The season 2010 is finished..

The season 2010 is finished.. First off all I would like to start by apologizing for not having uploaded info on the website, but the Egyptian authorities seem to have a lock where a page can be automatically blocked.. So it means that I could not log in to my administration page from there.

The journey of 2010 began in December 2009 and until June, July I spent most of my time to sort things out before the trip.
One of those things was a visit to Miss Mira Adanja Polak, a reality program at the RTS, Serbian television. I was invited to the program which was broadcasting live, a nice visit to Belgrade and after that it was a quick visit to Kragujevac.

But I will start the journey from Copenhagen airport and to Frankfurt..when arriving to FRA I had to wait for about eight hours before my next flight to SSH, Sharm El Sheikh. It was ok, I found myself a relative comfortable bench that I could rest and sleep on for a few hours.
The first week was spent on acclimatizing and to organize myself in order to stay there for a longer time, took the opportunity to enjoy the tourist way and did not much exept from just relaxing and having some fun with snorkeling.

Once the start of my training would begin in depths I got problem with my sinuses and with that kind of problem there is no way that I will even try, so I decided to wait another few days.
When my training started I then quickly went down to -72m and without packing the air, one of my better dives where everything went as it should. The dive felt very easy, harmonious and the equalizing worked like a clock.
But after a while my dives did not feel comfortable anymore and I found it hard to relax, tried to find a solution to it all but it turned out that it was obvious that it was a mental fatigue that put an end to me. I decided to step back from all training and rest for a week, after a week I then started with shallow diving and FRC diving (diving with half full lungs).

However, there were a few things beside that got me off balance and resulting.. it was difficult to keep focusing on my training.

What happened beside my training..
There were minor incidents but what affected me to lose the focus .. first I had problems with sinus after the flight down, later I became sick and visit the doctor for a treatment such as drip and cocktail shoots.

The off-road riding with the 250cc bike.. first I started with being hit from the side by a pickup car.. luckily the speed was low but it still got under the car and in front of his wheels, the handlebar got a kiss and so did I.    
A few weeks later I then tried to make a jump with the off-road bike, the surface was hard and dangers for falling. In the morning before we had to drive to blue hole for our training.. I put my safety equipment on myself and then my friend asked me why I am putting it on.. Told him that I don’t know.. a feeling that something is trying to tell me to put it on.
After our training I felt a desire to drive more aggressive.. made a nice jump and saw the next in front of me and gave it more power.. that jump felt as a slow motion. I got thrown over the bike and landing on the side off my shoulder and wrist and got the bike over my legs. I was a bit in a chock when I realize what happened.. I stayed down on the ground to see what has been damaged on my body. I was really lucky.. I can’t understand that I did not damage my back or wrist and I´m so grateful for it.
But I got a small opened wound, sprained my ankle, damage my wrist and my neck got stiff for a few days. For 2 weeks I had to focus to take care of myself and forget about training and competition, at this point I started to give up with the thought about competing at the triple depth.

How did my training go and what did I announce..
Once the training started it went really well, felt strong physically and mentally. Where my main dive had a good flow and harmony were present, the dive occurred at the end of August, a -72m dive (without packing) the dive felt easy and equalizing worked perfectly and the timing was good for the frenzel.
But then it started to turn in the opposite direction.. the dives was no longer relaxed, which in turn effected my equalizing.

Everything depends on how relaxed you are during the dive and what thoughts you have before and during the dive, the mental part is the main area if you want to succeed in deep diving.
Then you have all other things that have to be synchronized, it is a long way to go in order to succeed but that is life itself.

But when I felt my energy was not there anymore and I had less focus on my training .. I realized that I had a tough time in front of me and I had to be strong. I was able to be strong for a time but to a sir tent point when it felt - enough, I decided to look for an earlier flight back home just in case if but friends supported me and I got my hunger back to compete. I knew from the past that I was good at delivering when it comes to it.
So I decided to announce -75m in constant weight for the second day of the competition but the day before I decided not to anticipate, I wanted to have one day more to rest.
And the last day I had to perform in the toughest discipline in freediving , the costant weight witout fins. I´ve succeed with 2 dives down to -55m and I knew that the dive would be hard.

I wanted to see how much pressure I could handle and how much I could push myself in depth.

How was my dives at Triple Depth ..
If we start with the dive in constant weight with fins, it was a dive that felt..  good at the warm up, the official top countdown went well and the dive was a wonderful experience.
The timing was perfect.. in both mouth fills, the freefall was good, relaxing the last part and timing the implement of Frenzel. I would have managed a -80m dive with the air that was left.
The turn was good and the ascent felt easy and the last phase of the ascent I turned down the speed. Surface protocol was clean and the dive felt like I had energy left for an 85-90m dive.
The result was.. -75m, dive time 2.13min.. a white card and a new Serbian record, breaking my own record with 5m.

The day after it was time for constant weight without fins and the competition ends with this discipline.. this day I started with more focus but got distracted by other things in the water during my warm up.
But when I arrived to the competition zone I knew I had to focus and did so, OT - countdown started and 20 seconds later I start my dive.. the descent down to -25m was relaxing. Freefall.. I had a good line and managed to keep the line without correcting my position. But the dive was not relaxes at all.. I had to struggle to keep my mouth fill and had to bring it back up a few times durring my descent. 
The ascent was tough and at the surface I carry out the surface protocol with a slight samba. After the dive I was feeling ill and had to rest on the platform. 
The dive resulted in.. -60m, dive time 2.34min and a white card which means a new Serbian record and breaking the old record with 16m.

What have I learned from this trip ..
Well, it does not matter how hard it may be .. in the end it will pay off for all the work that you put in to it.
I have some corrections to make for the next season when it comes to training in the depth and it will be interesting to see the progress for next year. But first I will have a long rest for 1-2 month and then I´ll start with the basic training, after that I´ll start with the next face.

What is my focus for next year and what do I plan..
Next year.. my focus is on the Individual World Championship in Freediving, I hope it will be in Greece this time. I heard it would be somewhere around September but the info will be published by A.I.D.A within the near time.
The road is long but short in another way.. now it is important for me to recover myself from the could and focus on other things. While waiting for the start off my training I´ll try to find another activity that I can use, I´m thinking off some team sport. Really miss that time when I played football but that is not possible, instead I will have to find something else except football.

I´m working with editing my video from my time in Dahab and my dives from the competition, will be on the webpage during the month of November.

I would like to thank friends that supported me this year and my family, then I would thank my Serbian friends.. Goran Pejcic, Uros Kojic and Uros Nikolic for a great time.

Gordon Savic