lessons learned in 2009

Stuff that i hope has made me one year wiser:

1: don't bend over in front of an archer:



2: freedivers cook differently:



which invariably leads to sex:



3: even the people you admire most suck sometimes:



4: details are fun:



5: it's good to have back-up:



6: some fairies are not to be messed with:



7: kids will fart -a lot- even when climbing on you:



and they WILL combine it with stepping into your crotch

8: two nectarines will fit quite comfortably:



9: time your ass-grabs wisely:



10: toiletpaper is not only good within the confines of the bathroom:




11: snow is cold -especially up your crack:



Happy new year, hope you have fun

(photo's by Rahel Zemoi, Karin Barten, Francine Kreiss, Chris Marshal, Peter Boivie and me)

6005

This has been a year in which a lot of thing got turned upside down for me. Let's see where i land next year.



Photo par la fabuleux Francine Kreiss, Gummybear extraordinaire

The darkling thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.


~ Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

F3F

For a lazy freediver who enjoys the sensation of flying fast through water, Formula 3 Freediving has to be about the ultimate sport:

F3F PROMO from Performance Freediving on Vimeo.

Snow

upwards, downwards, everywhere

a white world wrapped

by the singular variety

of the possibilities of atoms

defined as endless

confined by definitions

free to be gravity's prisoner

and wind's lover

falling forever for the land

endlessly urging the sea

always craving the sky

Rockin' the morning 'do

Must have dreamt of Elvis, for when i woke up this morning, my hair was more Rock'n'Roll than i've ever seen it. Usually at that hour, because of the effects of chlorine, half my hair tries to get as far away from my head as possible, while the other half has given up and lies dead. And these halves mix, making for an often inexplicable, sometimes unforgivable mess. Not so this morning



Now the other weird thing about this spontaneous and irreproducible masterpiece is that, though it is very much Rock, it is also very much morning, a combination which seems paradoxical. Rock is a night thing, maybe evening, but mornings are definitely a non-presence. The most Rock'n'Roll thing you can do with mornings is to sleep through them, preferably in the arms of several people, some of whom will have to do quick math when asked for their year of birth. There's no morning rock concerts, no rock breakfast -unless you count tequila.



This 'do went against convention -which in and of itself is very Rock'n'Roll- and shaped itself into something very Elvis-the-Sun-years, before 9 am. Strange. Now if only my musical abilities would one day wake up like this.

Monofin in monochrome

After a videographic exploration i did yesterday of my old love, the monofin Archibalthazar, which was very much unappreciated by Mr. van Reet Pape (who, it has to be said, looks more and more like Pim Fortuyn every day -except then with uncontrolled and furious eyebrows), i was undeterred and took some pictures of it today.

Crap as it is -trying to swim up from 45 meters with this fin was similar to waving a flag behind you to propell you- i still find Archibalthazar a beautiful piece and i might hang it on a wall. It's probably better suited there than in water.

Orca Free

Orca has put out some more info about its freediving specific new suit, the Orca Free



That addition of a seal around the neck looks like a very promising solution to the leakage that has been a problem with this type of wetsuit so far. The price is steep at €469,- but that's pretty sure to drop within a year or if you have good connections. Alternatively, there will be a cheaper freediving specific model as well next year, the Breathe.

Big Fat Bastard 3

After the very much failed experiment of BFB, or Big Fat Bastard, my first serious attempt at a heavy neckweight, it took me a while to do the whole undertaking of building another one. It's quite hard work, making a neckweight, and i'm lazy. Plus it takes some skills, and i ain't got many.

But then i noticed how much i benefitted from more weight when i borrowed someone else's, so i kinda fiddled around with an old neckweight and put a pouch on it, thus creating BFB2: even fatter. At his heaviest he was 5,96 kilos, and i had to pack 35 times to not bury myself in the floor of the pool. I put it on a slight diet to 5,5-ish, and actually did alright with it, but it was a Frankenstein's monster of a thing. And it kept breaking. And i couldn't really streamline with it.

I never really understood how the Danish built their neckweights, skinny by the shoulders and a big fat lump under the chin, but in Berlin i was fortunate enough to see zen-master Jesper Stechmann make one, and finally understood the procedure. So i got a new moped tyre, used the click-thing from BFB2, cut open BFB2 for the led, used 6 tie wraps, inflated the tyre (that was the trick) to make the lump, wrapped it in 12 meters of electrical tape and had me a new BFB. Took 2 hours, some serious sweating and mild cursing, but in the end it was Big Fat Bastard 3: BFB does Denmark. 5,13 kilos. If it holds up in the pool, i hope to do well with it.

Left

Right



Borrowed a 50 mm lens from Mr. van Reet Pape, am really enjoying messing around with it.

very Dutch sky

Ever since my car, Bernard-Henri, technically died, i've been taking the train and bus more. And of course public transport sucks unwhiped ass, but sometimes it's also quite calming and lovely. Probably couldn't have shot this out of a car.

the pitbull 140

Had been dreaming about this dive, literally. 140 meters. Somehow i knew it was going to be my next step. Did 130 last friday, and i'd been itching to do more. Been looking forward to going to the pool today so much that i was grumpy the last couple of days, because i wanted to do what i'd dreamt a couple of nights earlier. I'd flown to 140, only coming up because i wanted to save the 150 for the next time. Today, then, was going to be the day.

But then i had to get blood taken -serious injury that was, being stabbed by a sharp metal weapon and drained of life juices- which i managed to survive heroically, but which caused me to take a later train. That train, it turned out, was also the unfortunate means of ending an even less fortunate soul's stay in its physical shape, and the speedy meeting of the two made the most horrible sound and caused an hour and a half delay. By this time my mood was scaring the rest of my brain, and my stomach decided it hadn't had enough to eat and my head found that a good time to start complaining, so it wasn't in the highest of spirits that i eventually came to the pool.

I kinda just wanted a small swim to wash the day off, but my buddies had waited for me, and i knew that i'd only be more pissed off if i didn't at least try. So i did. And oh did my mood make it hard for me. I was going to tease my mood by doing a very slow dive, but my mood almost won, for by the time i turned at 50 and pushed off, it almost made me decide to come up. Almost, because then i told my mood to fuck off and went for 100. At 100 i thought about how easy it is to turn and do a bit more, even with your lungs screaming to get rid of CO2. So i turned, and at that point, the thought came that, even though this was nothing like the dream in which i flew to 140, i might actually get there. So i kept going, semi-relaxed, until i got to 125where i felt my legs getting very heavy and sped up a little. But i knew i was going to make it. I saw the 135 marker below me and did 2 more quick strokes. Came up at 140, maybe 141, but certainly enough. I'd fought, and won by staying calm. 2 minutes and 50 seconds of fighting -this is getting somewhere.

Shit, now i have to do six minutes

At the beginning of the year i was hoping to finally do 150 dynamic, 125 dynamic no fins, and a 6 minute static this year. Instead, i almost burnt out and had to reset. No more diving for numbers. But after a lovely few weeks of training and PB's in dynamic, i felt a bit of an itch to do a long dive without fins today. I'd already been mucking around for more than an hour, so i didn't think i'd do anything seriously, but i checked myself and felt i could do a 100 meter dive in a calm way. So i prepared a little, did the usual breathe-up, and went for it. It was as tough as expected, but also much nicer -almost dreamy. I swam like planned and touched 100, turned and did a bit more. Then a bit more. And then a bit more. I came up because i figured i'd done enough and i was still very present, and was very glad to see i was well past the 125 (hard to tell in a 50 meter pool). I figure it was about 130. Lovely dive.

The only downside is, there's a chance to do a static next month. I might have to train static now.

C'est tres Julie (et Guillaume aussi)

The most beautiful freediving couple is represented in this week's Paris Match



Photo by some lucky bastard. For more, just click on the subject title of this post.

Respectfully

i say to thee



Messing around since it's the end of the season and Mr. van Reet Pape did an incredible 187:

a matter of national record

After a 2 year drought in PB's and records and repeatedly swimming into a gigantic 'NO' in my head, i finally managed to get out of the slump i was in freediving wise. I did this by taking a step back instead of continually pushing myself to move forwards. I played safety and let the hunger to dive and compete grow. I then started doing longer dives, not aiming to improve myself in meters, but in mentallity. With this better, more relaxed metallity came the meters, and slowly i got near national record territory again. I fucked up in my first competition coming back, again staring blindly at the bright light of the record which makes the tunnel look so far. But i learned and forgot about records in my next comp, where i immediately did a PB, 2 meters shy of that national record. It looked like that was going to end the year for me and i was fine with that, but then at the very last minute i got a chance to go to Berlin for the 12th Long Night of Apnea. I was nervous as hell before the start, which is a good sign -before the break i was dreading the dives. I visualized, did all the mental preparation i need and learned from the excellent freedivers in my life, and when it was time, i let myself do it. It was a tough dive, but i fought and managed to stay calm nonetheless and came up when i'd done enough. A PB AND a national record. Couldn't have hoped for a better way to end the season. I am a lucky and happy man.

fly, me, to the moon

The moon was so bright last night that i could shoot it with a thousandst(ststst) of a second's worth of exposure and the aperture cranked up and only then would it not be overexposed and show it's rough patches.



This fly was so dim and dulled by the cold that i could move way close and lean against the window to get the shot this morning.

second PB of the week

Saw Mr. van Reet Pape this wednesday for a bit of a training session. Wanted to do a 125+ dynamic using the kick'n'glide technique, but the new suit Eric brought from Kerian Hibbs felt so good, that i just kept going.

New personal best dynamic with fins

After 2 years of not improving my pool results, i finally managed to add 22 meters to my dynamic with fins. The reason behind all the cursing in the end is, though i'm happy with the dive, it is 2 meters shy of the national record.

Bye bye green

Time to bid farewell (going one, going twice, gone) to the green leaves of summer



But they were never this green, were they? Well, they were, when the good people of Uppsala decided to put green lamps under one of their trees.



I'm telling you, those Swedes are craaaazy mofo's.

Fall fell full fill II

Walked past this lovely little tree today, which seemed to celebrate its firts autumn



In what has so far been a rather brown and grey fall, this one looked like it was blushing at the thought of the impending nudity, and just exploded with red

Ghost town

The city i grew up in is lovely, but viewed a certain way, it can appear to be rather ghostly



(no trickery -except for in-camera stuff)

Symboliek van de voet, 1956

Gefeliciteerd met de 53ste, papa.

Vandaag heb ik deze foto van Job gemaakt, van z'n voetjes tot z'n hoofdje een wonderbaarlijk menneke.



In den beginne is het einde zoek geraakt.

~ Cornelis Verhoeven

Mary (the return)

Uppsala is more than the hometown of Peter Boivie, God of Voice and Sex; it once was the capital of Sweden. It also was the place where the pagan Swedes fought not so much christianity, but the Roman church and its rules, the hardest. A cathedral was built right there to impress the shit out of the naked pan-worshippers. So they have this big-ass cathedral and a castle where the King lived. Obviously, the king's name is Gustav, and naturally, one day he dies, and it is decided (i think he decreed it) that he is to be buried in the cathedral. Nothing strange about that, cathedrals are graveyards with very fancy roofs, but Gustav claimed the chapel that was dedicated to Mary. The weirdest bit is, they gave it to him. Good to be the king, even when you're dead you get the best spot in church. Why not hang him on the cross while you're at it?

A couple of years ago, some church officials in Uppsala asked artists to make a piece for the church. One of these artists, Anders Widoff, proposed to let Mary return after a long absence to the church the king threw her out of.



In his words: "In my interpretation, Mary is a mature woman of around 45. Her dress exhibits clear traits of our own times. In a sense she comes in disguise; at another level she has assumed the form of all women and every age. She comes (returns) to the church as one visitor among others; but also as a witness. Through her eyes and in her vicinity, the church seems to appear in a different light."

almost 50

Took some time off from competitive freediving because i kept giving into the urge to quit a dive around 50 meters. Did a lot of safety work during competitions this summer, which besides fun also brought back the desire to compete. At HöstApnéiaden 2009, a competition in Goteborg organized by Jens Schou, i first did 100 with fins, rather poor but at least not 55, where i actually wanted to give up. Next day i was in trouble after a messed up static, but thanks to some good coaching and lots of kind words and me being sick of the feeling of quitting, i decided after 50 to literally flip the situation and keep going. Not a PB, but someone did point out it was a PB on my back. It's a bit of a fucked up dive but i loved it.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUvjiMEYJe4

Wetsuit

Loved the way the light played on the water and the wetsuit, making it look like they were very distinctly different parts of the same thing

Dance

In Stockholm Central Station

Nadine war ein Frankfurter also

or is that 'eine'? 'Einer'? 'Eines'? She was, though, and gloriously so, especially when pronouncing 'Hauptbahnhof', which is where this was taken.

who are you?

Walking around Frankfurt with my friend Nadine (glimpse her radiance on the left in the background)

why Germany isn't the world champion soccer

It's all about fundamentals

Fall fell full fill I

Been trying to deny the end of summer, so i can embrace the beginning of fall properly

General Tso’s Pit Bull Stew

An interesting and sustainable solution to the meat dilemma, presented by the the lovely couple of George and Sally Broccolich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiH-NJZYz4w

and one of the videos that inspired their thinking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diwjNsExBEM

High speed chase

Might have been in one. It's a bit of a blur.

Prince berries

Something about these colors told me that the mini mighty man from Minneapolis with his little red corvette and raspberry barret might find them oddly raindrop-like.

Dreamt caught

My sister bought me a dreamcatcher because it is orange. She knows me well.

Here be dragons

Had some company on a trip recently