By Neil Bie
If you have a thirst for an underwater adventure, the shallow waters around our shores would be no challenge for you. For David Helderle, a freediving enthusiast, you need to go to the deeper depths of the UAE’s off shore waters to perform the unique nautical underwater vortex.
Tempo: Why do you free dive, David?
Freediving is for me a spiritual journey. When I free dive, I totally disconnect my brain and it’s a bit like feeling that my consciousness dilutes all the cells of my body. During a few minutes, everything is transformed to cells and molecules bonding together outside of time.
Tempo: How did you get into it?
I did not study freediving; my dad introduced me to it at an early age, actually when I was just six years old. He was, and is still, a free diver. I guess everything happened very naturally, and I have been free diving for over 30 years now.
Tempo: We saw on Vimeo the amazing mini-vortexes you do underwater. Tell us about them.
I do a couple of quick dives in order to give time to my body to adapt being underwater holding my breath. When I feel more relaxed, I just lay down at the bottom and start blowing my rings to create the mini vortexes. The first pattern that happened was accidental and I had to learn how to reproduce it in order to get the basic technique. From that point, I have developed a full set of different techniques.
Tempo: How do you do it?
It actually takes a whole lot of practice. But as a tip, you have to have fun underwater!When people see me free diving or watch the video, they are quite surprised, and ask me a lot of questions.
Tempo: Are there free diving icons who you look up to?
One of them would have to be Alex Boulting from freedivinguae. He is someone I find inspiring because he has real passion and he is working hard to promote free diving among Emiratis.
See David perform the underwater vortex!
Reach him at www.freedivinguae.com
