trust me.
So, alkaline is good. Better oxygen saturation. Acidic is not good. Bad oxygen carrier, AND infections grow in acid, from fungal infections (urgh, yes) to many other bad things. (Again this is all very scientific, but I'm not... so let's stay colloquial!)

What makes us alkaline?
Lots of good veggies, preferably raw, fruit- WATERMELON!!

What makes us acidic?
Coffee, sugar, wheat, alcohol, cynicism.

What makes the Swedish winter bearable?
See above, under ACIDIC...

Damn!