Why Attend Deep Week for students and instructors

What is Deep Week?

Here's how it's described on their website

"It is the world's premier Freediving Education Event and largest freediving festival. Deep Week brings the best freedivers, freediving instructors, and experts from all over the world to one spectacular place. "

If you need more visuals of what Deep Week is check out this video.

But to sum it up, Deep Week involves one week of training with top instructors, the opportunity to make many new friends from around the world, and enjoy a fun-filled experience.

And below are the reason to attend one:

Teaching a Freedive Course vs Teaching Freediving

Adam Stern said he would rather not teach freediving courses. Sounds weird, right? It looks like he loves to on his YouTube videos. But what HE LOVES is teaching freediving, not freediving courses.

At Deep Week you are there to LEARN freediving and not pass requirements, but passing all the requirements to certify is just a consequence. I love that way of thinking.

The Best Environments to Learn as a Beginner

A typical beginner freedive course  takes 3-4 days; I've even seen some schools offer 2-day courses. A few days to gain competency in a new sport, for most people, is not enough. There are many variables to overcome and skills to learn, like getting used to being in deep water without freaking out, and holding your breath while diving, not to mention the skills like duck diving, finning, equalization etc.

However, I understand, in this world we live in, not many people have the opportunity to take a whole week off, and it's much easier to take 1-2 days off combined with a weekend for a course and follow up on subsequent weekends for more training. But this could be more time-consuming with additional travel time.

The amount of practice you get in a week, in my humble opinion, is enough time for nearly everyone to gain competency in the foundational skills of freediving.

Incredible Learning Experience for the More Experienced

Not only will an experienced student gain a tonne of dives to accelerate their adaptation to depth in the ocean, you'll also get great tips in the water from world-class freedive athletes and instructors rotating between buoys. In the past Deep Weeks has had special guest instructors like William Trubridge, Alexey Molchanovs, Thibault Guignés, Natalia Zharkova in attendance. It's like having Roger Federer or Serena Williams on the tennis court giving you pointers. This is priceless.

Out of the water, you will not only have the opportunity to attend yoga and meditation sessions daily, but workshops taught by the special guest instructors mentioned above to really ramp up your knowledge - some very general topics like advanced equalization to some very specific topics like sinus care or editing your underwater photos.

Making Freediving Fun

Sometimes as freedivers, we take ourselves too seriously as we focus on getting deeper and deeper and meeting the goals we set for ourselves. And sometimes, that hyper-focused pursuit can take the fun out of it.

Deep Week is an environment that encourages the notion of having fun while freediving.  During Deep Week, they make sure there is time for some fun dives, underwater obstacle course competition, and, if you are lucky, dancing, lots of dancing, even underwater!

The "shit shirt" party on the last day of Deep Week is the cherry on top. Everyone dressed up in a "shit shirt" as the party kicks off with an awards ceremony as everyone waits with bated breath to see who wins the most coveted prize "The Shittiest Shit Shirt".  And you'll love the prizes, too.

Community

The beauty of Deep Week is you get to be surrounded by a passionate community of freedivers, from beginners to world-class athletes. Everyone here wants to learn and explore their limits in a safe environment and support one another. There's no judgment or ego here, it's just pure fun. It's an incredibly refreshing atmosphere for everyone.

At the Deep Weeks I've attended, I've hung out and befriended many people who I still DM often from all over the world, like Thailand, Japan, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Hawaii, France, Canada, Philippines, and of course, Australia.

After a Deep Week, not only will you have a group of friends that you can chat about freediving with, but you also have a network of friends all around the world to freedive with and maybe a free sofa to sleep on.

The best part about this environment is that it encourages people to make friends for life in the freediving community.  You will find yourself coming back year after year as it will be the perfect place to meet up with your freedive friends. 

If you have ever been to Deep Week, you know what I am talking about! 

Deep Week as a Freedive Instructor

Almost nothing stays static (except your breath-hold 😂🤣😆), and we live in an ever-changing world. This is why in many professions, there are yearly "continued education" requirements to maintain your qualifications or your job. This is especially important in freediving as it is still a very young sport in terms of standardization and advanced skills.

Moreover, many instructors, such as myself, teach alone and do not have a lot of opportunities to learn from others. I love learning from others, and by attending a Deep Week, I have the priceless opportunity to learn how others teach concepts and skills or solve various problems. This is an invaluable experience that helps me become a better instructor for my students.

Where Are Deep Weeks Held?

There currently are Deep Weeks planned for Bali, Dubai at Deep Dive Dubai, Thailand, Philippines, Bahamas, Croatia, and who knows, maybe someday they'll have one in my country of Taiwan?

Deep Week is truly a special place, and I'm honored to be part of it. Attending Deep Weeks has been some of my freediving career highlights.

If you don't have the opportunity to go to a Deep Week but still want to learn about freediving, start with my free resources here. If you are interested in taking a course with me on the island of Xiaoliuqiu, contact me here.

Hope to see you at an upcoming Deep Week!

To see my daily recaps of Deep Week Thailand 2022 check out the links below

Daily 1 Recap

Day 2 Recap

Day 3 Recap

Day 4 Recap

Day 5 Recap

Day 6 Recap

Day 7 Recap

Underwater Ninja Warrior recap