Many of you may know Anna von Boetticher as Germany's top female freediver. I know her as my first and favourite buddy, and in more recent years as a kick-arse woman who truly knows how to embrace life. I've been watching her with awe as she handles some pretty hefty life and health challenges, seems to get the work-life balance spot-on with managing her bookshop in Berlin, her relationship in London and her holidays and depth training and competitions everywhere else in the world, and transforms her body into a lean, mean cross-fit machine!
This video is the last one (for now!) in my Freediving Legends series - it was recorded about 18 months ago, so things have moved on a bit since then. So let me bring you up to date on what this incredible woman has been up to since then...
She went freediving in the snow and ice with Jacques de Vos and the most awesome orcas and humpbacks in Norway, and at the other extreme, spent time with Mike Board and Kate Middleton at their paradisical centre in Freedive Gili to mix it up a bit! Her only competition last year was at Vertical Blue where she set a nice new German record of 50m CNF, and for 'fun' went diving in Germany's deepest lake, close to where she grew up - and from the photos on Facebook, nearly died of hypothermia!
This time next month she'll be back at Vertical Blue but is playing her cards close to her chest about what she'll get up to there, and is also planning on going to the Worlds in Honduras. As well as her bookshop, which she runs with her mum in Berlin, she is working with the German navy, teaching the toughest of the tough how to get even tougher through freediving! I can't imagine a better woman for the job!
So, Anna, my dear friend, I wish you a fabulous year, of success, fun and adventure. But I know you don't need me to say that - you'll be doing it all anyway!
If you think you're worthy of the title Freediving Legend and will be passing through Dahab, please contact me so I can schedule a video interview with you. Or, if as a regular freediver you'd like to nominate some of your favourite athletes for the Freediving Legend treatment, let me know here!
And stay tuned this week for the next course in my revolutionary online Yoga for Freediving training programme - Training & Performance goes live on Friday 31st March!