Author: ALFC Team
There's something about the word competition that makes a lot of freedivers uncomfortable. Mention it to someone who's been training recreationally for a few years, and you'll often get the same reaction. They'll smile, shake their head and tell you that competitions aren't really their thing. They're not deep enough, they're not experienced enough, or they simply don't see themselves as competitive people.
And that's fair. Not everyone gets into freediving because they want to compete. Most of us started because we loved being underwater, enjoyed the feeling of diving on a single breath or wanted to discover how far we could go. Winning medals probably wasn't part of the original plan.
But here's something we've noticed over the years. Some of the people who enjoy their first freediving competition the most are the ones who were absolutely convinced they had no business being there.
The truth is, you don't have to be an elite athlete to benefit from competing. You don't even have to be particularly interested in winning. A freediving competition can teach you things about your diving, your preparation and yourself that are difficult to discover during normal training. It can also be a surprisingly enjoyable experience, especially when you stop thinking of it as a test of how good you are.
We've met plenty of freedivers who spent years saying they'd enter a competition someday. Usually, that day was supposed to arrive after they reached a certain depth, improved their equalization or felt a little more confident. The funny thing is that there's always another thing to improve. If you wait until you feel completely ready, you might never sign up.
So, if you've been thinking about entering your first freediving competition but haven't quite convinced yourself to do it, here are five reasons why it might be worth giving it a try.
You'll Discover What You're Actually Capable Of
Training and competing are two very different experiences. During a normal training session, you usually have a reasonable idea of what to expect. You know your instructor, your buddy, the dive site and the general routine. If you're not feeling particularly good, you can adjust your plans. You can take more time between dives, change your target or decide to try again tomorrow.
Competition introduces a few things you can't control quite as easily. You have an official top time, a declared performance, judges and a schedule that doesn't necessarily care whether you slept well the night before. You might feel nervous, excited or unusually focused. Sometimes you'll experience all three within the space of ten minutes.
And that's exactly why the experience can be so valuable. You get to see how you respond when a dive matters to you in a different way. Maybe you discover that you're surprisingly calm under pressure. Maybe you realize that your usual preparation routine doesn't work as well when you're nervous. Or perhaps you find out that you're much more comfortable with the whole experience than you expected.
None of these discoveries requires a personal best. In fact, your first competition probably isn't the ideal place to attempt something you've never done before. Choosing a depth or distance you can perform consistently in training is usually a much better approach. The goal is to complete a controlled dive, follow the procedures and gain experience. There's plenty of time to become more ambitious later.
What's interesting is how much confidence you can gain from simply completing that first official performance. You arrive wondering whether you belong there, spend the morning feeling nervous and eventually find yourself standing on the platform or preparing to dive on the competition line.
Then you do your dive. You surface, complete the required protocol and realize that the whole thing wasn't nearly as intimidating as you'd imagined. That feeling tends to stay with you. And the next time you enter a competition, you're no longer wondering what it's like. You already know.
You'll Start Taking Your Training More Seriously
One of the biggest differences between training for yourself and preparing for a competition is having an actual date on the calendar.
When you're diving recreationally, it's easy to let training become a little random. You go when you have time, choose a depth depending on how you feel and occasionally work on something specific. There's nothing wrong with that, particularly if you're freediving mainly for enjoyment.
But when you register for a competition, something changes. Suddenly, you're working towards a particular day, and that gives your training a clearer purpose.
You start thinking about things you might previously have ignored. Are you consistent at your chosen depth? Is your equalization reliable? Are you comfortable with the competition procedures? Have you practised your surface protocol enough that you can perform it without having to think about every step?
You might also start paying more attention to recovery, sleep and the way you organize your training sessions. Not because you've suddenly become a professional athlete, but because you want to arrive feeling prepared.
This can be a very useful change. At ALFC, we often see how much people improve when they stop treating every session as an opportunity to dive deeper and start working towards specific goals. A diver who wants to compete might spend several sessions repeating a comfortable depth, improving their technique or practising the exact routine they'll use on competition day.
Those sessions aren't always particularly exciting. There might be no personal records and nothing especially impressive to post on Instagram. But they build something that matters much more when the competition arrives: consistency.
And consistency is something you get to keep long after the event is over.
You might enter a competition with the simple goal of completing a clean 40-metre dive. Along the way, you could discover that your technique has improved, your preparation has become more reliable and you're making better decisions about your training.
Even if the competition itself doesn't go exactly as planned, you've already gained something from the process.
That's one of the reasons we think competitions can be useful for recreational freedivers too. You don't need to become obsessed with performance. Sometimes having a clear goal for a couple of months is enough to make your regular training more interesting and productive.
You'll Meet A Completely Different Side Of The Freediving Community
If you've never attended a freediving competition, you might imagine a very serious atmosphere full of athletes who spend their entire lives training, comparing performances and thinking about rankings.
There are certainly serious athletes at competitions. Some have spent years preparing for these events, and their performances deserve respect. But there's usually a lot more going on around them than people expect.
Freediving competitions bring together an interesting mix of personalities. You'll meet experienced competitors, first-timers, coaches, safety divers, judges and volunteers. Some people are chasing national records. Others are simply hoping to complete their first official dive.
And despite those differences, everyone has something in common. They love freediving enough to spend several days organizing their lives around it.
That creates a pretty good atmosphere.
People talk about equipment, training, equalization and all the usual things freedivers seem capable of discussing for hours. They share stories about previous competitions, difficult dives and things that went completely wrong. You'll probably meet somebody who has competed all over the world and another person who looks just as nervous as you feel.
The nice thing is that experienced competitors are often much more approachable than newcomers expect. Most remember their first competition very clearly. They know what it feels like to wait for an official top, worry about a surface protocol or wonder whether they've declared the right performance.
And they're often happy to talk about it.
You might arrive knowing nobody and leave with a few new friends, invitations to train somewhere else and a group chat that continues long after everyone has gone home.
We've always felt that this is one of the best parts of freediving in general. People from completely different backgrounds meet because they happen to enjoy doing the same unusual thing underwater. Competitions bring even more of those people together.
You also get to watch some very good freedivers up close. Not just their actual performances, but everything that happens before and afterwards. How they prepare, how they manage their nerves, how they react when things don't go according to plan and how they support other athletes.
You can learn a lot simply by being around people with more experience than you. And who knows? You might discover that the competition itself is only half the reason you want to come back next year.
You'll Learn To Deal With Pressure Without Letting It Control You
Most freedivers experience nerves at some point. It might happen before a new personal best, during a difficult training session or simply because something doesn't feel quite right that day.
Competition gives you an opportunity to understand those feelings in a more structured environment. There's a specific time when you're expected to perform. People are watching. You've probably spent weeks preparing. Naturally, you want things to go well.
For some people, that's exciting. For others, it's uncomfortable. And for many, it's a mixture of both.
The interesting part is learning how to handle it.
You might discover that you start overthinking everything when you're nervous. Maybe you change your breathing routine, rush through your preparation or become distracted by what other athletes are doing. Perhaps you're perfectly relaxed until somebody announces that you have two minutes remaining, and then suddenly your heart seems determined to remind you that it's there.
These are useful things to learn about yourself.
The aim isn't to eliminate nervousness completely. Even very experienced competitors can feel nervous before important dives. What matters is developing a routine that helps you stay focused and make sensible decisions.
That might mean arriving early, keeping your preparation simple, avoiding unnecessary conversations before your dive or spending a few minutes quietly reviewing your plan. Different people need different things, and your first competition is a good opportunity to start discovering what works for you.
It's also important to remember that pressure should never become a reason to ignore warning signs or push beyond what you've safely prepared for. You can change your plans when the rules allow, choose a conservative performance or decide not to dive if something isn't right. A competition result is never worth taking unnecessary risks.
And sometimes, despite doing everything properly, your dive simply doesn't work out. Maybe your equalization stops. Maybe you turn early. Maybe you make a mistake during the surface protocol. It's frustrating, especially when you've travelled somewhere specifically to compete, but it happens.
One of the most valuable lessons competition can teach you is that a disappointing performance isn't the end of the world. You finish the day, talk about what happened, learn what you can and eventually move on.
The next time you face a difficult situation in training, you may find yourself handling it a little better because you've already experienced something similar.
That's a pretty useful skill to take home with you.
You'll Have A Story Worth Remembering
Think about some of your favourite freediving memories. Chances are, they aren't all connected to your deepest dives.
Maybe you remember the first time you felt completely relaxed during freefall. Maybe it was a trip with friends, a particularly beautiful dive site or a day when everything finally came together after weeks of frustration.
A competition can become one of those memories. Not necessarily because you win something or break a record. Sometimes it's simply because you decided to do something that made you uncomfortable, prepared for it and followed through.
There's something satisfying about that.
You might spend the weeks before the competition wondering why you registered in the first place. You'll probably check the schedule far too many times, think about your declared performance more than necessary and have at least one moment when staying home suddenly sounds like a very attractive option.
Then the day arrives. You meet the other athletes, prepare your equipment, listen to the briefings and gradually settle into the experience. At some point, it's your turn. You complete your dive, get out of the water and realize you've just done something you've been thinking about for months.
Maybe you get a white card. Maybe you don't. Maybe you perform exactly as planned, or maybe you come away with a long list of things you'd like to improve.
Either way, you've got an experience you didn't have before.
And the funny thing is that the details you remember afterwards aren't always the ones you expected. You might remember the conversation you had with another nervous first-timer, the athlete who helped you with something, the ridiculous amount of food everyone ate after the event or the moment you finally stopped worrying and started enjoying yourself.
You might even discover that you genuinely like competing.
Or you might decide that once was enough and that you'd rather spend your freediving days training without judges or official top times. That's perfectly fine too. At least you'll know from experience rather than spending years wondering.
We don't believe every freediver needs to compete. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the sport without ever entering an official event. Freediving offers plenty of reasons to keep getting into the water, and competition is only one of them.
But if the idea has been sitting somewhere in the back of your mind, we'd encourage you to give it some thought. Find a suitable event, understand the requirements, prepare properly with an experienced coach and choose a performance you're comfortable with. You don't need to arrive expecting to impress anyone.
At ALFC, we work with freedivers who have very different goals. Some are serious competitors, some are preparing for their first event and others have absolutely no interest in competitions. We enjoy working with all of them. But there's something particularly nice about watching somebody go from saying, "I don't think competitions are for me," to coming back from their first event full of stories.
Because the best thing about entering a freediving competition might not be the result at all. It might simply be discovering that you're capable of more than you thought, meeting some great people along the way and finding another reason to love a sport you already enjoy.
And if you happen to come home with a medal, that's a pretty good bonus.
5 Reasons To Enter A Freediving Competition
Author: ALFC Team
There's something about the word competition that makes a lot of freedivers uncomfortable. Mention it to someone who's been training recreationally for a few years, and you'll often get the same reaction. They'll smile, shake their head and tell you that competitions aren't really their thing. They're not deep enough, they're not experienced enough, or they simply don't see themselves as competitive people.
And that's fair. Not everyone gets into freediving because they want to compete. Most of us started because we loved being underwater, enjoyed the feeling of diving on a single breath or wanted to discover how far we could go. Winning medals probably wasn't part of the original plan.
But here's something we've noticed over the years. Some of the people who enjoy their first freediving competition the most are the ones who were absolutely convinced they had no business being there.
The truth is, you don't have to be an elite athlete to benefit from competing. You don't even have to be particularly interested in winning. A freediving competition can teach you things about your diving, your preparation and yourself that are difficult to discover during normal training. It can also be a surprisingly enjoyable experience, especially when you stop thinking of it as a test of how good you are.
We've met plenty of freedivers who spent years saying they'd enter a competition someday. Usually, that day was supposed to arrive after they reached a certain depth, improved their equalization or felt a little more confident. The funny thing is that there's always another thing to improve. If you wait until you feel completely ready, you might never sign up.
So, if you've been thinking about entering your first freediving competition but haven't quite convinced yourself to do it, here are five reasons why it might be worth giving it a try.
You'll Discover What You're Actually Capable Of
Training and competing are two very different experiences. During a normal training session, you usually have a reasonable idea of what to expect. You know your instructor, your buddy, the dive site and the general routine. If you're not feeling particularly good, you can adjust your plans. You can take more time between dives, change your target or decide to try again tomorrow.
Competition introduces a few things you can't control quite as easily. You have an official top time, a declared performance, judges and a schedule that doesn't necessarily care whether you slept well the night before. You might feel nervous, excited or unusually focused. Sometimes you'll experience all three within the space of ten minutes.
And that's exactly why the experience can be so valuable. You get to see how you respond when a dive matters to you in a different way. Maybe you discover that you're surprisingly calm under pressure. Maybe you realize that your usual preparation routine doesn't work as well when you're nervous. Or perhaps you find out that you're much more comfortable with the whole experience than you expected.
None of these discoveries requires a personal best. In fact, your first competition probably isn't the ideal place to attempt something you've never done before. Choosing a depth or distance you can perform consistently in training is usually a much better approach. The goal is to complete a controlled dive, follow the procedures and gain experience. There's plenty of time to become more ambitious later.
What's interesting is how much confidence you can gain from simply completing that first official performance. You arrive wondering whether you belong there, spend the morning feeling nervous and eventually find yourself standing on the platform or preparing to dive on the competition line.
Then you do your dive. You surface, complete the required protocol and realize that the whole thing wasn't nearly as intimidating as you'd imagined. That feeling tends to stay with you. And the next time you enter a competition, you're no longer wondering what it's like. You already know.
You'll Start Taking Your Training More Seriously
One of the biggest differences between training for yourself and preparing for a competition is having an actual date on the calendar.
When you're diving recreationally, it's easy to let training become a little random. You go when you have time, choose a depth depending on how you feel and occasionally work on something specific. There's nothing wrong with that, particularly if you're freediving mainly for enjoyment.
But when you register for a competition, something changes. Suddenly, you're working towards a particular day, and that gives your training a clearer purpose.
You start thinking about things you might previously have ignored. Are you consistent at your chosen depth? Is your equalization reliable? Are you comfortable with the competition procedures? Have you practised your surface protocol enough that you can perform it without having to think about every step?
You might also start paying more attention to recovery, sleep and the way you organize your training sessions. Not because you've suddenly become a professional athlete, but because you want to arrive feeling prepared.
This can be a very useful change. At ALFC, we often see how much people improve when they stop treating every session as an opportunity to dive deeper and start working towards specific goals. A diver who wants to compete might spend several sessions repeating a comfortable depth, improving their technique or practising the exact routine they'll use on competition day.
Those sessions aren't always particularly exciting. There might be no personal records and nothing especially impressive to post on Instagram. But they build something that matters much more when the competition arrives: consistency.
And consistency is something you get to keep long after the event is over.
You might enter a competition with the simple goal of completing a clean 40-metre dive. Along the way, you could discover that your technique has improved, your preparation has become more reliable and you're making better decisions about your training.
Even if the competition itself doesn't go exactly as planned, you've already gained something from the process.
That's one of the reasons we think competitions can be useful for recreational freedivers too. You don't need to become obsessed with performance. Sometimes having a clear goal for a couple of months is enough to make your regular training more interesting and productive.
You'll Meet A Completely Different Side Of The Freediving Community
If you've never attended a freediving competition, you might imagine a very serious atmosphere full of athletes who spend their entire lives training, comparing performances and thinking about rankings.
There are certainly serious athletes at competitions. Some have spent years preparing for these events, and their performances deserve respect. But there's usually a lot more going on around them than people expect.
Freediving competitions bring together an interesting mix of personalities. You'll meet experienced competitors, first-timers, coaches, safety divers, judges and volunteers. Some people are chasing national records. Others are simply hoping to complete their first official dive.
And despite those differences, everyone has something in common. They love freediving enough to spend several days organizing their lives around it.
That creates a pretty good atmosphere.
People talk about equipment, training, equalization and all the usual things freedivers seem capable of discussing for hours. They share stories about previous competitions, difficult dives and things that went completely wrong. You'll probably meet somebody who has competed all over the world and another person who looks just as nervous as you feel.
The nice thing is that experienced competitors are often much more approachable than newcomers expect. Most remember their first competition very clearly. They know what it feels like to wait for an official top, worry about a surface protocol or wonder whether they've declared the right performance.
And they're often happy to talk about it.
You might arrive knowing nobody and leave with a few new friends, invitations to train somewhere else and a group chat that continues long after everyone has gone home.
We've always felt that this is one of the best parts of freediving in general. People from completely different backgrounds meet because they happen to enjoy doing the same unusual thing underwater. Competitions bring even more of those people together.
You also get to watch some very good freedivers up close. Not just their actual performances, but everything that happens before and afterwards. How they prepare, how they manage their nerves, how they react when things don't go according to plan and how they support other athletes.
You can learn a lot simply by being around people with more experience than you. And who knows? You might discover that the competition itself is only half the reason you want to come back next year.
You'll Learn To Deal With Pressure Without Letting It Control You
Most freedivers experience nerves at some point. It might happen before a new personal best, during a difficult training session or simply because something doesn't feel quite right that day.
Competition gives you an opportunity to understand those feelings in a more structured environment. There's a specific time when you're expected to perform. People are watching. You've probably spent weeks preparing. Naturally, you want things to go well.
For some people, that's exciting. For others, it's uncomfortable. And for many, it's a mixture of both.
The interesting part is learning how to handle it.
You might discover that you start overthinking everything when you're nervous. Maybe you change your breathing routine, rush through your preparation or become distracted by what other athletes are doing. Perhaps you're perfectly relaxed until somebody announces that you have two minutes remaining, and then suddenly your heart seems determined to remind you that it's there.
These are useful things to learn about yourself.
The aim isn't to eliminate nervousness completely. Even very experienced competitors can feel nervous before important dives. What matters is developing a routine that helps you stay focused and make sensible decisions.
That might mean arriving early, keeping your preparation simple, avoiding unnecessary conversations before your dive or spending a few minutes quietly reviewing your plan. Different people need different things, and your first competition is a good opportunity to start discovering what works for you.
It's also important to remember that pressure should never become a reason to ignore warning signs or push beyond what you've safely prepared for. You can change your plans when the rules allow, choose a conservative performance or decide not to dive if something isn't right. A competition result is never worth taking unnecessary risks.
And sometimes, despite doing everything properly, your dive simply doesn't work out. Maybe your equalization stops. Maybe you turn early. Maybe you make a mistake during the surface protocol. It's frustrating, especially when you've travelled somewhere specifically to compete, but it happens.
One of the most valuable lessons competition can teach you is that a disappointing performance isn't the end of the world. You finish the day, talk about what happened, learn what you can and eventually move on.
The next time you face a difficult situation in training, you may find yourself handling it a little better because you've already experienced something similar.
That's a pretty useful skill to take home with you.
You'll Have A Story Worth Remembering
Think about some of your favourite freediving memories. Chances are, they aren't all connected to your deepest dives.
Maybe you remember the first time you felt completely relaxed during freefall. Maybe it was a trip with friends, a particularly beautiful dive site or a day when everything finally came together after weeks of frustration.
A competition can become one of those memories. Not necessarily because you win something or break a record. Sometimes it's simply because you decided to do something that made you uncomfortable, prepared for it and followed through.
There's something satisfying about that.
You might spend the weeks before the competition wondering why you registered in the first place. You'll probably check the schedule far too many times, think about your declared performance more than necessary and have at least one moment when staying home suddenly sounds like a very attractive option.
Then the day arrives. You meet the other athletes, prepare your equipment, listen to the briefings and gradually settle into the experience. At some point, it's your turn. You complete your dive, get out of the water and realize you've just done something you've been thinking about for months.
Maybe you get a white card. Maybe you don't. Maybe you perform exactly as planned, or maybe you come away with a long list of things you'd like to improve.
Either way, you've got an experience you didn't have before.
And the funny thing is that the details you remember afterwards aren't always the ones you expected. You might remember the conversation you had with another nervous first-timer, the athlete who helped you with something, the ridiculous amount of food everyone ate after the event or the moment you finally stopped worrying and started enjoying yourself.
You might even discover that you genuinely like competing.
Or you might decide that once was enough and that you'd rather spend your freediving days training without judges or official top times. That's perfectly fine too. At least you'll know from experience rather than spending years wondering.
We don't believe every freediver needs to compete. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the sport without ever entering an official event. Freediving offers plenty of reasons to keep getting into the water, and competition is only one of them.
But if the idea has been sitting somewhere in the back of your mind, we'd encourage you to give it some thought. Find a suitable event, understand the requirements, prepare properly with an experienced coach and choose a performance you're comfortable with. You don't need to arrive expecting to impress anyone.
At ALFC, we work with freedivers who have very different goals. Some are serious competitors, some are preparing for their first event and others have absolutely no interest in competitions. We enjoy working with all of them. But there's something particularly nice about watching somebody go from saying, "I don't think competitions are for me," to coming back from their first event full of stories.
Because the best thing about entering a freediving competition might not be the result at all. It might simply be discovering that you're capable of more than you thought, meeting some great people along the way and finding another reason to love a sport you already enjoy.
And if you happen to come home with a medal, that's a pretty good bonus.