Finding myself through apnea
Doing apnea is basically about holding your air in a voluntary way. There are different modalities in this sport: depth, dynamic and static. It’s an activity of “controlled risk” and taking the course is with champion Iru Balic is definitely one of those things pending on the check list.
In the year 2014 I had a first encounter in Chichiriviche de la Costa when I made a special report on Iru. She has 13 national records and obtained the first place in the world ranking between May and September 2014.
Two years later everything synchronized in a perfect way in order to do the course. This is a particular case because I entered the first promotion of Venezuelan students of the PADI school. Even though Iru had years of experience dictating courses with AIDA and DAN. The privileged academy PADI gave her the title in order to start classes with their approval.
So I started my adventure with the theory of apnea. With diverse studies that are important to comprehend everything prior to the first practice, in water. There have been certain accidents involving this sport and all of these could have been prevented with knowledge and current precautions. Therefore, my attention was much centered on each word of the instructor because basically, my life and that of my partners depends on that.
Once this theoretical hours had ended and time for pool practice arrived. Thanks to an invitation from Manu Meru we were able to be at this beautiful pool at the ‘Centro Portugués’. Here the group started becoming more homogenous.
Eduardo Caruso, Paola, Carlos ‘Marciano’, Reinaldo, Jorge, Liss, Oksana, Celso Hernández, Elio, Joel and I were the
stars of the movie that Iru had told us days before at the classroom. It was an
incredible week where each day we would go over our own anatomic and mental limits in
order to impose new records of time and distance.
One of the things that I liked the most about these exercises was ‘feeling’ because that’s exactly what we must do. Listening to our body, understand it and rediscover it. Without panicking, with all the love and patience that we can have to ourselves.
It was on the last day of my practices in the pool when I allowed myself to feel a contraction. This occurs because the body starts to manifest because the level of CO2 rises and the body reminds us. However, this signal improves with the training and practice. Which, at first scared me because I wanted to avoid feeling these involuntary contractions.
Thanks to this knowledge and the comfort of having a person as experienced as Iru I let myself go and I started to feel this ‘famous’ contractions and, you know what? I rolled with them. I felt that I was going beyond my limits and was able to remember that everything is in our minds.
With this excellent closure the next day, very early I left to Chichi with the group. This is a beach located in Vargas state, a spot that makes me feel safe. The reason is because since I was in my mother’s belly I would visit this place since my family owned a house there.
The goal for the weekend was to prove ourselves in the depth modality even though I had already tasted a bit of this vice, I was sure that it would be more a lot more interesting than all the new sensations I had obtained at the pool.
This was how I spent two unforgettable day, amongst stretching, meditation, relaxation, breathing and a lot of depth apnea I enjoyed as I had never done my dear Chichiriviche de la Costa.
Every time I came out of the water I would talk with my aunt María Luisa whom I took with me so that we could share for a while under the sun and what used to be her house’s backyard (the sea). She would ask me if I felt any anxiety or stress holding in my breath for so long and the answer to that question is a paradox since it was the exact opposite. The
foundation of apnea is relaxation and even it might sound weird, every time I left an immersion my strongest feeling was of pleasure. I think breathing is divine and since we do it approximately 2,300 per day we forget it. However apnea reminds you of how delicious each breath can be.
To finish this “discovering myself” I would want to make a reflection about ego. That thing that sometimes owns us and we don’t even understand why.
I’d been improving my personal depth record from -12 to then go to -15. It was with this number that my ego got to my head. I don’t know what it is it exactly that happens when it’s regarding competition (it’s something that I’m still studying). However, I’m already aware of the fact that I’m super competitive, even with myself. So when I got victoriously to -15 I thought that I could easily reach -17.
The next weekend I went to practice once again with Iru and my friends. I wanted to win against myself and go above my current average but obviously life didn’t permit it. I could give you reasons… but basically I was going through the wrong road because I forgot for a few days that the real goal with apnea is enjoy and feel pleasure. I started going down because ‘I had to be better’ I had to ‘improve my record’ and nothing flows with that mindset. Including my depth record which got stuck.
So I went back to Caracas sad, especially because I realized that I had lost my north with this sport. Then, I understood what I had been doing. I became aware and going back to having fun. I went down again the next weekend to find myself with the deep blue.
I decided to go this time with my dad, my nice stepmother and my two brothers so that they would get to know this part of my world. Everything was a sea of happiness and I had left behind the meters subject. In Sunday morning we did a delicious static apnea. It was at the pool before eating which favors the immersion. I improved my record dramatically to 2
minutes and 30 seconds and I felt very satisfied with the result. After eating and going
to the sea Iru told us ‘Okay guys, this will be our last immersion, I want you all to go
as low as you can’. At this point I felt confident and happy and I decided to make my
best effort. The result? -18 meters and what was best, far from the number, was that my
friend and instructor Iru told me ‘today you are a better apnea practicant and not
because of the -18 but because of your attitude inside and outside of the water.’ That’s
when I understood that apnea was a road to my own self-discovery. 
Thank you to the best teacher and my dear partners for allowing me to be part of their lives in this wonderful sport. I spent a month between practice, training and eating at the most delicious place in Vargas Churuata Piarima. A restaurant located in ‘Las Salinas’ with the best attention by Acerina Ramos and the best food made by her husband Dragan Balic.
Remember to always practice this sport in a responsible way and devoid of ego, full with knowledge and a partner that supervises each immersion.
