The Freedive Cafe Podcast

Stig Severinsen has a degree in biology and a Ph. D. in medicine. He began experimenting with holding his breath as a child at the bottom of his parents’ pool. Stig has played underwater rugby at an elite level, he's been a freediving world record holder, he's broken a few Guinness world records, he was the first to break the 20m breath hold barrier on pure O2 among other feats of human...

On today's show is Jennifer Wendland, Jennifer is a current World Record-holding freediver from Germany and unless anything has changed since we recorded this interview two months ago, currently holds all of the German national records, and has done for quite a long time! We talk about how she manages to balance training as a top-level athlete while working a regular human job, we compare ath...

On today's show we are talking to Mr 10 minutes himself, Florian Dagoury.  Florian is  French freediver with more than 10 years experience in the sport and has reached in these last few years, the amazing performance of 10 minute in static apnea, his chosen discipline - a performance that very few in the world have achieved.  Florian is based in Thailand, from where he joins me today. We&apos...

Petar Klovar is a World Record breaking Croatian competitive freediver. In the 2022 CMAS World Championships he dived an incredible 92m in CNF (Constant Weight No Fins). In this episode we discuss: Is Croatia trying to take over the freediving world? Petar has gone from 70 to 90+ metres in 2 years of CNF!! He has a good background in swimming. Petar is from the coastal city of Rijeka in Croatia. G...

On today's show we have a Freedive Cafe favourite returning to the show. Founder of Immersion Freediving and the Freedive Live Podcast, Ted Harty came back and we had a conversation sharing some of our experiences and advice regarding the instruction of freediving.  So this episode may offer up some helpful or insightful information for new or aspiring freediving instructors and my even hold...

MT Solomons is a link to the early days of deep freediving before the modern competition era, along with her partner at the time Aharon Solomons they were there in the time of Pipin and Audrey, Umberto Pelizzari and Davide Carrera, a young Martin Stepanek was around, Kirk Crack, Tanya Streeter, a whole host of freediving royalty, a time when things were simpler in the world and also in freediving,...

World Record Holder  Vitomir Maričić returns to The Freedive Cafe to answer the legendary Training Talk questions! We also discuss his experiences with nitrogen narcosis and decompression illness. The Training Talk Questions are: What is your favourite freediving discipline and why?  Do you have a coach and who do you train with?  Do you periodise your training through the year?  What kind of dry...

Originally aired on Thrivers Podcast exactly one year ago, in this fascinating interview we discuss James Nestor's latest book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. James Nestor originally appeared on episode #19 of The Freedive Café when we discussed his previous book Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and what the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves. In this episode we discuss: How did the Cor...

Chris McKay was Chief of Safety at the 2021 AIDA World Championships in Cyprus and runs Freedive Tulum in Mexico. In this episode we discuss: How was Chris' whole experience of the AIDA WC 2021 in Cyprus? Did the issue with Taiwan flag negatively affect the athletes? Chris is from Queensland in Australia. A start in freediving through spearfishing. Enjoying depth but not competing. Comparing...

Tom Peled is a breath coach and freediving coach from Tel Aviv, Israel. Join us for this fascinating conversation on the power of the breath, working with trauma, helping athletes to their peak performance and much more. In this episode we discuss: Shout out to Madison and Alice Modolo Tom is from Tel Aviv, Israel He joined the Navy when he was 18 and eventually became a scuba instructor. Discussi...

Julia Mouce, Freedive Cafe favourite returns for her fourth appearance! Julia is the owner of Apnea Bali freediving school on the island of Bali, Indonesia and one of the most highly regarded professional freediving coaches in the world. Today we focus on the art of instructing freediving, from the beginning level, to coaching athletes at the top of their game. In this episode we discuss: Discussi...

Fatima Korok is a World Champion freediver from Hungary. She first appeared on the show on Episode #110 and now returns to dig deep into her training methods with a special Training Talk episode. The Training Talk questions are: What is your favourite freediving discipline and why? Do you have a coach and who do you train with? Do you periodise your training through the year? What kind of dry trai...

On today’s show we have another amazing girl joining us, you know the girls are really the ones leading the way in terms of exciting freediving these days, and Alice Modolo of France is no exception.  This year at the famous Vertical Blue competition she achieved the first ever 100m dive for a french female athlete and topped that off with a CMAS world record in CWT bifins with a dive to 95m.  Ali...

Gary McGrath is and English competitive freediver. His first appearance was episode #109. This is a Training Talk episode. The Training Talk questions are: What is your favourite freediving discipline and why?  Do you have a coach and who do you train with?  Do you periodise your training through the year?  What kind of dry training do you do? Do you have a dry EQ practice, if so, what kind of exe...

Claire Paris is  a competitive freediver and professor in the Department of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Her research is dedicated to biological oceanography and ocean conservation and we'll go into that in detail in the show. If you wanted to know how pelagic fish begin their lives or what the difference is between phytoplan...

Tom Ardavany first contributed to the Vertical Blue medical team in 2012 and has been part of the team many times since then. He has also been present as a medic at many other top-level freediving competitions including Blue Element in Dominica. Tom is an expert in the field, and brilliantly educates us on everything from lung squeeze and athlete monitoring protocols as well as the unforeseen and...

Louisa Collyns hails from London but eventually found her way into the underwater world through scuba diving, and then, as so often happens, she met some freedivers and nothing was ever the same again. She has been involved in teaching freediving and being a safety diver at major competions for the best part of a decade and is also the founder of Freedive Ibiza, which has been providing freediving...

Mirela Kardasevic is and has been World Champion, Vice-World Champion, 6 times World Record Holder, twice bronze medalist at the European Championship, and multiple Croatian national champion and record holder and some of that might have to be updated since the CMAS competition last week, but as you can see, it's quite the list of achievements for someone who came into the sport aged 30 and h...

Nathan Vinski is an up and coming Canadian competitive freediver and freediving coach. Nathan's specialist skill is 'being a struggling freediver' and knowing how to apply a sports science-based approach to freediving, helping to turn freediver struggles into strengths. If you want to know how to train and compete for depth, or pool, in cold or warm locations, Nathan is a guy that c...

Fatima Korok is from Hungary. Fatima has been on a special journey through freediving, not just quickly rising to become the first Hungarian freediver to become a World Champion, but overcoming many personal challenges on the way.  In this episode we discuss: Fatima was in Dahab at the time of recording. How has her experience of the pandemic been? Getting Dominican Republic and Dominica mixed up...

Gary McGrath is an English diver who recently surpassed the 100m mark in depth. He joins me from Dahab, Egypt, to discuss his freediving progression. In this episode we discuss: Donny first noticed Gary after he hit the 100m mark! Gary used to work at Freedive Gili! (Donny's 'freediving spiritual home') Gary's is from England, his mum is Thai. Shout out to Saltfree Divers based...

Although Sheena McNally hails from a part of Canada over 1,000 km from the ocean, she has always loved being in the water. Growing up, she spent summers on the lake and winters in the pool, becoming certified in lifesaving, rescue, and swimming instruction. As an adult, shedabbled in many activities, including martial arts, circus, and running, but none of them stuck. She eventually took up scuba...

Daan Verhoeven is best know for his amazing photography of freedivers. He hails from the Netherlands and now lives in Cornwall, UK. He started freediving in 2005. Between 2006 and 2011 he set national records in 5 of the 6 freediving disciplines. He is a freediving instructor with AIDA, SSI and PADI. He’s an AIDA judge and was voted safety diver of the year in 2010 and 2011. He has been a freedivi...

Emilio Rodríguez-Álvarez is an archaeologist specialising in the archaeology of ancient Greece, the study of pottery technology, geographic Information Systems and maritime archaeology. He finished his B.A. at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) and took his M.A. from University of Reading (UK); after working in Galicia he moved to the University of Arizona (US), in order to work on...

Gus Kreivenas is a 100+m diver originally from Lithuania and over the last decade has been developing himself into an elite freediver, focusing on awareness, sensitivity and focus to bring himself to this level in the safest and most enjoyable way. This is a Training Talk episode originally released on Freedive Cafe PLUS at www.patreon.com/freedivecafe Enjoy and share the love, and DIVE SAFE! For...