look like carbon fins, the guy is a bad ass.
If you look closely he is only using about 6-8lbs of weight with possibly a 5mil. That is why he uses his hands to propel in the beginning, he is so bouyant. This alows him to come up with little effort and stop kicking about 40 ft from the surface. This is in order to waste less air on the way up when he might need it the most.
good explanation davie, sometimes especially on deeper dives less weight is better.
At that depth having 12lbs of weight strapped to yourself can put you in a bad position.
This guy and Tom Sietas freaking amaze me.
1. He kicks 22 times before go planning, almost hitting the bottom. Could you explain why he doesn´t kick just 8-10 times and then fall into the water column conserving energy?
22 kicks seems like a bit much but likely not given the depth. I've commented here before and will stress it again as I hear it from alot of you on this board. Being overweight is extremely dangerous. It is best to be positively bouyant the first 10 meters, neutral the next 10 and negative the rest of the way. Have any of you tried to kick off the bottom at 30 meters? If you are not weighted properly, it is no easy task and will tax you of vital oxygen. Last week I was diving a tournament making multiple dives to 80 feet. I was counting my kicks to about 12-15 with the last kick cycles being very light before I was free falling completely. Of course, I would alter this in shallow water. Be safe guys and pay attention to how much weight you use.
good point Rolo, I personally like being weighted heavier for dives to 40-50 ft.
I think anything more than 60 and weight should be removed to be postive 30 feet and up.
The last 30 feet of ascent is where your most likely to lose consciousness, and where your brain needs the oxygen the most. In case of a blackout at 30 feet you have a better chance of floating to the surface and being seen versus being negative and falling to your death.
Even better when diving deeper than 60 it's good NOT to dive alone.
Furthermore, I think it's just not worth it. When diving becomes a pissing contest to see who dives deeper and comes back with the biggest fish defeats the purpose why I go out there. I enjoy being in the water with good friends and shooting fish if they are there. Life is too fragile and there is much more to lose than win.
Personal perspective/experience.
Just took the Performance Freedive clinic a week ago & they had us weight ourselves to be neutral in 33ft of water with a full breath of air. A lot of this is for safety - even if we black out on surface with no air in our lungs, we'd still float. Typically, I wear ~18# of lead with my 7mm Picasso, but got down to less than 8# during the class!!! :0
Since at this weighting, we're more buoyant than we're used to, the initial arm swim you see Mifsud doing combined with the normal surface leg lift aids in the initial descent and getting the fins underwater. We were told to count the # of strong kicks it took to get to 33ft... then once we hit 33ft, count the # of soft kicks to hit 66ft.
Again, since we're more buoyant, the kicking took slightly more effort than normal. One guy in our trio took 8 cycles(16 kicks) to hit 33 ft. Since I don't need to clear my ears, I put both hands over my head and with a much more streamlined shape, reached the same depth in only 4 cycles. The hard kicks were to get us to the neutral point and the soft kicks were to accelerate into the negative phase. Then the fun part - gliding. My total kicks for 100'+ dives was between 8-9 cycles (16-18 kicks). 
As for the class itself, it was interesting. Learned a lot about the physiology of freediving, safety/rescue, and the "proper" way to dive. Some of it didn't transfer too well to spearfishing, but a lot did. I don't think it necessarily made me any better a diver, but gave me the tools to work on improving. 
fuzz, normally what's the deepest you dive to hunt?
If it's around 60ft how will you weigh yourself from now on, the way you used to or the way you were taught at the clinic?
my guess would be the same as before. (in the context of freediving Spearfishing ) not maximum depth.
Rolo,
what fins/blades do you use, and how do you feel the stiffness of the blade is affected by the depth if at all? If you only dove deep, 75-80+ feet, would you change your blades or stiffness?
Fuzz,
did they go over recovery breaths/hook breaths? Did it change the way you "breathe up"?
Rolo uses the black fiberglass tooled blades stiffness #3.
Cool. Im interested even more then.
To reaffirm, I agree with both av001 & Rolo wholeheartedly. Just trying to provide some anecdotal background in support of it.
As Rolo mentioned... coming off the bottom in 30m of water can really suck if you're over-weighted. ESPECIALLY so if you're wearing a 7mm suit and the ton of weight that comes along with it. :angry5:
The class made me think about a lot of things. Proper weighting is a large one. As a starting point, I'll weight myself neutral at 1/3 of hunting depth and adjust accordingly. Something I noticed when weighted lighter was that it was much easier to breath deeply. I'm so used to being heavy and sinking if I breath out that it interrupts my breathe-up before a dive. As part of my normal dive kit now are two removable weights. That way I can adjust my belt quickly based on hunting depth.
Pargo,
I don't have a normal hunting depth since I travel around so much to dive. Varies so much depending on where I'm diving. Huge differences in fish, dive styles, depths, wetsuit thicknesses, etc. If I was to dive in avg 60ft water, I'd probably start at 25ft neutral to start. Hard to say until I try this out for a bit.
Toledo,
Yeah, the physiology they described made me re-evaluate my breathe up (or lack thereof) as well as recovery breathing. As I mentioned, I was always over-weighted on the surface, so it interfered with my breathing. I always knew proper ways of breathing up... but just never did it. :rolleyes1: I'll definitely make an effort to get used to it and make it routine.
Mr.Slayer,
I'll have to take some time to write down the things I learned, things I had doubts about, and how they apply to spearfishing. It's definitely a different discipline and some things are potentially dangerous. After all, their goal is to prep themselves for one personal best dive with a crew of safety divers watching. We're prepping ourselves to dive all day and recover fully in between dives.
One major thing that I did take away from the class is their "rule of nines". This basically states that roughly 90% of blackouts happen at the surface, 9% within the top 15ft, and 1% below that. So many people (myself included) think of SWB as happening on the way up, just before hitting the surface. In reality, the first 20seconds after reaching the surface are even more critical. This is another reason for weighting yourself light - you want to be able to float even with an exhale in case of a blackout. 
Sorry for the rambling, half asleep & off to bed... :boring1:
Great stuff, you can´t imagine the pleasure that comes for me reading this thread. I have the certainty to had learned a lot of useful concepts. And i am eager to learn more about freediving techniques and rationale.
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