Ted Harty is the founder of Immersion Freediving and www.freedivingsafety.com.  He started his underwater career as a scuba instructor in the Florida Keys in 2005 and took his first freediving class with Performance Freediving in Miami with Kirk Krack and his team.

One year later he had become an Instructor for Performance Freediving and was hired by Kirk to help him assist his courses.  He taught directly with Kirk and Mandy for 2 years and then he branched out and started his own company Immersion Freediving.

He new mission is promoting his website www.freedivingsafety.com which teaches people the risks of the sport, how to minimize chances of a blackout, how to determine if you are overweighted, and what to do if your buddy has a loss of motor control or a blackout. This entire course is provided at no cost to the student.

Ted also does a live show called Ted Talks Freediving five days a week on his Instagram channel at 7:00 PM EST. wherein he tells entertaining and educational stories from his career, picks one or two topics to discuss in depth and then answers your questions live on Instagram.

In this episode we discuss:

Ted started off in the scuba world.
An initial foray into freediving leads to dismissal of freediving as the dumbest sport ever.
A first course with PFI’s Kirk Krack and Mandy.
The importance of taking a course.
An LMC experience.
Ted transitions into instructor and eventually takes part in competition.
Learning the 3-stage mouthfill from Sara Campbell.
The road to a good reputation and building the business.
Regaining membership in the 200ft Club.
About Immersion Freediving and what is ‘The Immersion Way’
The difficulty of designing an effective freediving course around the regular schedules of students.
Student’s mistakes are usually the instructor’s fault.
What are the essentials of freediving safety?
www.freedivingsafety.com
The three most important rules in freediving safety.
Ted convinces us why the three rules are so important.
Most dangerous practices in freediving (hyperventilation).
Recovery breathing and how it’s taught in PFI/Immersion.
About all of Ted’s online courses and Ted Talks.
The difficulties of teaching Frenzel.
Ted’s massive into BBQ.
There’s a world championships of BBQ?!
A body built by beer, bourbon and BBQ.
Ted needs more structure and routine!
Ted’s recommended books are Deep by James Nestor, One Breath by Adam Skolnick and the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson.
Why Ted freedives.

Ted’s Links:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Youtube

Online Courses