Here is Timo’s Apnea philosophy and all you need to know about the ApneaSurf camps and courses he offers:

Control, power and hard training is what you don’t need to hold your breath for a couple of minutes. The will to learn, to accept and let go are more important then strength. First, it’s crucial to develop a deep understanding of how your body and mind actually work. Your body can do way more than you think it’s capable of. Most of what you need to hold your breath longer, is already in you. So simple? Yes and No.

Your body can do way more than you think it’s capable of.

What happens when you are hold-down by a strong wave or in a nasty low-head dam? Think like “I can stay here for a while”. The goal is to achieve a relaxed state. This helps you to keep a clear mind allowing you to set effective actions instead of panicking. While being under water you often need to do the exact opposite of what your mind tells you.

ApneaSurf takes the knowledge of breathing and breath-holding and brings it to the surf community, where the situation is more like an emergency breath-hold

You need to change your current pattern and stop thinking about time. Thinking about time leads to stress, which leads to muscle contraction, which consumes oxygen leading to a much stronger urge to breath. Understanding the physiology of your breath-hold gives you a huge advantage in knowing what’s going on in your body, finally giving you the confidence you need to endure longer hold-downs.

 Relaxation and the right mindset are key to endure longer hold-downs.

We are now offering ApneaSurf courses to improve your breath-hold during emergency situations. Usually, people start off with in a group or 1by1 Skype session. After spending time on listening to yourself and accepting your physical sensation the next step is to get more comfortable with holding your breath under water. In our courses we mix, dry and/or wet sessions to simulate different situations.

The following ApneaSurf courses and camps are available at freedive-your-life.com:

1. 1by1 SkypeSession to master your fears and experience what holds you back in taking the next step
2. Course (1 Day) for up to 4 persons in the pool or lake (dry+wet)
3. Workshops (1/2 – 1 Day) up to 20 persons in a dry environment
4. Camp (1 – X Days) at the Lake Constance (Bodensee) – WakeSurfing, ApneaSurf-Workshop, SUP, Camping, Grill and Chill

Stay safe and keep the stoke alive!
Timo, Freedive-Instructor & Systemic Coach | freedive-your-life.com

The post Surf Apnea – Maximise the Length of your Breath-Hold appeared first on Riverbreak.

WARNING – DROWNING HAZARD

Any leash can drown any surfer.
River will not let go.
Surfer cannot release. 

A huge thank you to Michael Crichton and Gowlings WLG LLP, Michael Billinger, Trevor Cunningham and Nasser Yassine.

The post Leash Safety Sign appeared first on Riverbreak.

Learn to Read the Water

Hans and Nicole from the Austrian Water Rescue Federation (ÖWR) started the workshop with pointing to an important skill: reading the water. Experience and knowledge can help experienced river surfers to discover and judge risks in the river only by looking at how the water flows, how it “behaves” so to say. Learning how to read the water can be crucial for when you decide to go in or not. Hans detailed the various “faces” and flows of water and how to interpret them.

Avoid Getting Trapped by Your Surfboard

If there is one thing that you don’t want to see happening in the river it is getting trapped by your own surfboard. Here’s an example: if you stand still in the river at a flow of 2m/s, more than 40kg of water constantly keep pushing against your neck. While your neck provides only little windage to the water, the story changes with your surfboard. With its much larger windage the pressure can easily increase to 500kg or even reach up to 3.000kg (depending on the size of your board and the speed of the water). No man on earth could withstand this enormous amount of pressure. So what does that mean for us river surfers? If you fall off your board and for whatever reason are not able to get back up on it, always keep swimming behind your surfboard. Swimming in front of your surfboard increases the risk of getting trapped between your board and an obstacle (e.g. rock) in the river. So you better want to stay behind your surfboard when floating down the river.

Understand Different Types of Currents

There is a number of different types of currents (features) that river surfer should be familiar with. These features result from the interplay between the shape of the riverbed and the velocity of the water. In this workshop we’ve discussed pressure waves, pillows, boils, chutes, wave trains, channels, holes, eddies, eddy-lines, backwash, outwash, whirlpools and curlers. A lot of these terms have been developed and used by kayakers since forever — so you might check with local kayakers to find out which of these are relevant at your spot and what they mean for your safety. At the very least you should make yourself familiar with the dangers of a recirculating current and how to escape if you should ever find yourself in such a scary situation.

Deal with Hazardous Objects in the River

Objects in rivers are distinguished between natural and man-made. Rocks are probably the most common natural objects that river surfers have to deal with. Here, one particular threat are undercut rocks, that you want to avoid in any case as you can get trapped underneath them underwater. Rocks that are undercut on the upstream side are particularly dangerous. Once pinned against the rock underwater, there is hardly any chance to escape — this situation has already resulted in numerous whitewater deaths. Cataracts, falls, drops, sieves, trainers and sifts are among other natural dangers that river surfers need to be aware of when navigating in the water. Man-made objects that can pose threats to river surfers are stepped weirs, lowhead dams, compound weirs, concrete slope weirs, weir pools and other types of dams and weirs. What is particularly dangerous for river surfers are bridge pylons, poles and iron installations in rivers. If your leash wraps around one of these objects you’ll find yourself in real trouble. Read this story on a near-drowning accident involving a river surfer who got trapped under water on one side of a bridge pylon while his board got trapped on the other side of the pillar.

Use Safety Gear

There is still no specific river surfing safety gear on the market. Yet, there are safety devices that river surfers can (and should) borrow from other sports that face similar risks in whitewater. Though it depends on the spots, context and individual preferences there are certain devices that river surfers can choose from to make surfing in rivers safer: helmets, PFDs, knifes, throw bags, wetsuits and whistles. Even if the debate on wearing leashes and PFDs and other devices has become hefty, there is one thing that pretty much every river surfer seems to agrees on: the importance of wearing a helmet.

Key Take Aways for River Surfers

There are no universally accepted safety rules in river surfing and there will probably never be any. Yet, there are at least 4 tried and tested recommendations that could make river surfing safer:

1. Never surf alone
2. Always wear a helmet
3. Always swim behind your surfboard
4. Make yourself familiar with leash-related risks

More Impressions from the Workshop

The post Risks in River Surfing: Lessons Learned appeared first on Riverbreak.

The young surfer owes his life to Ben Yates, an experienced whitewater kayaker and rescue volunteer. He was alerted by a distressed woman to the river surfer who was trapped under water on one side of a bridge pylon. His board was still attached to his leg and trapped on the other site of the pylon. This is clearly a nightmare for all river surfers. He wasn’t able to release his board and got dragged under by the force of the river.

The river surfer has escaped from death by inches.

Pro kayaker Ben Yates tried to detach the leash while another kayaker tried to lift the river surfer’s head above the water. While struggling to safe the river surfer’s life, Ben got entangled in the leash and trapped underwater, luckily only for a short time. According to two other river surfers who where at the spot, the river surfer has escaped from death by inches.

Only 10 minutes prior the incident the water level was significantly higher due to Contact Energy releasing water from the Hawea Dam. If the river surfer became entangled only 10 minutes earlier, he would not have been able to get any breaths. We do not want to picture what could have happened.

The current incident reminds us of what Elijah Mack and the World River Surfing Association (WRSA) have been praying for years “the future of surfing is near, it’s nowhere near the ocean, and we don’t ever wear leashes, you always wear a helmet, you always wear a life vest.”

Make Yourself Familiar with Safety in River Surfing

Elijah Speaking Up on Safety
Your Life On A Leash: Ankle Leashes Will Kill River Surfers

The post Near Drowning Highlights Importance of River Surfing Safety appeared first on Riverbreak.

River surfing has grown so much in the past 5 years. I love the sport and I really want everyone to have fun and be safe! When I founded the WRSA (World River Surfing Association) back in 2002, I was driven to share my stoke and my river surfing knowledge. One of the very first pages I built for the WRSA website was dedicated to safety. I listed many issues, but the main concern I had was the use of leashes. It has been about 5 years since I have really involved myself with the promotion of river surfing and I have not been vocal about the direction of the sport.

Now with the explosion of our sport I must speak out: LEASHES SHOULD NEVER BE WORN ON A RIVER! I have so much to share but I do not want to share anything else at this time other than: LEASHES SHOULD NEVER BE WORN ON A RIVER!

 Any kind of rope on a river is a death trap.

When I started river surfing there were no other river surfers for me to surf with. All my earliest river peers were kayakers and raft guides. One of the first lessons I learned, was that any kind of rope on a river is a death trap. Now even many of my old friends from the kayak world who are river surfers now, are breaking this rule. In the future it is very likely there will be a fatality if this trend continues.

The only place I have ever worn a leash is Skookumchcuk Narrows. I did not wear a leash when I surfed Rapid #11 of the Zambezi river. I did take a 30 second hold down at Rapid #11 and ended up a solid 200ft down stream before I surfaced. But the risk of having a leash hang up on a rock was just to great. I would rather take a 30 second hold down than take a trip to the morgue.

So my question is this … Why would you wear a leash on a small wave with no dangers similar to what Skookumchuck Narrows presents? The answer is … you wouldn’t.

If you own a surfshop that caters to river surfing, if you are a leader in your river surfing community or if your just a river surfer who cares about the safety of others on the river, please speak up. From Munich to Missoula the time has come to make sure there are no leashes on rivers!

Please see Negs article on this subject for a more critical analysis of leashes on rivers.

Aloha
Mack

The post Elijah Speaking Up on Safety appeared first on Riverbreak.

You will not be able to reach your ankle leash to release it or cut it because you will not be strong enough to bend your body against the river. Imagine a giant grabbing your ankle and pulling your leash leg straight then another giant pressing your body flat. The more you fight to reach your ankle, the harder they push you down.

Two Near Drownings at the Kan

In winter 2013 over a span of four months two river surfers in Alberta, Canada, almost died because of their ankle leashes. In both cases the river was waist deep and not moving particularly fast. With no warning their boards went to one of side of a deep underwater rock and their ankles floated down the other side. Suddenly, they felt a huge force pulling on their leash leg. Their boards disappeared, their bodies were forced flat with their heads downstream and they struggled to keep their mouths above water.

How They Escaped

The first surfer had two friends nearby in the river who were barely able to fight the current and pull him upstream to release the leash. The second surfer was alone. He managed to get one leg underneath him and struggled to keep his head above the waist deep water. After 5 minutes he was about to give up and then his leash broke. Without slow water, friends and luck both of these river surfers would be dead. In a fast river, if your ankle leash gets caught your friends watch you drown.

Minimizing Leash Entrapment Risk

I heard five solutions to leash entrapment while talking with different river surfing communities:

1. Don’t Wear a Leash: Learn to land on your board when leaving a wave and how to swim a river to catch your board when it escapes. You have the most control on your board and on it is typically the safest place in the river.
2. Wear your leash on your back arm: Attach your ankle leash to your back arm. If your leash is caught you can release it with your other hand and if you can’t reach it you may just slide free. A downside is it may get in the way during more aggressive surfing.
3. Use a waist leash: Waist leashes attached around the waist with a belt, the release mechanism is on the belt and reachable with either hand.
   An example of a waist leash.
4. Never put your feet down when floating down the river: If you are floating down stream do not stand up. If you have to stand up, swim against the current to slow yourself down as much as possible before standing up.
5. Wear a knife to save others: If a surfer’s leash gets caught you may be able to cut their lease with your knife unless you are to far away or the river is too fast or you left your knife on shore because you never use it.

I hope this article and the ones that follow will help us share information about river surfing dangers and safety so fewer surfers die as river surfing becomes more popular.

This article was brought to you by Neil Egsgard, ARSA President.
Alberta River Surfing Association — RiverSurfing.ca/forum
Surf Anywhere Project — SurfAnywhere.ca

The post Your Life On A Leash: Ankle Leashes Will Kill River Surfers appeared first on Riverbreak.