Kurt Chambers breaks his first USA Freediving National Record

WEST BAY, Honduras - June 2, 2015 - PRLog -- USA Freediving is pleased to announce that Kurt Chambers of Kona, Hawaii set a new USA Freediving Men’s National Record in Free Immersion (FIM) with a dive of 91m / 299 feet in three minutes and five seconds. He broke the record Robert King set only a few weeks ago at the Vertical Blue freediving competition in the Bahamas by one meter. Kurt’s performance took place during the third annual Caribbean Cup Freediving Competition hosted by Esteban Darhanpe on the island of Roatan in Honduras.

Kurt is a photographer and freediving instructor that resides in Kona. Daily access to ideal conditions and deep water has made training for deep freediving more accessible than most areas of the world. Geography may help to reach these depths, but it is not as simple as that.

Kurt’s dive was accomplished on day 2 of the competition. He attempted the same performance for his opening dive of the competition the day before, but “competition jitters” thwarted the effort leaving him a few meters short. Kurt said, “I was confident about making the dive on day one since I accomplished it in training only days before...But, I’m still working on dealing with competition anxiety.”

Kurt continues, “I have been pursuing the free immersion record for some time now because it has always been my most comfortable discipline. In spite of that, my dive today was no picnic, primarily due to equalization difficulty. But I am happy about other aspects [of the dive], such as having no lung squeeze or becoming too hypoxic. I have spent years learning the art of deep equalization and I have come a long way, but there are still some elements I’ve yet to master.”

To that end, Kurt is taking advantage of opportunities to learn from other experienced divers also participating in the Caribbean Cup.  Kurt states, “I had many motivations to join this competition, but a particular one was to further my own education.  I knew some interesting workshops on meditation would be offered by accomplished divers here and I’d also get to meet some legends of the sport like William Trubridge whom I’m actually having the fortune to roommate with!”

Free Immersion (FIM) is the freediving discipline that requires the athlete to pull their way to depth and back using their hands to pull down and up the competition line while holding their breath. It is one of three recognized self-powered disciplines in the diving to depth arena. The other two are constant weight and constant weight without fins.  Both require the athlete to swim to depth and return under their own power.

The USA Freediving is a nonprofit association founded on the democratic representation of freediving within the United States and internationally. Founded in 2003, USA Freediving consists of an active membership dedicated to furthering freediving in the United States and abroad. For more information about USA Freediving, the USA Freediving Team, and membership please visit www.usfreediving.org.

The International Association for the Development of Freediving, AIDA, is the international sanctioning body for freediving, individual and team competition, and freediving world record attempts. For more information about AIDA please visit http://www.aidainternational.org.