Free Diving at Dutch Springs

Question
Hi, there.  My name is Jason and I am interested in free diving.  The thing is, though, I live in New York and there's not a huge free diving  community there comparable to what you'd see in a place like Hawaii or California.  

A long time ago, I remember reading about a group called the East Coast Freedivers, a group that would do free diving at the Dutch Springs park.  You seemed to be the head of that group, if memory serves.

I would very much like to learn how to do free diving.  I've heard it's very relaxing.  It sharpens your diving skills.  And I'm broke, so I can't afford hundreds of dollars' worth of diving equipment and training.  

Do you guys still freedive at Dutch Springs?  And if so, do you train newbies?

Many thanks for your time.  

Answer
Jason, I think that a personal E-mail probably would have been a better venue to answer your question, rather than a public forum, because to answer it at length would seem to be advertising instruction on my part. But, I'll use the opportunity to provide some insight into freediving adventures in the northeastern United States. Since you are from New York, you are probably aware of the popularity of spearfishing in the northeast. Rhode Island and Long Island are two of the best places to pursue underwater hunting. The Picasso Open spearfishing contest is held at Narragansett, Rhode Island anually and there are several freediving clubs and organizations in New England and the Middle Atlantic States focusing on everything from underwater hockey to spearfishing to deep breath hold training. Among these, East Coast Freediver was established by a handful of divers of which I was a co-founder and a president. It exists today and there is a message board on Yahoo Groups. East Coast Freediver is currently a loose affiliation of members who pay no dues and use the group's message board to get together and dive for fun or train. Dutch Springs is a primary dive site because it allows freedivers to train and dive there and according to Manny Puig's film crew Dutch Springs offers one of the best training environments for freedivers. When I did a film project with Manny's team they told me they wished they had known about Dutch Springs when they were training Meghan Haney-Grier for her record dives. Depths at Dutch Springs reach just past 100 feet and due to the system of suspended buoys and down lines on most attractions freedives are enhanced by the "reward" of seeing an object at the end of one's dive. Reaching actual attractions as goals and target depths makes it much more fun for students and accomplished freedivers alike instead of just reaching numbers on a gauge or marker on a line. It's why I truly love teaching freediving at Dutch Springs. I still teach beginner freediving courses and you'll often find me freediving on my own at Dutch Springs for fun. Lately, I've been concentrating more on technical diving, but after becoming a cave diving instructor I'm going to return to my roots this season and I plan to do a lot of freediving. Freediving is great exercise because you use large muscle groups when kicking against the resistance of long blade fins throughout a day. It also builds skill and comfort in water few divers learn. As diving becomes more and more watered down by agencies that are catering to the demands of the retail diving industry by removing training time and skills in an attempt to foster industry growth, important basic concepts like solid snorkeling and breath hold diving techniques become lost to the diving public. One doesn't have to spend lots of money on equipment in order to learn to freedive. A diver's skill is more important and can be developed without any equipment at all. The equipment divers wear is merely a tool and the more tools one has in a diving toolbox the safer and more comfortable a diver will be. Imagine being able to move through an aqueous medium as fluidly and efficiently as possible without fins, mask or snorkel. In doing so a diver would have mastered the basics of the natural human form in water and then progress to enjoy more by being able to see and swim far more efficiently. One the basics snorkeling tools are mastered, switching to SCUBA allows one to explore longer while adding the challenge of mastering buoyancy control. Equipment such as monofins and scooters allow a diver to both play and master additional tools. I've always been looking for students who realize that diving is an art much like karate and it takes a lifetime to master everything from a snorkel to multiple stage bottles. The pathways that one travels in the pursuit of mastery enhance one's life and skill as a diver. This road is made more smooth when one begins a diving career with instructors who have achieved higher levels of mastery than most. These will usually be the ones who seem to be poetry in motion when they freedive or SCUBA dive. Unfortunately, since instructors are made as quickly as fast food burgers, few instructors set a high bar for their students and few people ever see really great diving. I've yet to see really great diving on TV more than a handful of times among SCUBA and freedivers. Divers usually pay top dollar for gear and then get instruction at a bargain. Instead, divers should make sure their instruction is the best and their equipment is safe, comfortable and reliable no matter what the cost. If you can't afford instruction, contact the divers at East Coast Freediver or another freediving club and get in the water with them. I'm sure they'll be happy to share their passion for breath hold diving and give you all the help you can use to enjoy the silent freedom of breath hold diving.