site.btaGoing In-depth with Record Holder Silvia Rashkova on Freediving, Its Benefits and Misconceptions

Bulgarian Silvia Rashkova set a new national women’s record in depth freediving by reaching a depth of 60 metres in the FIM (free immersion) discipline during a competition in Larnaka, Cyprus, on June 2. In an exclusive BTA interview, she spoke about what made her fall in love with freediving, the wrong perceptions about the sport, the conditions for practicing it in Bulgaria and the ways it can be useful to us in everyday life.

After just two in depth freediving competitions in the last 9 months, Rashkova holds national records in three separate disciplines (FIM, CWTB and CWT)*. During this period, diving has largely been her life, as aside from diligent training, she is a certified instructor at the country's first freediving school.

As the only child of a harpooner, her love of diving was inevitable. "It was impossible not to pick up his hobbies," she said.

"My father put me in the water before I could walk. Actually - underwater, to my mother's horror. At 14, I was already diving at 8-9 metres deep."

She takes a few sharp turns in life before realizing that this is the thing she wants to do professionally. Rashkova studied business informatics as well as advertising and brand management. She worked in an advertising agency for five years.

"I went to a high school specializing in mathematics with a computer science major and programming was something I loved. Then I abruptly switched to advertising and then abruptly went underwater," the freediver recalled.

The office job stood no chance when she found herself at the Seanomad freediving school for the first time one morning in 2013.

Although it is still far from a popular sport, interest in freediving is growing both locally and globally.

"More and more underwater films are being made, freedivers are starting to feature in music videos and this is increasing the popularity of the sport. It is also becoming easier to travel to different destinations, social media is evolving – we are constantly seeing underwater footage. People seeing this, having the opportunity to travel and see beautiful places, are starting to seek out this activity more and more."

Exploring the underwater world: Scuba Diving vs. Freediving 

Many believe that scuba diving gives you the better chance to observe the underwater world as it requires an easier skillset. Rashkova underlined that both give you the opportunity to do so and singled out some of the reasons why she dedicated herself to freediving.

“Those are completely different types of diving with completely different specifics. I have been a certified level 1 scuba diver, but the very fact that I have to put on heavy gear, that I am limited by time… The moment you run out of air underwater, you cannot dive anymore. Yes, with free diving, you have a shorter stay underwater, but I can stay in the water for seven or eight hours. That is the great thing about freediving: if conditions allow, we can be in a swimsuit, with mask, snorkel, fins, take a breath and go in and explore."

Although this type of diving is much more accessible and has lower gear requirements, it is a fact that better equipment can lead to a better and safer experience underwater. Seanomad’s course does not neglect this aspect of sport and pays attention to what you need and what can harm you.

"Equipment helps, it’s good to know what it should be and how it can help us. The key is to practice safely. A lot of people don’t realize they could be making mistakes out there because they've picked something [about gear] up by word of mouth,” Rashkova explained.

Freediving – an adrenaline sport? Wrong. Closer to meditation. 

She said that specialized freediving training came much later than in other sports. “Swimming, basketball, volleyball - they're much longer-established as training systems, and so there are things in our society specifically about free diving that are not quite true but are passed on by word of mouth.”

The clearest example of such a misconception is that freediving is an adrenaline sport. „In fact, we avoid adrenaline, we want to be calm, relaxed, because the calmer we are, the less oxygen we waste and we can stay longer in the water.”

When it is done properly, Silvia compares freediving to active meditation. “Through it, we take a break from the stressful everyday life. We all live in a very active mode, we are constantly flooded with information from everywhere: advertisements, phones, emails, tasks. It overloads our brain and we get burnout if we don’t give ourselves time to recover. When we are underwater, we can't think about anything else - all we think about is this different world. Then we come out much more rested and ready to tackle the tasks of our daily lives with renewed vigor.”

What is like to be 60 metres under the surface

Her official record in Cyprus was not the first time she reached such a depth. Even though she admits that “the appetite grows with eating” and she confidently says she wants to go even deeper, Rashkova is adamant that she will never attempt to reach a certain depth at a competitive event if she has not previously reached it at training.

“A lot of things can go wrong during a competition because the adrenaline is higher and it is unwise to do something you have not done before," she notes.

That was the case with her FIM record too. A week before the event in Larnaka, she reached a depth of 61 metres. “It was actually my best dive - the stars aligned. It took place in the Blue Hole in Egypt. Usually when I dive such depths I am hardly looking, with my eyes almost or completely closed. This time, the moment I reached the depth and started to ascend, I opened my eyes quite unconsciously and in front of me was the arch of the Blue Hole - it starts at 50 meters deep, you see light reaching towards you. When you're at 60-61 metres it is huge in front of you, it is a bit darker down, the light is coming through the arch and it is very beautiful," she recalled.

“It feels like you are somewhere else - in a different world, in the middle of a blue thing that surrounds you,” Rashkova added.

At 60 metres, the diver experiences a pressure of about 7 atmospheres, but Silvia explained that when one is prepared and not in a hurry to go to further depths, in time one's body gets used to the conditions and does not feel much different as pressure and tension change.

"How far deeper shall I go? It depends on many factors. It depends on the time I can spend, because right now all my time goes to diving - either teaching or training. At some point it's not so reasonable and adequate that all the time in our lives goes to that, at some point there's a need for balance with ordinary everyday things. It largely depends on how much time I can train, how much time I can devote, and how much finances I can devote, respectively.”

Freediving in Bulgaria

And finances, of course, are indeed a factor, especially in Bulgaria where no sponsors are interested in this sport and the divers are inevitably at a loss.

"If there are sponsors, surely there will be more people who will have the opportunity to compete. Not everyone is willing to put all their time and money into competitions that bring nothing but personal satisfaction," Rashkova pointed out.

The costs become even greater given that the country has conditions for recreational diving for pleasure but not for deep diving. Freedivers should travel abroad if they want to prepare properly for competitions.

„In general, the Black Sea is shallow. To find a depth of at least 15 meters, you usually have to dive around Primorsko on the southern coast. There is an underwater chapel there, and a stone mermaid at a depth of 12 metres. The area around Maslen Nos is very beautiful, there are submerged motorcycles at a depth suitable for tourists. They have already submerged a few cars at a slightly greater depth. The northern Black Sea coast is very beautiful, but it is even shallower,” she noted.

Rashkova hopes her success can bring greater attention to the sport and draw more people into the freediving community. Her last two competitions were covered by several media outlets, including major Bulgarian TV channels.

"Last October the interest was greater. I suspect it is due to the fact that this time It [the competition] coincided with a football [European] championship and [national and European] elections. The media has a hard time getting into sports that are not popular, and I don't think they are looking for information about them much either. There are people who tell me they follow me on social media, look at my posts and that motivated them to sign up [for a freediving course]. The interest is rising and that is actually the main purpose of media appearances - for people to see that there is something different that they can do and it can actually have a positive effect on the rest of our daily lives."

*
Free immersion (FIM): the freediver dives under water without the use of propulsion equipment, but only by pulling on the rope during descent and ascent.

Constant weight bi-fins (CWTB): the freediver wears a pair of bi-fins. Pulling on the rope or changing ballast will result in disqualification; only a single hold of the rope is allowed in order to turn and stop the descent and start the ascent.

Constant weight (CWT): the freediver wears a monofin or a pair of bi-fins. Pulling on the rope or changing ballast will result in disqualification; only a single hold of the rope is allowed in order to turn and stop the descent and start the ascent.