APNEA SURF SURVIVAL COURSE FOR SURFERS IN CALIFORNIA

September 9, 2024

Breathe deeper, hold your breath longer and surf with more confidence!

This course is invaluable for anyone who spends time in the ocean: surfers, lifeguards, swimmers and divers. Increase your confidence as you improve your breath holding and ocean safety skills in this 2 day seminar.

Locations:

Pacifica, San Francisco: September 28th and 29th. SIGN Up here

The Mission Beach, San Diego: October 27th and 28th. SIGN UP here

How long can you hold your breath without panicking? The average surfer will be held underwater for only 12-30 seconds but as anyone who’s ever been in that situation knows, it can feel like an eternity. When panic sets in the urge to breath can become overpowering and life threatening. Holding your breath for 1 minute while floating in a pool is very different from holding you

r breath for 1 minute while the surf pounds you from all directions and you don’t know which way is up.

This apnea training for surfers teaches different techniques of apnea and breathing exercises to fully oxygenate the body. These help to strengthen and increase the capacity of your lungs. Longer breath-hold is a natural consequence of the deep breathing exercises.

Beyond the physical capabilities of your lungs, this course will enhance your mental capacity to deal with stress and danger. Therefore, surfers will be better equipped to deal with extreme situations where mind control and calmness are the main factors for your survival.

We will be emphasizing High Surf Risk Management in order to recognize, minimize or avoid unnecessary risks found in the surf zone. Together, the class will work through various surf rescue scenarios and learn valuable rescue strategies based on the specific situation at hand.

Big Wave Surfer and Professional Diver Ricardo Taveira, founder of Hawaii Eco Divers, has been teaching Apnea and Surf Survival for years, improving surfers’ safety in Hawaii and around the world. This course is designed with only one goal in mind: to increase your breath hold capability in tense situations underwater while remaining calm and in total control of your mind. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity. This course is designed for surfers of all levels who want to feel more confident in the ocean!

Price: $375.00

Course Structure

The class is designed to help you spend more time underwater through lectures, intense breath hold training and multiple breathing and swimming exercises. Through two days of classroom and pool training, you will practice:

Physiology of breathing & apnea;
Risks and dangers of training apnea;
Proper breathing exercises to improve ventilation and strengthening of the lungs;
Water safety;
Static apnea, dynamic apnea and stressed apnea exercises
Surf survival drills
Risk management and emergency action plan;
Surfing rescue skills;
CPR skills

This course is divided in 3 parts:

Part 1 – E-learning theory development.

You will receive an online manual with written content and videos to watch in order to prepare for the class, You will study in depth the physiology of breathing and apnea through academic information. This information is very significant when we push our bodies to the limit. Understanding what causes our body to black out during breath hold training exercises, and how to identify signs and symptoms of hypoxia is crucial in order to train safely. High-surf risk management, emergency action planning, and dealing with panic will also be studied in the academic development portion of the course.

Part 2 – Day 1 of the course:

Classroom, 8 am to 12 pm—We will review all the online content in a classroom environment through a PowerPoint presentation. We will discuss in detail how to improve breathing and hold it safely. We will also perform all the breathing exercises you will be using throughout the course.

Water training (pool), 1 pm to 5:30 pm—We will start the water training portion of the course with apnea safety and rescue protocols to train safely with a partner in the ocean. We will then put into practice all the breathing skills to perform numerous underwater apnea exercises, including static, dynamic, and stress apnea training. Each exercise simulates a realistic situation found in the surfing environment. Surfers will work with a training partner throughout the entire class.

Part 3 – Day 2 of the course.

Classroom, 8 am to 10:45 am—We will cover surf risk management, swell forecasting, emergency action planning, and Surf Care, including CPR, AED, Rescue Breath, managing bleeding, and immobilization for surfing injuries.

Water training (pool), 11:30 pm to 5:00 pm—We will train more static, dynamic apnea survival skills before we move into the surf rescue part of the course. This is when surfers learn tools that could help them save lives. At the end, we will focus again on the stress apnea exercise simulating a wipeout or a long hold down.

Tested and Proven Results

Over many years, hundreds of people have become better watermen and safer surfers because of this course. Lifeguards, firefighters, athletes, professional surfers, military, navy, police officers and more attest to how valuable our apnea training can be.

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