The Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) is a recreational diving membership and diver training organization founded in 1966 by John Cronin and Ralph Erickson. Cronin was originally a NAUI instructor who decided to form his own organization with Erickson, and to break diver training down into several modular courses instead of the single universal course then prevalent.
Tanya Streeter is a British-Caymanian-American world champion freediver, inducted into the Women Diver's Hall of Fame in March 2000.
Freediving, free-diving, free diving, breath-hold diving, or skin diving is a form of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear.
The National Association of Underwater Instructors is a non-profit 501 (c) (6) association of scuba instructors. It is a recreational dive certification and membership organization established to provide international diver standards and education programs. The agency was founded in 1960 by Albert Tillman and Neal Hess. NAUI is headquartered in Tampa, Florida, US) with dive and member instructors, resorts, stores, service and training centers, located in Japan, South Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Brazil and the Pacific Rim.
Mandy-Rae Cruickshank is a world champion free-diver and record-holder from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Scuba Schools International (SSI) is an organization that teaches the skills involved in scuba diving and freediving, and supports dive businesses and resorts. SSI has over 2,500 authorized dealers, 35 regional centers, and offices all over the world.
Freediving blackout, breath-hold blackout or apnea blackout is a class of hypoxic blackout, a loss of consciousness caused by cerebral hypoxia towards the end of a breath-hold dive, when the swimmer does not necessarily experience an urgent need to breathe and has no other obvious medical condition that might have caused it. It can be provoked by hyperventilating just before a dive, or as a consequence of the pressure reduction on ascent, or a combination of these. Victims are often established practitioners of breath-hold diving, are fit, strong swimmers and have not experienced problems before. Blackout may also be referred to as a syncope or fainting.
Divers Alert Network (DAN) is a group of not-for-profit organizations dedicated to improving diving safety for all divers. It was founded in Durham, North Carolina, United States, in 1980 at Duke University providing 24/7 telephonic hot-line diving medical assistance. Since then the organization has expanded globally and now has independent regional organizations in North America, Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific and Southern Africa.
Association Internationale pour le Développement de l'Apnée (AIDA) is a worldwide rule- and record-keeping body for competitive breath holding events, also known as freediving. It sets standards for safety, comparability of Official World Record attempts and freedive education. AIDA International is the parent organization for national clubs of the same name.
Martin Štěpánek is a world class freediver and record-holder. From 1984 to 1997 he was a competitive monofin swimmer (finswimmer). Martin's academic background follows a degree in Forestry Engineering with advanced studies in Sports Biology at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. After moving to the United States he became USA Certified as a Deep Sea and Saturation Commercial Diver in May 1999. In 2000 Martin met Douglas Peterson, who went on to become his freediving coach and mentor, guiding him to his first World Record in July 2001. Since then, Martin continued to set freediving world records annually up to his retirement from competitive freediving in 2012. He is now recognized as one of the pioneers of modern freediving education.
William Trubridge is a world champion and double world record holding freediver from New Zealand. He was born in the UK but moved to New Zealand when he was 18 months old.
Scuba Diving International (SDI) is a Scuba training and certification agency. It is the recreational arm of Technical Diving International, a technical diver training organization.
No-limits apnea is an AIDA International freediving discipline in which the freediver descends and ascends with the method of his or her choice. Often, a heavy metal bar or "sled" grasped by the diver descends fixed to a line, reaching great depths. The most common ascension assistance is via inflatable lifting bags or vests with inflatable compartments, which surface rapidly. The dives may be performed head-first or feet-first.
Diver training is the set of processes through which a person learns the necessary and desirable skills to safely dive underwater within the scope of the diver training standard relevant to the specific training programme. Most diver training follows procedures and schedules laid down in the associated training standard, in a formal training programme, and includes relevant foundational knowledge of the underlying theory, including some basic physics, physiology and environmental information, practical skills training in the selection and safe use of the associated equipment in the specified underwater environment, and assessment of the required skills and knowledge deemed necessary by the certification agency to allow the newly certified diver to dive within the specified range of conditions at an acceptable level of risk. Recognition of prior learning is allowed in some training standards.
Nicholas Lawrence "Nick" Mevoli III was an American freediver who died while attempting to set an American record at the Vertical Blue competition at Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas.
The Rebreather Association of International Divers (RAID) is a dive training organization which was founded in 2007 by Barry Coleman to support diver training for the Poseidon Mk VI Discovery Rebreather. It has since extended its scope to include open circuit scuba training and training for both recreational and technical diving sectors as well as snorkeling and freediving.
Richard Collett is a freediver and national record holder for the Cayman Islands in the sport of freediving. Collett started his training in apnea and freediving in August 2016 with the goal of being the first Caymanian to set and hold national records in all competitive freediving disciplines.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater diving:
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater divers:
