Brad James - The Freedive Project

After not living up to my own expectations at the Depth World Championship I had kind of written the season off as a s**t one. But looking back, it wasn’t all bad.

Pool Season was strong, PBs and Competition bests in all disciplines and I set a decent bar for CMAS pool comps for NZ Men having done no specific training.

Depth was tough. Still managed PBs in everything but CNF (didn’t try 😅). 4x National Records across AIDA and CMAS. And I narrowly got more white cards than yellow, but it came down to the last dive of the season to seal that one 😂

The coolest part, is based off I finished up 14th in the World Rankings for 2025.

Considering I feel like I didn’t feel like I got the most out of my depth season, this is a huge win.

Training for 2026 has already begun, let’s see what we can do.

📸 .kazar

Whether you’re a snorkeler wanting to duck-dive a few metres, a spearo chasing fish, or a freediver aiming for a new PB, equalisation is the thing that decides how far you can go. No equalisation = No depth.

So what is equalisation, and why does it matter so much?

As we descend, water pressure increases and compresses our body. We typically feel this in the bodies airspaces:

Ears
Sinuses
Mask

At first it’s uncomfortable. If you keep going, it becomes painful. Push past that and you’re putting yourself at real risk of injury.

Equalising is simply the act of adding air back into these spaces to restore the volume of air to get rid of this discomfort.

The two most common techniques are Valsalva and Frenzel.

Valsalva is a pressure manoeuvre. You pinch your nose and try to exhale. The pressure forces air into the middle ear, creating that familiar popping sensation.

This works well enough for casual snorkeling, but it’s inefficient and, for most people, stops working somewhere around 5 to 10 metres.

Frenzel is different. Instead of exhaling, you use your tongue and mouth to generate pressure in a much more targeted way.

Once it’s learned, Frenzel feels easier, more controlled, and far more effective. Most divers can use it comfortably to 30 to 40 metres, and experienced freedivers can go well beyond that.

This is why Frenzel is the preferred equalisation method in freediving and spearfishing.

But Frenzel can be hard to learn.

Frenzel isn’t difficult because it’s complex. It’s difficult because it requires control and in order to develop that, it requires awareness.

You’re learning to control:

The jaw
The cheeks
The tongue
The soft palate
The glottis

That’s five different structures, all being coordinated and controlled to equalise the entire time you’re descending.

It’s a bit like juggling. Hand someone five balls and ask them to juggle and most people won’t get far. Teach them how to control one ball at a time, then progressively add more, and it suddenly becomes manageable.

Equalisation works the same way. Break it down, train the parts, and give it time. When it clicks, depth opens up in a way that feels effortless.

📸

2025 was an interesting season.

I managed personal bests in all disciplines for Pool and Depth (except for CNF, which I didn’t even attempt).

When it came to Depth, aside from EQ, the dives were easy.

Physically, I felt strong doing these dives. I didn’t feel any signs of hypoxia, little urge to breathe, or even lactic acid. This seemed great, but it was also a curse.

It was a curse because I got complacent. I put less focus on maintaining my strength and fitness so that I could have more energy to dive. As a result, my strength plateaued, my fitness went backwards, and I gained significant weight during the season.

To top it off, by the time the competitions rolled around, my energy levels weren’t very high (probably because I hadn’t been working out).

Now, my plan is to spend the rest of 2025 building a solid base for 2026 and focusing on Strength and Conditioning with .sc and

We’ll take a data-based approach and test my baseline metrics. Then, we’ll train for two months and then re-test to track my improvement in these key metrics.

It’s going to be intense, but I’m looking forward to this challenge.

📸 at the AIDA World Championship

Over the weekend, I competed at the Freediving Games, organised by in Wrocław, Poland.

It was my first CMAS pool competition, and based on Freediving Ranking, there were no CMAS pool dives by New Zealanders. This made it a great opportunity to set the base Men’s NRs for the pool disciplines.

The biggest challenge was the turnaround. There were only 13 days between my final depth dive and the first dive of this competition, which wasn’t much time to train while travelling and recovering from back-to-back depth competitions.

So, in the end, the only pool training I had going into the competition was a session two days before the event, where I sorted my weighting and practiced some turns in the monofin.

I competed in Static, Dynamic No Fins, and Dynamic Monofin.

Static was the pleasant surprise. I had no expectations for this dive, but I was aiming for 5 minutes, which was a safe bet. Especially considering CMAS rules that have an easier surface protocol, but there’s no coaching for the surface protocol, and you’re not allowed to rest your chin on the pool edge while recovering (something I normally do). To finish with a competition best of 6:01 and finally tick off the last requirement for 666 club made me incredibly happy.

Dynamic ended at 157 meters. I had hoped for more, but honestly, that was all that was in the tank on the day. The hypoxia cloud started to come on shortly before the turn at 150 meters, so I decided to do the turn and come up for a safe white card. With the video coming from .systems which was streaming the event.

Dynamic No Fins was first and probably the worst dive. I gave in to the voices and came up at 107 meters. It was clean, but this dive definitely came down to the lack of training.

Either way, it’s three NRs and despite having done no specific training, has set a modest bar for the next Kiwi fellas who go and take on a CMAS pool competition.