If you know me, you know I love yoga and I love freediving. The moment I took my first breath and pulled myself down the rope exactly ten years ago, I realised I had found the place where my two great passions – yoga and meditation, and the ocean - met. From that point I just continued in my quest to explore the parallels between these two worlds – yoga above and below the surface of the waves – and in that exploration ended up with four World Records and an amazing training dive to 104m!
Over the past ten years, my life has felt like I’m on a rollercoaster – from the highs of elite competition and success to the lows of the death of my mother followed by a few years of confusion and depression. I’ve experienced heart-break, I’ve travelled to beautiful places, started yoga teacher training in Sinai, achieved even deeper dives in search of – and then finding – my joy at 104m. In short, I’ve experienced life in all its glory, challenges and gifts.
Through all that I have had the opportunity, as part of my spiritual path, to observe how these life events have enabled me to grow. Sometimes I was unable to rise completely above the challenge and felt like I was drowning, other times I was riding the crest of the wave feeling utterly invincible. Both were equally valid parts of life and in both I got to observe the patterns of my mind, and the interplay between my ego and my spirit.
And this is basically what Yoga for Freediving is about. I’m not here to teach you how to freedive online. That would be ridiculous and dangerous; you need face to face time with a qualified instructor to show you how to freedive properly and safely. But I am here to teach you how to understand and manage the fluctuations of your mind and the power of your ego-spirit relationship through the highs and lows of life, using freediving as a metaphor.
I am here to bring you amazing meditations, pranayamas, yoga exercises and guided visualisations, all of which I used in my own journey to 104m and now use with my coaching clients. I also bring you a whole bunch of lectures, teaching freediving as a spiritual path. These are the foundation of all the wisdom I intuitively gained on my way from beginner to some pretty profound depths.
I always felt that my path was somehow blessed – I didn’t choose to come to Dahab in order to freedive; on the third day of a one week holiday in 2004 I heard a voice in my heart saying ‘You’re home’, and so I stayed. I feel I was guided to Dahab, guided to the beautiful sport of freediving and then through my entire career, I have been guided and kept safe. So the wisdom that I share with you in my videos doesn’t come from me, it comes from a greater source of Infinite knowing. I like to think it comes from the ocean herself.