【Franz Grandpa’s Training Method】
Grandpa Aharon’s way of teaching freediving is different from Taiwan. He doesn’t offer courses like “AIDA2 course costs this much, instructor course costs that much.” Instead, you train with him and pay by day/week/month. During this process, you can tell him your goals, and whatever level you can achieve, you can take away the corresponding certification. He often says: “It’s not about certification, it’s about learning.” What matters is not what certification you get, but what you actually learn.
Training began. Every day I would walk 20 minutes to Grandpa’s house, then see whether we’d go in the water or do dry training today. The training method here is very special. Grandpa has me go in the water about 4 days a week (sometimes 3 or 5), with only one dive session per day. In each session, each person dives 3-4 times, unless there’s a specific training purpose, like AIDA course requirements – rarely more than 4 dives.
This training method was completely opposite to my past understanding of “training for a sport,” which should involve high-intensity, intensive training.
On the first dive, perhaps because it was season transition time, the current was a bit strong. Grandpa had me do one 20-meter dive to check my form. Finding no major problems, after one session he started having me do RV descent training with other partners. For the entire following week, I never dove deeper than 10 meters again.
(RV descent is empty lung diving, not included in official AIDA materials at all. Readers should only attempt this under professional instructor guidance. If you want to learn more about Grandpa’s RV descent, you can watch Grandpa’s video on YouTube)
This training method brought me nothing but doubt and tremendous anxiety. I had spent so much money to come to Israel, yet one week of training was probably equivalent to two days of classes in Taiwan. With limited budget and facing Israel’s expensive prices, accommodation, and training fees, my plan was to complete the instructor course within 2 months. If I couldn’t return on schedule, I didn’t know how much more money I’d have to spend. But anxiety aside, I kept telling myself to persist.
After two weeks of continuous RV descent training and dry training, things gradually began to change magically. One day Grandpa said, “If the weather’s good today, let’s swim to the yellow buoy! That’s a 35-meter dive site.” With an excited heart, that day I achieved my first 30-meter dive. Unlike the struggling 26-meter dive during AIDA3, this 30-meter dive was done with almost no warm-up (it was probably the second dive of the day), and it felt very easy. That day I experienced tremendous joy, feeling my progress and changes, feeling the effects of training. All anxiety and unease finally vanished.
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The image shows the beach where we most often went diving for classes. There’s a small bar on the shore, and after each class Grandpa would always order a coffee or beer, chat about this and that before heading home.
The person on the right is Nadav, who took great care of me in Israel and is also one of Israel’s finest freediving athletes!
