TheFocus.Quest

Freediving Lessons for a Career in Software

Two things I've learned from freediving: reach a stable point, and reframe the experience.

This post is about two things I learned by doing freediving that have had a positive impact in my career as a software developer.

Freediving is a mode of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear —thank you, Wikipedia.

I started freediving in 2017, around Christmas, and by 2019 I had become a certified instructor. Doing all of that was lots of fun, and by doing freediving and teaching others how to do it, I learned about myself, and how to make progress in a difficult activity.

Holding one's breath for extended periods is an uncomfortable thing, especially when just starting. In my own journey into the depths (I'm being generous with myself here: my record is just 30 meters while the world record sits at 130m) I sometimes struggled; I also watched students struggle.

Through those difficulties, own and observed, I learned two things that complement each other:

Reach a stable point before adding new difficulties

Jump to section titled: Reach a stable point before adding new difficulties

The first time someone holds their breath while trying to dive down to 10 meters, they usually aren't very gracious. It seems like a simple thing to do (and it is!), but there are many things to coordinate: don't exhale, do a proper duck dive, orient yourself to the line, start kicking, don't flex your knees, don't look down... don't exhale!

It's a lot to take in. Some people, of course, are natural sirens and just go for 10m and reach them without effort —that was not me. The rest of us have to learn to coordinate our bodies in ways we had never used it before.

A frequent thing to see on a new student is rushing: they get overwhelmed with the task overload and try to do everything quickly, all at once. This results in poor technique, and performance that is based on luck more than understanding and muscle memory.

Whenever a student started to rush and get confused underwater, I would work with them to figure out what was the next stable point they could reach. Perhaps something like "ok, just pull the line, and see how it feels being head-down in the water", or "do your duck dive but don't kick; just see how far you can go with your arms, and pay attention to how your ears feel".

We got much better results once they started breaking down the task of going to 10 meters into smaller steps. Each small step, once mastered, would become the stable platform on which the rest of the dive built.

So now, whenever I feel rushed and overwhelmed by an activity, I try to ask myself "what's the next stable point I can reach towards that goal?". As long as I making progress towards stable steps, I should eventually get to 10 meters.

It's not pain; it's the effects of magic

Jump to section titled: It's not pain; it's the effects of magic

Freediving is an amazing experience. It can be peaceful, contemplative, beautiful and exciting. And, at the same time, there are parts of learning to freedive that, quite frankly, suck.

As adults, we normally breathe 12 to 20 times per minute. When we first go underwater and stop breathing, there is a very natural and loud response from our body telling us "what the HECK are you doing?! Go out and breathe!".

When you try to go for a swim of 25, 50, or more meters underwater —especially if it's in a pool where access to fresh air is just a meter or so away— your body screams for you to get out and breathe. But you don't let it. You keep going for another kick, and another, and another —your lungs kicking and screaming. It feels, at the same time, like you are out of air and like your lungs are about to explode, which is quite paradoxical now that I think of it.

Those intense sensations in my lungs are not hurting me: it's the lungs feeling this concentration of CO2 for the first time. The next time I do this, it will be a bit easier. And... next time you do it, it is easier. Not super easy, but it gets less painful over time.

When I feel overwhelmed —say, I'm struggling to understand a codebase that's new to me, or I'm having a hard time adopting a new role as tech lead for a project— I try to remind myself: "it's adaptation at work; it will be easier next time".

I imagine a powerful spell acting on me; you know, the kind of magic transformation in which the character is engulfed in electricity and sparks, and feels pain but ends up being a more poweful version of themselves.

That's what I imagine when adaptation gets hard: that it's not pain, but the effects of magic.