2 INCREDIBLE WORKSHOPS IN 1 DAY:
Led by the renowned Louisa Collyns
WORKSHOP 1:
Rewire Your Brain to Enhance Your Freediving (9:30am – 11:30am)
Using Brainspotting to Unlock Your Full Potential as a Freediver
Freediving is as much a psychological discipline as it is a physical one. But we typically train the physical aspects far more than the psychological. Traditional sport psychology and conscious ‘mental’ strategies don’t reach the deep, automatic patterns that shape how we perform underwater.
This workshop introduces Brainspotting, a powerful brain–body technique that works directly with the subcortical brain – the area responsible for survival responses, ingrained habits, and emotional processing.
By learning how to access this deeper part of the brain-body system, and working with the plasticity of the brain, freedivers can rewire limiting patterns, expand performance, and enhance their capacity for calm, presence, and flow.
What You’ll Learn:
Theoretical Foundations
- The role of the subcortical brain in performance
- How Brainspotting can support:
- Nervous system flexibility
- Rapid nervous system management
- Overcoming performance blocks
- Preventing and recovering from burnout
- Expanding positive experiences and accessing flow states
- Increasing interoception – a core freediving skill
- Involuntary/unconscious survival patterns that directly interfere with key freediving skills (e.g. EQ..)
Practical Applications for Freediving
Participants will learn and experience Brainspotting techniques tailored specifically for freedivers, including:
- Tools for rapid nervous system regulation
- Self-attunement through body scanning
- Identifying and using your own Resource Spot to access parasympathetic state
- Using an Expansion Spot to expand positive performance or flow state
- Processing negative or challenging performance experiences
There will be a 1 hour break for lunch between 12:30pm – 1:30pm
WORKSHOP 2:
Freediving Safety Workshop – Practical Rescue Skills for Real Training Situations (11:30am – 5pm)
(Attendees must hold at least an AIDA 2 (or equivalent) Certification and have Personal freediving insurance to attend the practical session)
This hands-on workshop is designed to help certified freedivers deepen their confidence, sharpen their rescue skills, and learn how to respond calmly and effectively in real training environments.
This is non-competition safety, focused on the skills you need when training with other certified freedivers in pool or depth sessions. The workshop includes a short theory/briefing session (approx. 1 hour) followed by 2–3 hours of in-water practice in the pool, including time in a deep section to practice depth rescues.
Who Is It For?
- Certified freedivers of all levels
- Freediving assistants and instructors
- Anyone who wants to handle safety with more confidence, clarity, and skill
(Participants must have a valid certification, their own insurance, and completed medical and liability forms)
What You Will Learn & Practise
1. Understanding Your Role as a Safety
- Recognising signs of LMC (loss of motor control) and BO (blackout)
- When to intervene and how to read a situation
- The importance of staying calm
- Acting appropriately and with confidence
2. How to perform safety and rescues in Static, Dynamic and Depth
3. Discussion: the importance of knowing your buddy to provide the best support
- Their recent PBs and experience level
- Their usual technique and behaviour patterns
- Their mental and physical state on the day
- Your physical state and experience level
- Deciding when PBs are appropriate and how many safeties are required
- Adjusting safety techniques based on your physical capacity, their size, the conditions, and the situation
For depth safety we will discuss:
- Timing your dive correctly for depth safety
- How to hold the rope effectively
- Checking the buoy/rig for safety hazards and setup issues
Rather than rigid rules, we will use open discussion and scenario-based thinking to help you learn how to make good decisions in training environments.
Practical:
Static Apnea
- How to safely watch and support your buddy
- Surface BO rescue
- Underwater BO rescue
- Extraction of an unconscious freediver from the pool (solo and with two safeties)
Dynamic Apnea
- How to safely watch and support your buddy
- Surface and underwater BO rescues
- Solo and two-person extraction techniques
Depth-Related Safety Skills (in the deep section)
- Surface LMC and BO management
- Underwater BO rescue (on a buoy)
- Evacuation and extraction procedures (pool-based)
Teaching Focus
Throughout the workshop, the emphasis will be on:
- Calmness over speed
- Applying good judgment over rigid rules (this requires a calm approach)
- Understanding what the moment requires
- Responding from a place of awareness
This workshop aims to give freedivers the confidence to think critically, adapt intelligently, and perform safety in a way that is both effective and appropriate for real-world training.
